Here’s a story you will read in every Canadian newspaper tomorrow.

VANCOUVER — On the game’s biggest stage, and in the most important game of his life, Roberto Luongo ____________ (answered his critics/imploded horribly), spilling thousands of Vancouver fans into the street in paroxysms of ____________ (sheer joy/blinding rage).

Luongo, who in many ways was the crux of the series’ bizarre and numerous turning points, played ____________ (extremely well/mind-bendingly poorly) in allowing ____________ (0/12) goals and turning aside ____________ (14/three) shots in ____________ (60/eight) minutes of action.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Luongo said, nursing a ____________ (victory cigar/black eye given to him by Raffi Torres). “I put Game 6 out of my mind because ____________ (that’s what you have to do in this situation/I repressed it like any other traumatic event). I know I’ve been criticized a lot in the last ____________ (couple of weeks/decade) so to come out tonight and prove all the doubters ____________ (wrong/right), was the ____________ (best/absolute worst) thing that ever happened to me. Now I’m going to go home and ____________ (celebrate/write my last will and testament before slitting my wrists).”

The hero of the day was ____________ (Ryan Kesler/Brad Marchand), who scored the game’s ____________ (only goal/first of 17 goals) at ____________ (15:23 of the third period/0:01 of the first period). And astonishingly, after the game it was revealed that he ____________ (had been playing with six cracked ribs/punched Daniel Sedin in the face 14 more times without anyone even attempting to stop him for some weird reason).

It was another ____________ (exhilarating win/soul-shattering defeat) for the Canucks in a series, and indeed playoff season, littered with them. Vancouver fans waited with ____________ (bated breath/horrified bemusement) for the final seconds to run off the clock, so that the Stanley Cup could be awarded by ____________ (Commissioner Gary Bettman/the man who perpetrated the vast conspiracy against the Canucks) to ____________ (Henrik Sedin/a giant ogre) and the ____________ (jubilation/finger-pointing) could properly begin.

When all was said and done, the ____________ (Canucks/Bruins) skated the Cup around Rogers Arena as ____________ (hundreds of pounds of confetti/both Sedins) lay on the ice, waiting ____________ (to be swept up/for tripping calls from the second period) and ____________ (cheers/half-empty beer cups thrown from the 300 level) showered down upon them.

On the other side of the ice, Tim Thomas was ____________ (almost Luongo’s equal/predictably much better than Luongo). Vancouver’s home ice advantage was ____________ (just too much to overcome/ruined by Luongo being completely incompetent in every way).

Now for the Canucks comes a long summer of ____________ (their fans acting like they were completely confident the whole time/trying to figure out a way to kill Luongo without having his contract count against the cap). And for the Bruins, the chance to ____________ (regroup for another, maybe final, run with Tim Thomas between the pipes/make more wicked funny “fingah” jokes in celebration of their first Cup since ____________ (1972/all their fans started following them in May)).

And through it all, Roberto Luongo was in front of his stall, ____________ (grinning/sobbing in the fetal position). Just like we all thought he would.

The Lead

Hockey’s biggest rivalry! The 8-6 slugfest from February!

Make no mistake, there was palpable excitement for this Bruins/Habs showdown in Montreal that, while it wouldn’t decide the Northeast Division by any stretch of the imagination, it was certainly going to be a huge boost to whichever team emerged victorious.

Both teams had been off since Saturday night, and had ample time to let the importance of this game marinate. And because this game was so vitally important, Claude Julien, who knows all too well about how much of a pressure-cooker Montreal can be, decided to give the nod to…

Tuukka Rask?

Now look, I understand. Rask is a very good NHL goaltender who would be very well-regarded if he could get a bit more time. But the problem is he’s playing alongside soon-to-be-two-time Vezina winner Tim Thomas. The same Tim Thomas who has allowed just six goals in his last four games — three of which were against teams that were top-5 in the league, and the other was against a team that hadn’t lost in regulation since mid-January.

It stood to reason that in a game with this much admitted gravity, you would give Thomas the start. Simple. But instead he went with Rask for reasons currently known only to him and probably his two netminders.

It’s interesting to note, too, that Rask has been wildly inconsistent in his brief career against Montreal, and especially at le Centre Bell, where in three appearances he has given up six, none and three. But hey, I’m not an NHL coach and I’m not around these guys every day, so what do I know, right?

Well as anyone with a brain could have predicted, the Canadiens fans in attendance were well up for the game, and immediately found themselves occupying a large chunk of real estate in Rask’s head. He was never at any point in the game ready to face the shots from an actual NHL team, as he gave up rebound after rebound and allowed two softies and an unscreened slapper en route to coughing up four on just 26.

This was decidedly one of his “ugly” games in Montreal, and I’m sure he’d say the same.

