Outta’ my Friday moanin’ mind

• As a Red Wings fan, I’ve taken some abuse lately due to the team’s less-than-stellar start to the season.  “If the playoffs started today, the Wings wouldn’t make it!” goes one common refrain. Well, yeah…but the playoffs don’t start today.

It’s all I got.

• November is the most important month of this season for the Wings, and here’s why: the ratio of home games to road games gets no better than November.  January is simply brutal, schedule-wise; and while March is favorable as far as the schedule goes, the fact is this month of November will determine just how important March (especially late-March) is for the Red Wings.

• Good to see Stevie Y get his HHOF recognition this weekend. I’d go into all the reasons why Yzerman deserves his induction, but that’s been gone over a million times already. But let me just add that Yzerman’s ability to drop his total offense game style for a more complete style that involved both ends of the rinks (thank you, Scotty Bowman) goes down as one of the most unheralded reasons for The Captain’s induction.

• Love this headline from the “Puckupdate” blog: “Ducks Future Hinges on Giguere’s Groin”. Ouch, that’s gotta’ hurt, when your entire team’s fortunes are dependent upon a guy’s groin. Talk about a kick in the crotch.

• Lots of talk recently about how the U.S. may be a gold medal underdog in Vancouver this February, all because of its strength in goal (Ryan Miller, Tim Thomas, and Craig Anderson the front-runners as of now). Not sure strong ‘tending will help the U.S. win any medal, due to a dearth of proven scorers that will no doubt make up the Olympic team lineup; but it is good to see the U.S. actually go into an Olympic tournament as one of the stronger teams in net.

• Feel Good Story of the Week: Rich Peverly’s performance in Atlanta, even since the absence of Kovalchuk.

• Phil Kessel’s debut in Toronto last Tuesday night against Tampa Bay was impressive. However, I do think he tried to do too much at the beginning. Obviously he had a lot of pent-up excitement and drive, coming off a prolonged injury; but still, he needed to take it down a notch in the first period, and not try to do everything on his own.  Mattias Ohlund actually did Kessel a favor with that monstrous hit in the first period. After that, Phil seemed more in control.

• Place this headline in the “Thank You Captain Obvious” file: “Caps not the Same Without Ovechkin”. Did anyone really believe the Caps were a team that had established true depth? They rely way too much on Ovie and the sporadic breakout players that add to the mix, but do little for the team in the long run. Does anyone really think Mike Green will be an offensive powerhouse over an extended period of time? If so, I’d love to hear from you.

• Got a chance to interview the WCHA’s Denver Pioneers coach George Gwozdecky recently, after he joined an elite group of coaches with 500 hundred wins under their belt. The North Bay, Ontario, native was about as humble and sincere as one could be. True to form, he credits those that were there at the beginning for the success he has today. Class act.

Talk to you soon …