Because our Uncle Mike is going to break somebody's bank. If there is a more valuable coach in any pro sport right now, tell me who it is.

No matter what happens tonight, Wednesday night, against Montreal or down Woodward come June: this man is gonna get paid.

Brendan Smith was a stupid young man who made a young man's mistake. It's almost as if Babcock divined it. Mistakes like that get you benched. Mike Babcock's players react positively to getting benched because he does bad things to them when we aren't looking, like bad uncles do sometimes. Smith sat and stewed, and now he's playing as well as he ever has at any level.

Few coaches would have benched Dominik Hasek against Bubba in '08. Fewer coaches would have benched James Tiberius Howard in favor of an unknown peter to start these playoffs. Babcock did and then he did.

How many coaches would have seen the kind of player Glendenning would become, then put him in a position to use that midget ferocity like he has.

You know who knows what Stamkos is going through right now? Rosby, that's who. Well, kind of. I mean Stamkos is still playing NHL playoff hockey while Syd gets ready to go join the JV also-rans in Haiti or wherever the hell the Worlds are being played. Stamkos is stifled because Uncle Mike designed a system to stifle him like he did way back in the wonder year of '08. Syd was mad at Hank and Hank laughed at Sid along with all of us.

Mike Babcock's team, and it's his team playing the way he demands they play, have shut down an offense that many thought wouldn't be stopped. So far.

You like this team and so do I. But when it's over...sooner, later, April, May or June...somebody's gonna pay Mike Babcock. I'm hoping it's us, because the man has gotten this team where it is, and where it is is further than anyone outside of that room or a select group of 19 thought they'd be.

If this thing ends tonight, or if it ends positively in Tampa on Wednesday (where Babcock's boys have won twice already) somebody's gonna get called on the carpet. Somebody's gonna have to explain their evil ways in picking so adamantly, so universally, so easily against this Babcock-coached team. More than any other year, this team is out on a limb. True, across-the-board underdogs. The Detroit Red Wings as afterthoughts. Interesting.

But there's tonight to deal with first. Please, baby Jesus, please don't put us through another Game 7.

However it happened, whatever scheme has worked, whatever buttons have been pushed...the Wings are now the better team.

A lead would be huge.

A two-goal lead would be insane.

The Joe will be a drunken madhouse.

It needs to end this evening in a musky old hall in Detroit.

It's a live blog, bitches.

11 to 12.

Let's Go Red Wings.