But he was not in any way helped by the Bruins’ obvious desire to dictate play to the point of being overly physical, though the Canadiens were loathe to be drawn into such a game in their own rink. It didn’t work when Johnny Boychuk tried to line up PK Subban in the neutral zone and had to suffer through a marathon fight against Ryan White in which the young Bruin got his lunch solidly handed to him. It didn’t work the rest of the night. It just ended up with guys out of position and blowing assignments.

So basically, Claude Julien didn’t make a good decision all night. That’s okay, buddy. Plenty of time to make up the ground lost to the Flyers and injury-addled Penguins tonight. That three-point gap between you and the Habs is positively luxurious compared to the none between you and the hard-charging Caps, and two between you and the Bolts.

And it’s not like you’re gonna be missing your captain and best defenseman for the next five or six games either. … What? Oh. That’s “unfortunate.”

Maybe you shoulda just started Tank like everyone on Earth figured you would.

Elsewhere…

Ottawa 2, New Jersey 1

So that has to be it for the Devils NOW, right? Everyone was piling off the bandwagon last time they lost, and that wasn’t to the worst goddamn team in the league. Shameful stuff outta Jacques Lemaire’s guys tonight. Ilya Kovalchuk didn’t even do anything. They deserve this fate for making everyone talk about them like they could make it into the playoffs. (I thought they could make it.)

New York Islanders 4, Toronto 3 (OT)

Another team that’s dead and gone now. Done forever. Take it to the bank. One regulation loss is worrying. Two is doomsday material. The good news is that no one on the Islanders tried to decapitate an opponent tonight. Progress.

Philadelphia 4, Edmonton 1

Oh hooray hooray the Flyers are the best team in the East again having defeated their mighty Western enemies with alarming ease. Shots through one were 16-1, no joke. Even a stiff like Bobrovsky can get in front of one shot. The nightmare may not yet be over, because they looked pretty bad in the latter two-thirds of the game.

Pittsburgh 3, Buffalo 1

James Neal had a goal. James Neal had an assist. You can all get off his goddamn back now. Thanks.

Florida 3, Chicago 2

Yeah, that happened. It usually does when your starter gives up three goals on the first eight shots he faces.

Minnesota 5, Colorado 2

This just in: the Avs’ goaltending situation is reallllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllly bad. Interestingly, though, it seemed like only one group of guys had a really bad night for Colorado. Unfortunately, that was their top line, as Matt Duchene, Milan Hejduk and Brandon Yip were a combined minus-9.

Vancouver 4, Coyotes 3 (OT)

Crazy game. Alex Burrows missed a penalty shot in overtime. Didn’t even get the puck away, actually. So Dan Hamhuis scored the game-winner like a minute later. No fuss no muss. Vancouver still the undisputed best team in hockey, even if the results have been a little dicey of late.

San Jose whatever, Nashville whatever

I’m going to bed.

The Lead

(I know, I know. Shut up.)

Derek Boogaard hadn’t scored a goal since January 7, 2006.

Four years, 10 months and three days later, he scored again, taking the puck coast to coast and rifling a slapshot past Michal Neuvirth to put the Rangers up 3-2 on the Capitals midway through the second period.

Since then, a new president got elected and already got halfway through his first term. There have been three Olympic Games. Conan O’Brien hosted three different late night talk shows. Alex Tanguay and Olli Jokinen played for the Flames twice. The Tampa Bay Lightning went through three owners, four coaches and four GMs. Twitter started existing, then became stupid. Some idiot gave Derek Boogaard four years at $1.625 million per. And so forth.

In scoring, he snapped a 235-game streak without a goal. The longest active streak in the league. And it came unassisted. None of the above was in any way a typo.

Everyone on the ice for Washington — Neuvirth, Tyler Sloan (who overskated the puck that Boogaard ended up pumping into the net), DJ King, John Erskine, Matt Bradley and Matt Hendricks — should be shipped to Hershey just on principle. They let literally the worst regular NHLer take the puck about 150 feet and score on them. Only Ilya Bryzgalov and Evgeni Nabokov know the indignity of allowing a goal to this talentless oaf, so maybe the Boogey Man just has a thing against Eastern Europeans.

Sure, sure, the Caps went on to win the game 5-3. But seriously, shouldn’t a Boogaard goal make the rest of the game a fait accompli? A Boogaard goal should be its own stat, worth six goals to his team, and negative four to the opponent. Skaters on the ice for one get a minus-30 subtracted from their season total. A goalie’s GAA gets two goals tacked onto it at the end of the year. The coach of the opposing team is fired and put in stocks in the town square, where children can point and laugh and throw rocks at him. The team itself should be docked 10 points prior to determining playoff seedings. The franchise should lose an entire draft’s worth of picks, or at least be forced to let Boogaard make them for it.

