Red Wings vs Atlanta Thrashers

On Wednesday (November 24) the Detroit Red Wings rolled into town dragging at least 5,ooo of their fans with them. First of all, congrats to those who made it out of Detroit. Every time the Wings are in town, they draw large crowds. I've personally had no problems with any Wings fans, I can't speak for everyone though.


I mean hey, this lady looks friendly enough, right? I'm super jealous of Wings' fans' head gear. They have all kinds of cool stuff.



This little guy gets a pass. Maybe we can convert him, he's still young.



Most Wings fans are pretty loyal though, and there is always a boat load of them.



And here's what they came to see! Holmstrom hits the ice.



We don't need you, Holmie, we have our own Swedes!



Brent Sopel probably wondering if I'll ever stop taking pictures. I know you are new, pumpkin, but the answer is "no." I will not stop taking pics. Looks like he has a tattoo on his ring finger.



Another of our Swedes, Toby Entsrom zoning out.



My favorite Swedish Thrasher, Johnny Oduya!



Johnny doesn't shoot a lot during warm ups. He does a lot of skating and stretching.



Dustin Byfuglien taking a look at the crowd.



Nik hanging out making sure we all see how gorgeous his hair is.



Swarming the goalie.



Regardless of who your favorite team is, you gotta have some love for this Swede. Nick Lidstrom IS defense.



Game on!
The Wings taking some action to Pavs.



Out of the way, Cleary! You are on my fantasy team, but you can't score tonight!



Pavs making a fantastical save.



Todd Bertuzzi all up in Pavs' business. Bertuzzi had the night's only goal for the Wings.



Sopel trying to make sure Bertuzzi doesn't get any goals.



Release the Jimmy!



Chaos in front of Pavs' net.



A bit of pushing and shoving.



More crazy head gear from the Wings fans.



Kane getting a shot on goal.



Slater trying to make something happen.



Thrashers win! Thrashers took the lead in the 1st period going up 2-1. After that it was all Thrashers and we won 5-1.



Win at home, no travel the next day...Post Game Guest! Tonight's guest was Anthony Stewart!


My favorite moment of the night was when Cleary took a penalty, the Datsyuk took one, too. Toby Enstrom had an assist on the powerplay...that whole transaction netted me SIX points for my fantasy team. WOOT WOOT!

Blueland Guest Goalie: Chris Osgood

The summer is winding down and we hockey fans can see the light at the end of the tunnel. As we get closer to the season beginning I still have 4 "big name" goalies to do for this little series I started. We will begin with Chris Osgood.


Ozzy. The Wizzard of Oz. Flopsgood. Nogood. Osbad. Or, my personal favorite...Elroy! Come on, he looks just like him, he's stinking adorable. How can you not love that little elf face. Most of the time I don't love him and he ranks as one of my least favorite goalies, but I will admit to having a dirty little secret crush on him. Truth be told, I talk a lot of shit about Ozzy. "Anyone can be a goalie for Detroit, it's Detroit." "Big deal, he plays behind the Red Wings." "He only sees like 15 shots!" These are all common attitudes that people express about Ozzy, but Ozzy doesn't care. He knows his fans believe in him and his team believes in him and that seems to be what matters to him. Even if you are no fan of Oz, it's hard to argue with these numbers:

* 389 Regular season wins (tying ex-teammate Dominik Hasek for 10th all-time)
* 74 Playoff wins (8th most of all time)
* 49 Regular season shutouts, second among active goalies behind Martin Brodeur
* 15 Playoff shutouts 9(4th of all time)
* 2.09 Playoff GAA, 10th best all-time (among goalies with at least 25 playoff games
* 3 Stanley Cups
* 2 NHL All Star Games
Hockey fans might be on opposing sides of the argument about him being added to the Hall of Fame one day, but Osgood has had a very successful career.


What I admire about Ozzy is his ability to get up and brush himself off and get back in the game. Whether it's relearning his game during the lock-out or taking advantage of the 10 day hiatus he was put on this season, Ozzy sees the problem and makes the adjustments to fix it.





Before we begin, I have to post this picture. This is double cheating. This is NOT last season and it's not even in Blueland. This is a picture from the 2008 Stanley Cup Playoffs. The Red Wings eliminated the Nashville Predators at this game (BOOO!) This is one of my favorite hockey pictures of all time though, so I have to post it. There is just something about it I love.





