How important is tonite? Obviously important enough to start your backup goalie. We’ll get to that decision in a minute. First, as you all know, we fall behind four points with a loss…which essentially elimimates us from winning that which we are owed…the Central. I actually laugh at the idea of that scenario a bit, when I consider the celebration they’ll have at The Gay over the weekend if Bubba actually does clinch the division.

We lose the Central…we have no idea who we face. Minnesota, Dallas, and The Team We Don’t Speak Of are all knotted with 98. We all know who we would frigging LOVE to face in the first round. But Turco’s no guarantee, considering Bubba Sr. has us and Nashville coming up on consecutive nights.

Back to our goalies. So Ozzie’s earned points in all the games with Bubba this year. Nice. Good for him. I’m sure the puck bunnies are thrilled and feel he “deserves the start.”

Do you? Do you really believe Chris Osgood was brought back to Detroit to play in THIS game? Or was Dominik Hasek possibly brought back to Detroit win games like tonite?

Or…is this Mike Babcock’s way of saying, “I really don’t care where we finish because if we play like last year when we got Punched In The Face by an inferior team we’re getting our asses kicked again anyway so we may as well save our goalie from any risk whatsoever of getting hurt in a game that is probably going to be violent?” Yeah, it’s a run-on, but Babcock wakes up spewing run-on sentences so deal with it.

Let’s let the Diggers chime in, shall we? Kulfan tells us Lebda’s not ready...yet

He’s likely to be a game-time decision Friday against Dallas.

“I feel good; they’re just being cautious,” Lebda said Thursday of the Wings’ coaches and trainers. “I felt a lot better today (after skating). I want to be going, but they’re holding me out.

Khan(!) brings us the status quo from Hank.

After skating with the team Thursday morning in Nashville, Henrik Zetterberg still appears to be several days away from returning.

“I’m skating a little bit more and more every day, still no battles,’’ Zetterberg said. “Hopefully one or two games (before the playoffs) would be good, but if not, I just have to deal with that.

“I’m still just at 35-40 minutes each time out there, got to get a little longer. Then the last step will be battling in the corners. Still got a few steps left before I’m back.’‘

And finally, yesterday Drew Sharp graced us with his presence again. I would have thought that the abuse he takes every time he even writes “read wigs” on the ladies bathroom stall at Freep HQ would be enough to deter him. Nope. He’s a rebel.

No sport alters its regular season and postseason personality as drastically as hockey. In the NBA, No. 8 seeds have little to no chance in a first-round series against a No. 1 seed. But flip a coin when you have a No. 1 vs. No. 8 in the NHL.

Some fluke bounces of the puck, some unexplainable hot goaltending and—voila!—you have Stanley Cup chaos.

Some players forgetting what wins in the postseason, some goalies choking then laying on the ice in martyrdom then threatening suicide, some coaches not adapting to the trap…you know, some of those things right Drew?

Back to tonite. Who wants this game more? Who does it mean more to? Well, Babcock already answered that question for us and I’m not altogether disappointed. Lose and potentially get Dallas. Win and face Calgary? Turco or Kipper?

It means more to Bubba. It just does and that’s that. Start Osgood. Let them have their Central banner and a first round loss to Calgary, actually a first round loss to anybody. That team goes no further than the third week of April; regardless of who they play.