Honestly, I’m not a Caps fan and I want to die from embarrassment right now just thinking about this. There are currently 263 people who have played in an NHL game this year who now have fewer goals than Derek freaking Boogaard, and they should all be dreadfully ashamed of themselves.

I think we can safely say that Michal Neuvirth deserves no more games at the NHL level, or indeed, any personal happiness, for the rest of his life. And Tyler Sloan should have to be his butler for the next month, not unlike a bad episode of Saved by the Bell. Y’know, from the Tori years.

But the good news is now that this happened, so too will all the other things once thought impossible. People will admit they really can’t tell the difference between Pepsi and Coke. Peace in the Middle East will become a reality. World hunger will be solved. All diseases cured. Hockey fans will agree that Alex Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby are both impressive players in their own right and do not in any way suck.

Seriously though. Derek Boogaard.

Elsewhere…

Carolina 7, Edmonton 1

I was a bit late in tuning into this game. Eight minutes late, in fact. I know because I looked at the clock and said “Hmm, eight minutes have elapsed in this game and Edmonton is down 4-0.” After that fourth goal, Tom Renney gave Nikolai Khabibulin the hook in favor of Devan Dubnyk. Why not just play with an empty net for the last 52 minutes?

Montreal 2, Vancouver 0

Carey Price now has two shutouts this year. That’s pretty good! Jaroslav Halak had that many in a five-day span about two weeks ago, and has another since then. Tee hee.

Ottawa 5, Atlanta 2

Some kinda bee got under Jason Spezza’s bonnet lately, yessir. Two ginos and an apple tonight. This after a 1-3-4 night on Friday. Seven points in his last three games, eh? Kinda makes up for the five in the first seven.

Tampa Bay 4, Toronto 0

Steven Stamkos is some kinda hockey player. Another two goals tonight to run his total to 13. In 14 games. On top of 11 assists. Clearly, he entered the Contra code at some point when no one was looking.

Calgary 4, Colorado 2

The Avs’ bottom four defensemen tonight played a combined 18 NHL games prior to tonight, which almost explains giving the four-spot up to Calgary.

San Jose ?, Anaheim ?

I wasn’t gonna stay up for this one.

Detroit, as the Red Wings supporters are so eager to point out any time you bring up anything even remotely critical of the city itself, its residents or anything else even tangentially involved with it on any level, is a town that has been through a lot lately.

And while I have no ill feelings toward the team itself (despite its penchant for crybabyism over any number of perceived slights), I think the fans of this team and I have built up enough enmity over the past year or so that I would like to put it through just a bit more.

The sad news came earlier this week that longtime Tigers radio man Ernie Harwell had died, and my first thought, since he was a Detroit resident since the 1960s, my first thought was, “Lucky him.”

No no, I kid. I’ve been to Detroit. Detroit is a lovely city.

There’s the beautiful architecture.

The booming housing market.

Exciting night life.

Vibrant music scene.

And, of course, successful sports franchises.

Yes, there are many reasons to love this plucky underdog of a city that has, over the last two decades, done its very best to take its reputation as one of the great triumphs of American ingenuity and spirit, throw it in the toilet, and flush.

The Detroit Red Wings are not one of them.

Because it’s been well over a century since anyone would even dare refer to Detroit as “The Paris of the West” in any sense that was not derisive, and because the Ilitch family spent a lot of money before the salary cap came crashing down like one of the many ceilings in the Packard plant, most sports fans from the city have naturally gravitated to the only thing over which they can feel even the slightest bit of civic pride: the Detroit Red Wings.

Really, to call the Wings massively successful would be to undersell their accomplishments. Since the mid-1990s, they have won about a dozen division titles, six conference championships and four Stanley Cups. If the title actually existed — and I’m sure their fans are lobbying for it right now — they would be, in every sense of the phrase, The Team of the Last 15 Years.

And that has made their supporters, who I’m sure are lovely people when they’re not wishing me dead on Twitter, the most repulsive, disgusting, entitled, whinging, crybaby, gutless, ignorant, intolerable conspiracy theorist mutants in all of sports fandom.

Here is just a sampling of some of the less outlandish things their fans have said over the last 18 months or so: Sidney Crosby didn’t shake Nicklas Lidstrom’s hand after the Penguins won the Stanley Cup and this complaint is in no way sore-loserism; Gary Bettman has rigged the NHL playoffs so Pittsburgh wins; Gary Bettman has rigged the NHL playoffs so Phoenix competes because “he owns the team;” Shane Doan is a dirty player; Gary Bettman is personally making sure that every penalty called in the Detroit/San Jose series is harmful to the Red Wings; Chris Osgood is a competent NHL goaltender.