Christopher John Osgood was born on November 26, in the same year I was born, 1972. Another thing I like about Ozzy...he's ancient like me. He was born in Peace River, Alberta. Chris grew up in Edmonton. His dad was an educator and eventually the principal of his elementary school. Chris started skating at age 4 and always knew he wanted to go to the NHL.





Ozzy started his career in Junior Hockey playing 3 seasons with the Medicine Hat Tigers. He finished up junior hockey still in the WHL but playing his last two seasons with the Brandon Wheat Kings and the Seattle Thunderbirds. In the 1991 NHL Entry draft, Chris was drafted by the Detroit Red Wings in the 3rd round, 54th overall.





Finished with junior hockey, Ozzy started the 1992-93 season with the AHL's Adirondack Red Wings. Not exactly a stellar performance. Ozzy played in 45 games and had 19 wins, 19 losses and 4 ties. (those numbers don't add up to 45, so I'm not sure what happened. Maybe he got pulled a few times and that goalie let in the losing goal? not sure). He finished the season with a 3.91 GAA and a .880 Sv%.





Ozzy spent most of the 1993-94 season with the Adirondack Red Wings as well, but did make his NHL debut. On October 15 Ozzy made his first NHL appearance for the Detroit Red Wings against the Toronto Maple Leafs. He got his first NHL victory a few days later on October 23 when he made 23 saves against the LA Kings.





Ozzy spent most of the 1994-95 season in the NHL with Red Wings backing up Mike Vernon. He tied for second in NHL with .917 save percentage and fourth in GAA with 2.26. Allowed two goals or less 13 times in 19 starts. The Red Wings went to the Stanley Cup finals that season but were swept out of the finals by the New Jersey Devils.





Osgood received more playing time for the 1995-96 season. He led the NHL with a 2.17 GAA and 39 wins. He also finished third in shutouts (5) and was a Vezina Trophy runner-up to Jim Carey. Osgood and Vernon shared the William M. Jennings Trophy as the goaltenders allowing the fewest goals in the league. For his efforts Osgood was selected to the NHL All Star Game. That season, Ozzy also scored a goal against the Whalers becoming the second goalie to do so since Ron Hextal.





The next season (1996-97) Ozzie and Vernon started off sharing goal tending duties. As they went into the playoffs, Vernon got most of the starts and won the Conn Smythe Trophy when the Red Wings swept the Philadelphia Flyers to win the Stanley Cup. In 1997 Vernon was traded to San Jose and Ozzy was Detroit's #1 goalie. Ozzy led his team to another Stanley Cup in 1998 and remained the primary goaltender for Detroit until 2001. Detroit tried to trade Ozzy several times, but could never work anything out. That summer he was put on waivers and claimed by the New York Islanders.





On the Islanders, Ozzy split playing time with Garth Snow during the 2001-02 season. He helped lead the Islanders to a playoff spot, but they lost in seven games to the Toronto Maple Leafs. For the 2002-03 season, he split playing time with both Snow and new super star goalie (who is made out of glass) Rick DiPietro. On March 11, 2003 he was traded to the St. Louis Blues.





For the rest of the 2002-03 season and all of the 2003-04 season, Ozzy was the primary goalie for St. Louis. Although Ozzy posted decent numbers (GAA 2.24 and SV%.910) St. Louis did make it to the 2004 playoffs and Ozzy's contract was not renewed, leaving him a free agent.





Ozzy didn't just sit around during the 2004-05 lock out or go play in Europe. He spent that season reinventing his game. He was used to stopping the puck anyway he could and was an athletic classic "stand up" goalie. He decided he needed to add the newer "butterfly" style to his repertoire. He paid a visit to Windsor goaltending instructor Stan Matwijiw.

"I told Stan I wanted a complete makeover. I told him my style wasn't working anymore. He just looked at me like I was crazy.

You were expected to stand up. 'Stand up. Stay in front of your net!' In fact, the coaches would yell at you if you went down. Now, your first instinct is to go down. In fact, I spend most of my time on my knees.

When I was playing with Mike Vernon in Detroit, he told me how he had to go back to relearn the position from a goalie guru somewhere. So that's what gave me the thought after it looked like St. Louis wasn't going to bring me back after the (work stoppage)," Osgood recalled. "Older goalies tend to reach a lot for the puck — and I was beginning to feel that. Younger goalies are taught to whole their whole bodies and stay in front of the puck.

