Primis said something early in last night's shine-soaked, barely coherent live blog..

It’s not even the Streak, Chief.

It’s about making the playoffs, getting a chance to still play while others are golfing and watching on TV, and rubbing it in the faces of clowns like NAS, COL, and hopefully MIN that they didn’t get the chance to.

It’s about maybe getting a crack to completely ruin CHI’s season.
It’s about vengeance possibly on the Poultry for That Game, you know the game.
It’s about not being ready for Tigers baseball just yet.
It’s about not being one of those markets for whom the NFL Draft is the most-important thing about this weekend.
It’s about beating down DAL one last time as a parting gift, just because they deserve it.

So many reasons. And The Streak doesn’t need to be one of them.

I didn't get that when he said it and I'm still trying to figure out the difference, from a fan's perspective. Streak continues: we're in. It seemed that simple.

But it isn't, not to Zetterberg. He doesn't give two shits about the streak, or his legacy in those terms. All he wants to do is play serious hockey with serious stress with big chips on the table because that's what he was born to do.

"We wanted to play in the postseason and that's what mattered, we wanted to play playoff hockey," Zetterberg said. "I don't think we cared that much about the streak."

We did. Oh yes, we did. We cared passionately about it because so many others did too. While Adrienne Dater simpers about his absolutely horrible franchise in Denver and fans from every other NHL city gnash their teeth, the Wings just move on to another postseason. The consistency infuriates them. It baffles them, scares them, enrages them. But mostly, it's you. They despise you. Your arrogance drives them insane and it never ends. It doesn't diminish because the Wings don't...stop...winning. Ever. They hate us in Dallas where the transplants took that place over last night. They hate us in Anaheim, where Rummy already has perfect seats for Game 2 and will be joined by thousands of us, legions. They hate us in Chicago because they know the standard and who's set it. St. Louis, Nashville, Columbus, Minnesota. In less than two minutes last night, Dave Strader called the Wings "arch rivals" of three separate teams.

You travel the blogosphere and you see the same types of comments:

'I have the utmost respect for the Red Wings as an organization. It's their fuching fans I can't stand.'

That's JJ.

At some point very soon we're going to start talking about the Poultry and our chances, and those chances will be good. The Wings will be first-round darling picks for the pharmacists.

But right now, it's time for every fan, every writer, every franchise who wished our team the worst? It's time for them to suck it. Again.

The Streak continues and that's big. The playoffs begin, which is bigger in the short term. We've never entered a postseason with lower external expectations. External.

Here, in the dark place others will point to as nothing but bluster and ego? Here our expectations are higher because we've seen things over the last week nobody else noticed. Here, deep in the comment sections where only you and I dare to travel, there are nuggets: the scoring averages of our three best forwards, the GAA and save percentage of James Fuching Howard and the real possibility that he's the best goalie in hockey right now, the relative ease with which the Wings have handled that bitch Corey Perry and his balding fat friend.

It's on now. It's on again. For the 22nd consecutive season, the Stress Train awaits. Seething and belching.

The Wings are in the playoffs because, unlike every other team, it's what they do. Every. Single. Year.

LGRW. 16 to 12.