None of these, of course, were true, but if you were to say that on, say, the world’s preeminent hockey blog, you would be accused of bias. By people who are very obviously biased, far moreso than you, if you were biased at all, and irrespective of whether or not it is your job as a columnist rather than a reporter to be biased. No, I don’t get it either.

Some might say, to be fair, that this doesn’t apply to all Red Wings fans, or even most of them. A few bad apples and all that, right? Wrong. In my experience, every Detroit fan is as big a skidmark on the underwear of hockey as Tomas Holmstrom is, which is to say: a friggin’ giant one. In my nearly two years as a hockey blogger and more than 20 years more as a hockey fan, I have never in my life encountered a Detroit fan that in any way made me think they are rational, thoughtful human beings, or indeed human beings at all.

But I’ve begun to ramble, and since my eulogizing skills have in the past been called into question by all several of Nashville’s fans and one of their more mediocre players for a perceived lack of criticism of the actual team rather than its fanbase, let’s have a look at this 2009-10 team and find out where it all went wrong.

The easy answer, obviously, would be injuries. We’ve been hearing that since October. Boo hoo the Red Wings sure are hurt no wonder they got off to such a slow start I can’t believe how unfair life is. It had nothing to do, I’m sure, with Chris Osgood inexplicably getting 21 starts in 53 games before February, of which he lost 13. Noooo it must have been injuries! That’s why the Wings were fighting to keep a playoff spot around Olympic time, but surged back after that to finish fifth in the West. Any correlation between that and Osgood, clearly a top-1 all-time goaltending great who could start for any team in the league RIGHT THIS SECOND, getting just 87:46 of work after the Olympic break is purely a coincidence.

Also, there was, of course, The Conspiracy.

I speak, of course, about Gary Bettman rigging the entire league from Oct. 1 so that the Phoenix Coyotes, a team that the NHL owned at that Bettman therefore had an interest in buoying, quote-unquote “earned” home ice with its 107 fraudulent points. Had they not been handed all of their wins on a silver platter, there was no way Detroit would have missed out on home ice, I’ve been told.

But that home ice for the Coyotes saw the Glendale team unfairly stretch the two teams’ first-round series to seven games, an event which had nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that Phoenix had superior speed (with which to unbalance Detroit’s lumbering defense, the majority of which was playing professional hockey when many of the Coyotes’ players were in wardrobes by OshKosh B’Gosh), superior goaltending, and superior 5-on-5 play for the entire season. But Detroit persevered and triumphed because of a conspiracy that’s simply what Detroit does in the playoffs (but not so much in the auto industry).

Then came this disastrous series with San Jose. To highlight the many hilarious ways in which Detroit continually shot itself in the foot would take quite a while and ultimately be rather hurtful. So let’s get started.

First, it must be said that the student rather became the master. Todd McLellan was an assistant under Mike Babcock for three seasons before taking the Sharks’ head coaching position, presumably because he didn’t like Babcock attempting to intimidate anyone that disagreed with him with those stupid scowls of which everyone has grown so tired. We get it, Mike, you’re a tough customer. Anyway, McLellan clearly outcoached Babcock in this series. And by “outcoached,” I mean “didn’t give significant minutes to any players old enough to have owned Colecovision as an adult,” which was a strategy upon which Babcock seemed intent to cast his lot.

Second, let’s just revisit that Babcock strategy. Lidstrom is 40 years old. He averaged almost exactly 28:30 in the four games Detroit lost to San Jose. He got big-time minutes against Thornton, Heatley, Marleau, et al and proceeded to allow that trio alone to pick up seven goals and 12 assists in five games. This was a brilliant coaching decision by Babcock, oh yes. He was on the ice for seven goals in this series, including both in Detroit’s (and possibly his) swansong. He wasn’t even facing the puck when Marleau buried the series-clincher off the crossbar and in. I understand sticking by the old warhorses that have been through more postseason battles than most NHL players could dream of, but, as with all horses, sometimes you gotta take ‘em out back and put two in the back of their head.

Speaking of things that should be shot, can someone please explain to me the logic of putting Tomas Holmstrom on a line with Pavel Datsyuk? Here we have one of the most skilled and outstanding players in the NHL saddled with this lump of dried cat turds, and for what? So he can do what he’s done since the dawn of time itself: plant himself in front of (insert goaltender here), put his ass in his face, commit hundreds of uncalled goaltender interference, slashing, tripping and roughing penalties per game, then piss and moan every time a goalie or defenseman shoves him. Look, I have made it rather clear over the course of my time as a hockey writer that I love pests, but Holmstrom isn’t so much a pest as he is a dickhead. Pests inject some amount of flair to their annoyingness (a word I’ve invented just now), and occasionally fight to back up the crap they pull.