"Stan started working with me on that, making sure I have my chest and shoulders in front of the puck. I guess the theory is similar to teaching a catcher to block pitches that come at him in all directions"

In the three seasons before he began working with Matwijiw, Osgood had an 84-66-20 record, with a 2.51 goals-against average and 11 shutouts. In the three years since returning to Detroit, he's gone 58-18-15, with a 2.38 with six shutouts.





Ozzy's heart was always in Detroit. Even though he was good friends with General Manager, Ken Holland and the two frequently spent time together, Ozzy never asked to come back. He didn't want to put his friend in an awkward position and just hoped that things would work out with him coming back. Finally, in August 2005 he got his wish and signed with the Detroit Red Wings as a UFA. In 2006 he signed a 2 year contract. In January 2008 he signed a three year deal keeping him as a Wing until 2011.


Ozzy led his team to the Stanley Cup in 2008 and led them to Game 7 of the finals in 2009. Had the Penguins not won, I was hoping he would get the Conn Smythe. He played really well. You would not have thought this months before when he was benched for 10 days to collect himself due to poor play. In classic Ozzy fashion he didn't sit around licking his wounds. He worked with goal tending coaching Jim Bedard and got his groove back. He damn near almost won the cup again.

Hockey Photo of the Day

Woo Hoo there is light at the end of the tunnel....preseason is about 6 weeks away.


Here is Thorburn getting in a little preseason scrum with Darren McCarty.

Detroit LoLz City

So I made this little funny from a picture I took when the Wings game to town. I do actually like Zberg, but this was too funny not to do.

I sent it in to one of my FAVORITE blogs, nhLoL. If you haven't checked that blog out, get over there now!

http://nhlol.blogspot.com/

Vomit

Let's play a game! Try and guess which arena I'm talking about.



The Red Wings are about to hit the Ice.


They have thousands of loyal fans cheering them on.




Fans are waving signs and there is a deafening non stop chorus of "Let's Go Red Wings" and periodic chants of "Ozzy...Ozzy."



And, most notably fans are rocking Octopi.








If you guessed Joe Louis Arena....you are wrong. Good guess, but WRONG. Welcome to Phillips Arena, home of the Atlanta Thrashers. The Red Wings rolled into town Friday night and brought all of their fans with them. Since Detroit is a burned out shit hole, people tend to leave. Can't say I blame them. Atlanta being a transplant city, we get a ton of them. I think a lot of numbers are usually exaggerated about how many opposing fans are at a Thrashers game, but there were EASILY 8,000 to 10,000 Wings fans there. Our arena holds a little over 17,000.

I'd say the crowd broke down as follows:

60% Detroit fans
20% Thrashers fans
20% douche bags that don't give a shit either way but just show up to schmooze and annoy me


For whatever reason, it's good to have a full arena. Full arena = $$. It was disappointing and disheartening to see our guys getting booed in their own home arena. Apparently they didn't mind much and were happy to play in front of a large group of people. Slava Kozlov told the AJC: “Lately, we haven’t seen a lot of fans, so we were happy,” Kozlov said. “It doesn’t matter whether it was Red Wings fans or ours.” Great.


One thing I will say is the Wings fans were well behaved and friendly. Of course that's probably because a lot of them were the same fans that are usually there on the other nights wearing Thrasher jerseys.

I've sat through horrible games. (Philly and Boston come to mind) I've sat through good games with horrible people (Buffalo) This was by far the worst game experience I 've had all season. It's almost enough to make me say I'd never go to another Detroit game at Phillips, but I guess that would be hypocritical.


On to the pics.



Warm ups.



I went down to the spot I usually watch warm ups from. I could see there were a lot of Wings Jerseys. The glass was crowded and for the first time all season the owners of the seats I was in for warm ups showed up. They were OF COURSE Wings fans. They were nice though and let me stay. They didn't throw the riff-raff out.


I looked over to the portal where the Wings come out and thought "Wow, there are a lot of them." I had NO idea of what was to come. As I'm watching the large crowd, I think of Philly. They'd solve this problem with a smoke bomb or a hand full of batteries.






Here come the Thrashers. I took this pic of Kari, but when I was playing with it noticed the look between our Natalie (chick who interviews players) and Hainsey. Back off ScoJo (I call her that because she looks like Scarlett Johanson) Ron is a married man!




Bryan Little warming up.









