Abel to Yzerman

Abel to Yzerman

It Might Be April, But The Skies of November Are Decidedly Gloomy

04/23/2014 at 6:15pm EDT

Yesterday I told you it wasn't quite time for Gordo. Today? Lightfoot is knee deep with the rest of you onboard the Hasek.

Serious trouble is what we're in. Last night offered no hope. It was worse than Sunday only because Boston didn't play as well but dominated the Wings in an even more convincing fashion, and they did it at JLA.

The only reason to think there's even the slightest chance has something to do with biology, or anatomy or some kind of science. Human beings still play this game. Because of that, and because of Mike Babcock, there is always a chance.

But there is no way in holy hell we're doing anything unless:

-Howard plays better. Yes he was probably dizzy. And you can blame Pavel Datsyuk for that. It was his errant pass that led to the turnover that led to the scrum that led to the shove that led to the knee to Howard's noggin. Still, that first goal was disgustingly bad. It was Fleury-like bad. It was the kind of save a decent playoff goalie makes. It was the kind of goal a garbage playoff goalie gives up. Am I saying Howard is garbage? No. But I'm saying that goal was a dagger and he should have stopped it. The goal, itself, was the worst kind of garbage. That can't happen.

-Franzen comes alive immediately or we lose, and then we get rid of him at any cost. What I mean is, he starts scoring, or he needs to be gone. What I mean by that is, he's the most disappointing Wing in two decades and we need to get rid of him if he can't show any sort of will to score in April. I guess what I'm saying is that he's got about one more game's worth of latitude before he's run out of town. Thanks for '09. Have fun in Winnipeg.

-Zetterberg comes back only if he's capable of making an impact. He can't take up space and he can't come back to provide some bullshit emotional lift. Going back to the Joe was supposed to be an "emotional lift". How'd that turn out? If there's the slightest risk the wrong kind of hit hurts him worse? Forget it. I'm not even positive a fully healthy Zetterberg would get us past Boston unless the collateral effects of his return meant Nyquist, Franzen and Datsyuk all started scoring. That's possible, I know. But not likely.

-Kronwall probably needs to stow the gentlemanly behavior and blast somebody into next week. He should probably do that really soon after Karen Newman's finished with her song. And it probably needs to be Marchand or Lucic.

-And, most importantly, Mike Babcock should probably think of something super smart. I mean really, really smart. Naturally, I have no idea what that would be and I probably wouldn't recognize it even if he did it. But, he still needs to do it, because we're dealing with a team that is more talented, with better goaltending, bigger, and much more confident. So, just take all that into consideration and figure out a way to make the Wings win. Easy enough.

If all those things happen, the Wings can win. Not will. Can. Because we also need to see some flaws in Boston that we really haven't seen yet. Specifically, we probably need to see a soft goal, prompted by a horrific giveaway, after a delay of game penalty. Like that. If there is luck to be had, we need some.

Back to the main point though: if you want to feel any optimism at all, you can look to the fact that we don't know what's inside those empty heads. We have no idea how they'll react to finding themselves behind in this series because they've spent exactly 3 minutes and 1 second trailing out of a possible 180. If the Wings get a lead, by actually scoring a goal--a novel idea, I know--then happy things may happen. Go up by 2 goals and weirdness could ensue.

As downtrodden as we may feel, as resigned as many of us are to a series loss, we've been there before. And we've seen them perform some sort of sick, scientifically impossible transformation almost overnight. It's happened.

Still, that is the north wind you're feelin'. And it's not comfortable at all.

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About Abel to Yzerman

Welcome to Abel to Yzerman, a Red Wing blog since 1977. No other site on the internet has better-researched, fact-laden and better prepared discussions than A2Y. Re-phrase: we do little research, find facts and stats highly overrated and claim little to no preparation. There are 19 readers of A2Y. No more, no less. All of them, except maybe one, are juvenile in nature. Reminding them of that in the comment section will only encourage them to prove that.

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