How many fights has Dan Carcillo had in his four-year NHL career? Or Sean Avery in his seven? The answer, according to hockeyfights.com, is 62 and 61, respectively. They are commonly referred to as punks and pussies and all manner of other slurs. But what about Holmstrom, that fearless warrior who battles hard every night and has stuck up for his teammates on every shift of his 13-year career? The answer, again according to hockeyfights.com, is three. And none since March 26, 2000. Carcillo is one fight short of that lofty mark for tough guys since March 20, 2010.

Oh and back to the outcoaching thing: I find it almost impossible to believe that a top line featuring Todd Bertuzzi netted precisely one goal in an important game like this one. It did, however, net six penalty minutes. But I’m sure that was just the refs trying to give the Sharks an unfair advantage again, right Babcock? Let’s run through the list of penalties taken by Bertuzzi in this series: slashing (Game 1, 2nd period, 6:39); goaltender interference (Game 2, 2nd period, 6:11); holding (Game 2, 3rd period, 3:01, which led to another penalty by Niklas Kronwalll, and a 5-on-3 goal for San Jose); hooking (Game 3, 2nd period, 3:34); holding (Game 5, 2nd period, 7:36).

You don’t want a guy on your top line picking up 10 penalty minutes in five games, especially if they’re lazy penalties like holding, hooking and holding, or stupid ones like goaltender interference. So what kind of a moron puts this oaf on the top line in an elimination game? Well obviously the answer is Mike Babcock, but I’m still trying to figure out why. I mean, sure, he stood around with a fire and intensity unseen since he nearly crippled someone (believe me I suffered through a year of this idiot’s antics when he was with Calgary, and he sucks), which must be what led to Johan Franzen having the game of his life on Thursday, right Babcock? This was a comically stupid decision that didn’t actively hurt the team when it was facing elimination at home, so it must be a key to success, right?

But the ultimate sign that Detroit was never going to do well in this series was that it let Joe Thornton run roughshod in every single one of its losses. There wasn’t a game in this series where Thornton didn’t have at least a point, and finished the five-game series with a line of 3-5-8. The guy’s not exactly known for having ice water in his veins come May, but he pounded the Red Wings like they were a guy in Burty Bob’s Two.

Obviously I am relishing the fact that Detroit has been ousted from the playoffs, and that their repugnant fanbase has a whole summer to sit around that decrepit, rotten city and think about the many ways in which their lives took such a sharp turn into the pathetic.

My only wish is that San Jose had beaten them at Joe Louis Arena, prompting their angry fans to rampage into the streets, rioting and setting ablaze everything in their paths, burning the city’s depressed downtown to a smoldering rubble.

And, in the process, doing millions of dollars’ worth of improvements.

The Lead

I’ve been sitting here for a while now trying to think of the best way to write about this Sharks/Red Wings game, which certainly had its share of storylines.

Goal reviews, both upholding the original calls and overturning them. An absurd call for a penalty shot that ended up not mattering. Clowncar goaltending of the highest order from both netminders, who each gave up no-angle goals. Joe Thornton having his best game of the postseason, and maybe the best postseason game of his career. Pavel Datsyuk looking pretty damn bad all night. The exchange of bad line changes that led to Detroit’s ultimate ruin.

In short, the game itself was a mess.

And really, that probably tells you everything you need to know about these Detroit Red Wings of 2010.

To be sure, this is still a good team, but it’s time we faced the possibility that we are no longer dealing with The Elite Detroit Red Wings circa roughly 1986-2009.

Look, I liked and believed in this year’s version of the Phoenix Coyotes as much as anyone but really, that was a team with one real superstar player in Ilya Bryzgalov. The Red Wings of last year would have torn through them in five or six games. The Red Wings of 2008 would have swept them.

Certainly neither of those teams would be facing a 3-0 series deficit against the formerly chokeriffic Sharks, and definitely not after playing this sloppy shambles of a home game.

Yet here we are, with the Red Wings scoring 35 goals in their 10 playoff games (second-most per game in the postseason behind Vancouver, so a strong number) but conceding 30. And even that 35 is a bit deceptive as 13, more than a third of those, came in Games 2 and 7 against Phoenix.

You just don’t get the sense of menace and impending doom these days. I no longer watch Red Wings games through the cracks in my fingers, waiting for the dagger to be delivered by Datsyuk or Franzen or Zetterberg. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. I watched the third period, which Detroit entered up 3-1, fully expecting a Sharks comeback, and the overtime knowing someone on San Jose was going to pick up the game-winner.

I just didn’t think Jimmy Howard would make it so hilariously easy for Patty Marleau.

This team has no killer instinct, and I think it’s just been dragged out of them. Tonight was the second game in a row in which the Wings squandered a third-period lead. They’ve allowed 11 goals in the third period or later through 10 games in this postseason. Last year they allowed 10 in 23.