We seem to be forever tweaking our roster this season and it seems we've been mostly made up of Chicago Wolves. Fine with me, I say all the time my favorite Thrashers are Wolves. This week we called up Joey Crabb again. I was sad to see him go in the first place, so I was glad to hear he was coming back. Welcome back!



Joey in warm ups






Bryan Little has some wardrobe malfunctions that need some "adjustments." Don't worry Bryan...nobody saw that.





Perrin warming up FAR too close to the enemy. Note all of the signs and fans on that end of the ice.






Our "regulars" were there with all of their support and signs, too.








In addition to the Joey Crabb sign, I had one for my Moose.







He liked it very much (I can TOTALLY tell)







I also made one congratulating Anssi on his first NHL goal.




Anssi liked it.








I think Kari liked it too. As always he read it. The Finnish probably caught his eye.







I got a smile from him. He's not nearly as mean looking when he smiles. He smiled a lot bigger, but that pic was kind of blurry.













A good shot of the Indiana Moose mask.

Watch out Boultsie, some one is watching and it's NOT the money you could be saving with Geico. It's Shauna!

Anssi take a shot at the net.

Kari: So I hear it's easy to be Detroit goal tender.

Conks: Yeah, it's a sweet gig. Our team is so good, I barely see any shots.

Kari: Sweet!

Conks: Congratulations on that 50 shot night you had last week.

Kari: Thanks

Conks: You know they are going to obliterate you guys, right.

Kari: Shut up.

Stuie!!!! Colin Stuart is one of my favorite recent Wolves call up. He's got speed, size and he's got a great habit of scoring short handed goals.

The 2 luckiest goalies in the NHL, Ozzy and Conklin.

Kari getting in the zone.

Hainsey looking like he's up to something.

More of the Crabb Shack. Joey had an assist that night. Welcome back indeed!

One of the best things of the night was seeing Baby Bogo on the ice. We were all worried when he took that knee-on-knee hit from Matt Cooke in the Pittsburgh game. Fortunately, he's a tough guy and shook it off.

Down at the other end of the ice, my 2nd favorite Swede is warming up. Too bad he's wearing the jersey of the very devil himself!!

I talk a lot of shit about Osgood. He flops, he dives and he cheats (I've seen him push his own net off the moorings) and he usually just isn't that good. He's a goalie though, and as a goalie lover, I do have a small bit bit of love for him. The fact he is adorable helps. I have to say though Ozzy was stellar in the game. There were several times when we yelled how the *bleep* did that not go in??? Nice job OZ. Nice job making my night even worse.

Okay, he's adorable and he was bang-on but he does TOTALLY look like Elroy Jetson.

On to the game

As well as being adorable, Ozzy pulled at his clothes a lot. I don't know if he was hot or if something itched or what, but he always pulled his jersey up.

Getting ready for play

Ozzy covering the puck.

Ex Thrasher Marian Hossa got some boos when he'd touch the puck. He really got booed when he scored.

Jiri Huddler

Hmmmmm. This looks a little Brokeback Mountain.

Datsuk: I wish I could quit you, Hank.

Stuie!!!!!

Ozzy hiding in his net. You can come out Ozzie, there are no pucks coming towards you.

I don't know what Marty is trying to do, but boy is he working hard to do it!

Ozzy seeing some action

Ozzie making a stop. If you look right above his glove, you can see the puck.

Action

Ozzy making some saves.

Ex having a discussion.

Ozzy fidgeting with his jersey again.

Ozzy showing off the junk in his trunk to one of the ice girls.

See the Wings are so horrible they broke our ice.

We had a ref that was a GIANT. He was like Herman Monster. When he stood by Toby and Perrin, he looked like Goliath.

Almost Pevs! You can see the puck wedged in Ozzy's right leg pad.

More action for Ozzy.

Moose: Damn this game sucks. I'm glad I'm not in net.

Anssi: Yeah, it sucks.

Moose: There are so many Red Wings fans here.

Anssi: Yeah. Speaking of fans...did you see your girl made me another sign.

Moose: Shut up.

Who knew that Thorburn and Franzen were an item? Apparently Reasoner didn't.

Oystrick has been full of piss and vinegar lately. He's had a few fights.

Herman Munster leading Oysters off of the ice.

In the game a puck went into the Red Wings bench and I think it must have grazed Zetterberg. Don't worry Hank, you are still the pretties girl on the Red Wings!

A thoroughly disheartening night. Go Thrashers.