My current working theory is that these Red Wings are now officially a bit past it. A full 10 of their playoff players were born in the 1970s. Almost all of their significant players this season are over 30. Only one of their top six scorers from the regular season, Henrik Zetterberg, is under 30, and he’s 29. And yes, Pavel Datsyuk is only 31 and has many miles in front of him yet, but the rest of these guys are ancient. Holmstrom’s 37, Lidstrom’s 39, Rafalski’s 36, Bertuzzi’s 34. For the most part, these are the guys who have piled up postseason points for the Red Wings when Logan Couture was making pew-pew-pew noises with his GI Joes.

Another part of the problem is that, for all the talk of what a genius Ken Holland is, he hasn’t drafted particularly well in the last decade. The reality is that all these deep runs into the postseason have left the Red Wings with not-so-much in the way of strong draft positions, and that’s illustrated in these playoffs. Detroit has just six players of the 67 it drafted since 2001 on its current playoff roster (Abdelkader, Franzen, Helm, Filppula, Ericsson and Howard).

You might say so what, but the problem is that the Wings have been able to successfully lean so heavily on their core players for so long that it both held a decade’s worth of prospects at an arm’s length from the first team and ensured that this ugly thing that’s currently transpiring would happen.

Detroit will still be good-not-great for another handful of years, but hard times are coming.

I’m just trying to prepare you for it.

Elsewhere…

Pittsburgh 2, Montreal 0

Apparently the Habs’ gameplan of “let the other team outshoot us significantly and score a couple lucky goals” only works if they’re outshot by a more significant margin than 139 percent and don’t score any goals. Go figure.

The Lead

If past performance is indicative of future results, and we have at no point in the history of performance-to-result comparison been given any reason to find that this is not the case, then Antti Niemi is going to concede roughly 213 goals on 214 shots in the next game and Chicago will lose and therefore it will be all Niemi’s fault.

Hell they talked about it at length on Versus tonight so it must be true.

Antti Niemi was perfectly good tonight, making 24 saves on 26 shots and doing more or less exactly what the Blackhawks needed to pull out a win that evened up the series at one game apiece.

But after Saturday night’s unmitigated debacle people went looking for patterns and found an easy one: “Antti Niemi has never played well in back-to-back games and therefore will never do so!”

The storyline, based entirely upon the whopping seven-game sample size of this postseason, is that if he has an off night, he will always follow it up with an electrifying performance. Case in point: he gave up two goals on 24 shots and lost the first game of the playoffs, then gave up none on 23 and won!

Wait what? THAT’S the irrefutable evidence?

Okay so those first two games didn’t work out in that frame, but the next three sure did. Four on 35, none on 33, four on 21. (That last one was actually in a win.) But he played like garbage in that last game and then the two after that, posting save percentages below .900 in each, but only losing the last one.

It’s like the Blackhawks are the kind of team that can win if a) the team shows up, which it didn’t in all three of its playoff losses so far, and b) the goaltending is even remotely good. And now Niemi was serviceable tonight and that was all Chicago needed. Go figure.

An NHL starter that is even somewhat above average is plenty for a Chicago side that gives a full team effort, which it did tonight. All this talk of WHAT IF NIEMI CONTINUES TO POST .812 SAVE PERCENTAGES FOREVER doesn’t matter.

He could give up at least as many goals on a smaller number of shots as he did on Saturday and pick up an easy 6-5 W. If Chicago doesn’t play like a bunch of morons.

Which isn’t a guarantee these days.

Elsewhere…

Boston 3, Philadelphia 2

Man, I thought a 52-year-old reclamation project goaltender that couldn’t secure a starting spot until every other goaltender in the Flyers system was diagnosed with a fatal blood disorder has an .890-something save percentage has backstopped his team to an 0-2 deficit against one of the best defensive clubs in hockey. WHAT IS IT WITH THESE PERFORMANCES!? I literally cannot believe it.

The Lead

Well now that the Red Wings went into Glendale and kicked the living christ out of the Phoenix Coyotes, the time has come for me to apologize.

You see, as it turns out the team loaded with cagey veteran, hardened by years of deep and trying forays into postseason after immensely successful postseason were just too much for a team with a youthful spark and strong goaltender. Detroit had seen any possible combination of youth and speed and skill and veterans and defense and goaltending and coaching you care to throw at them, and as such it takes a lot to get by them.

Tonight, and ultimately in the series, the Coyotes just didn’t have enough.

And so, after being chirped on Twitter and email and on the Puck Daddy Game 7 chat by numerous Detroit fans, I guess I owe a lot of people an apology.

For those unfamiliar, in Monday’s Puck Daddy column, I pointed out that people hate Red Wings fans because one blogger posted that the Red Wings would win tonight’s game, adding the word, “Period,” as though it was an absolute certainty. This is the kind of obnoxious, intolerable bravado all Detroit fans seem to have installed standard at birth (see that’s an car manufacturing joke for the locals haw haw haw).

But give credit to the Wings, they did their best Ric Flair circa 1978 impression, lying, cheating and stealing at every turn and successfully getting away with it. Diving whenever possible? You better believe they did that. Pushing the net off? For sure. Committing little penalties behind the play? Take it to the bank.

And I don’t say that in terms of condemnation. In fact, I applaud it. Jesse Ventura often espoused his personal motto, “Win if you can, lose if you must, but ALWAYS cheat,” and the Red Wings did just that. They know how to win games in the playoffs, and if you’re going to come up with a gameplan, then “frustrate the other team into stupid penalties and then score on the ensuing power play” is a hell of a good jumping-off point.

Once the game unraveled, Detroit started skating circles around the gassed Coyotes that were clearly resigned to their fate, peppering a beleaguered Ilya Bryzgalov with 50 shots on goal, of which six made their way past him.

The Red Wings did win. Period.

So as to that apology: I don’t like giving them, but here goes…

I would like to say that I’m sorry to everyone that hates Detroit as much as I do for picking “Wings in 7.” Now we have to deal with these complete, blithering morons for at least another week and a half.

Being right all the time has its burdens. I’m still trying to accept that.

The Lead

How awesome was that, right? Freakin’ Coyotes come back from to beat Detroit in the first home game in Phoenix, err, Glendale since I want to say 1642. Unreal. Keith Yandle was better than Nicklas Lidstrom. Wojtek Wolski was better than Henrik Zetterberg. Derek Morris was better than Brian Rafalski. And Ilya Bryzgalov was far better than Jimmy Howard.

Why, it’s almost like Phoenix was the fourth-best team in the league over 82 games this season!

Look, I think it’s great that the Coyotes won after a trying first period and some scumbag from Detroit threw an octopus on the ice (for which I hope he was dragged from the arena and beaten), but let’s be realistic here.

Yes, Phoenix benefited heavily from the shootout this season, but even without it, they were best in the league in 5-on-5 goals allowed and were 11th in 5-on-5 goals for. Basically they’re really good at outscoring teams when penalties aren’t especially lopsided one way or the other. They got in front of 15 Detroit shots and only had eight blocked at the other end of the rink, and in the third period, they outshot the Red Wings 20-10. These are things good teams do, right?

Just because no one in Arizona cared about the team a month ago doesn’t mean they’re suddenly some kinda little team that could just because the Red Wings have won a bunch of Stanley Cups in the last 15 years. They were a better team than Detroit from October to last Sunday (in part because every player on Detroit is 46 and/or injured all the time), so let’s not act as though this is some kind of upset.

I saw people saying that every underdog won tonight. Maybe I need to go back to first grade math, because I coulda sworn 107 points was more than 103.

They’re supposed to be here, and they’re supposed to win.

…Because Bettman owns the team and this is a conspiracy.

Elsewhere…

Ottawa 5, Pittsburgh 4

Player of the night league-wide? Jarkko Ruutu. I can’t believe it either. He Ruutu’d the crap outta Evgeni Malkin all night, scored the game-winner, etc. etc. Also the goaltending in this game was top-notch. Nine combined goals on 47 shots, an .809 save percentage!

Philadelphia 2, New Jersey 1

Philly won this game. With two goals. On 14 shots. Their busiest period, shots-wise, was the second. They had eight. In the third period, New Jersey outshot them 9-2. How was this a playoff game?

Colorado 2, San Jose 1

You’re not gonna believe this but San Jose blew this one. Chris Stewart scored the game-winner with 50 seconds left in regulation. Oh Sharks, never ever change.

The Lead

For real if I controlled an army (one day, Lambert, one day…) I’d be parachuting my troops into Colorado like Red Dawn right this very second.

Last night I didn’t happen to write about the NHL because a. I was busy freaking out over one of the best Lost episodes ever, and b. I was crying.

Well, not really on that second one. Calgary, thanks to its inevitable loss to San Jose plus Colorado’s shootout win in Vancouver, where they hadn’t won all season, was eliminated from the playoffs. I saw it coming. Any idiot on the planet had to have seen it coming. This whole season was an unmitigated disaster from the word go for reasons I won’t get into here, both for the sake of brevity and my sanity, so yeah, not making the playoffs was an eventuality for which I’d been preparing myself for some time.

I don’t even begrudge Colorado, a team I normally can’t stomach and which had been playing terrible hockey for like a month or whatever, making the playoffs in Calgary’s place. Whatever. Hell, the fact that the win was in a shootout didn’t bother me that much, so you know for sure that I was pretty much not all that concerned.

But now the Avs have to go and lose to Edmonton tonight? Really? The OILERS!? The EDMONTON Oilers!? Now that’s something over which I’m pretty goddamn well upset. This is the universe screwing with me, right? Yeah, Craig Anderson played the more important and less-winnable of the two games of this all-road back-to-back, and therefore Petr Budaj, who sucks and is terrible, had to go tonight. But five goals on FORTY-FIVE shots? Whaaaaaat the hell, man. It’s like this night was specifically designed to piss me off. Well, National Hockey League, mission freakin’ accomplished.

The only solace I take is that everyone on the Avalanche is gonna get their heads handed to ‘em by Chicago in about a week’s time. Four games and out. Book it. That’s going to be awesome. They deserve it for losing to the Oilers.

Blackhawks! Avenge me! Avenge me!

Elsewhere…

New York Rangers 5, Toronto 1

Even Aaron Voros had a goal tonight. I think I read he’s been a healthy scratch for 40 games this season. Something crazy like that. Also I’m pretty sure this loss guarantees Toronto finishes in 29th place, which sucks for them but not so much for me because my life is immeasurably worse.

Detroit 4, Columbus 3

Jimmy Howard gave up three goals on 24 shots and still got the win. Last night on Twitter some idiot was trying to tell me that Howard deserves the Calder more than Tuukka Rask, who is first in the league in both GAA and save percentage. Because he has more wins. Yeah guess how many games Rask woulda won playing for a team with an offense like Detroit’s: all of ‘em.

Chicago 6, St. Louis 5

Keith Tkachuk retired. I am very sad about this.

Phoenix 5, Nashville 2

Wojtek Wolski had a goal and an assist for the Coyotes. He has 6-10-16 and five multi-point nights in 16 games since he was traded there. That deal is working well for Phoenix, I think.

The Lead

Alexander Ovechkin has 46 goals and 58 assists in 69 games. He’s two points out of the league lead despite having played 10 fewer games than Henrik Sedin, who’s out in front. He’s also a goal back of Sid Crosby in the Rocket Richard race despite eight fewer games played. He’s the league leader at plus-42. He leads the league in shots by a healthy margin. He devours minutes.

And he’s not the Capitals’ MVP.

Washington’s most valuable player, rather, is Nicklas Backstrom, who will likely break 100 points for the first time in his career over Washington’s remaining three games. While Ovechkin is off rifling goal after terrifying goal past opposing goalies (and getting himself suspended), Backstrom is doing everything else that makes the Caps such an offensive juggernaut.

Obviously he has the offense, but he does everything else effectively enough as well. In the dodgy world of NHL turnover differential, he’s dead even at 51 giveaways and takeaways. He wins almost exactly 50 percent of his draws. Certainly, he’s not hurting his team as much as Ovechkin does with his tendency to attempt to shoot the lights out and put the puck 90 feet wide or into an opponent’s body, or try to dance through too many players to make a highlight-reel shot. He also has more blocked shots than any other Washington forward, and is 19th league-wide. You’ll note that none of the guys in front of him have anything approaching 95 points.

Nothing that’ll absolutely floor you with its audacity, but certainly a strong and reliable player in all respects not immediately relating to offense.

But the difference between Backstrom and Ovechkin is this: when Ovechkin is on the ice, everything gravitates toward him. The puck magically finds it was to his stick. Every eye in the building is on him, just waiting for something to happen. With Backstrom, you often don’t see him until it’s too late.

Where Ovechkin is more often a one-man show, Nick Backstrom is the master choreographer. It’s difficult to name a Caps forward on whose goal Backstrom hasn’t assisted. By my count, 14 different Capitals forwards have picked up a total of 66 points on goals for which Backstrom was on the ice but Ovechkin was not. Semin, Knuble, Laich, Fleischmann, Morrison, Giroux, Bradley, Aucoin, Clark, Fehr, Chimera, Perrault, Walker and Steckel have all picked up points thanks to Backstrom’s subtle (and occasionally not-so-subtle) brilliance.

Backstrom had a goal and two assists in tonight’s OT win over Boston. The goal certainly wasn’t the prettiest he ever scored, but the feed on the OT game-winner across the ice to Alex Semin was the kind of thing I can watch as often as he seems to be able to make them, which is to say constantly.

People talk about the league not properly marketing all its stars, like Jarome Iginla or Marc Savard or Marian Gaborik or Ilya Kovalchuk. Well Nicky Backstrom’s got more points than all of them, and you don’t even hear his name brought up in that conversation. It’s too bad.

He’s really carried the Caps this year.

Elsewhere…

St. Louis 2, Columbus 1 (OT)

What a barnburner. Marc Methot got caught playing with a broken stick. Don’t see that every day.

Edmonton 4, Minnesota 1

I can’t think of a single team that wants this season to be over more than the Wild. They managed just 26 shots on goal. Against the Oilers. I can’t believe it.