(If you don't know why the site looks like this, see the post directly below this.)

Not a great way to open up the new site, but I work with what I'm given.

And what I was given tonight was not a whole lot. The game just felt dangerous the entire night. Detroit finally had a few really good shifts, especially in the second period, when they could control the play. They nearly looked like a team who played in the Stanley Cup Finals over the summer, who was playing against a team that almost didn't have a home, has a bunch of young players rushed into big roles, and has Bobby Lang. Then they stopped trying. As impressed as I've been with Phoenix this season, they have no business outshooting Detroit.

As it's quite late, and writing about how bad the Wings are sickens me, I'll wrap it up with a good and bad review.

GOOD

- The made up stat I kinda keep in my head of the important saves Chris Osgood makes went way up tonight, as it was dangerously low going in.

- Valtteri Filppula at both ends of the ice.

- Umm, Holmstrom's scoring? People seemed to think that wouldn't happen in the offseason, but it's happening.

- Brett Lebda now has more goals than Pavel Datsyuk on the year. Wait, that's a bad thing.

BAD

- Every line was inconsistent (Leino/Filppula/Williams almost wasn't, but they didn't exactly win the game for us).

- Chris Osgood played a good practical joke where he dressed up as Osgood circa '98 and let in a terribly weak goal. I see George Malik's point in that the shot was tipped, but it was also off the stick of Adrian Aucoin traveling at the speed of Bertuzzi. Inexcusable, and Osgood's body language said it right away.

- Adrian Aucoin scored two goals.

- Team defense and playing as if there's something on the line.

- The first and third period.

- The Detroit Red Wings.

That said, I'm not too happy with the call on the tying goal. As I've noted on several occasions, Detroit has a knack for just getting royally screwed over on things that happen near the net. It's no secret that one of today's refs was Brad Watson, the referee who almost handed the entire series to Anaheim because he cannot distinguish basic shapes and colors. I know Lebda put the puck in the net ultimately, but two Coyotes shoved the entire pile consisting of the puck, Lebda, and Osgood right into the net. How many times have you seen Holmstrom put his stick on a goalie's pad and get something called back?

The whole thing just reminded me of this goal by Dan Cleary in Game 7 against Anaheim. I distinctly remember Ron MacLean, who I enjoy as an analyst, but he got on my nerves a bit with what I believed to be an anti-Wing agenda in the playoffs. He held the rulebook up to the camera for this goal, which had something to do with the goalie not being able to be pushed into the net, and he said, and I'm paraphrasing, roughly, but it's pretty close because I hated the quote so much it burned itself into my memory, "If the referee was brave, this goal would have been waved off and this wonderful series would have been sent to overtime." Ha. Watch that goal. Dan Cleary putting his stick towards a loose puck in between Jonas Hiller's legs, and then Hiller falling on it after the puck was in, is apparently goaltender interference, if you go by the book. But somehow, a rugby scrum in front of the net is not. Interesting league.

All that said, better Brett Lebda than Bobby Lang, I guess. I'm headed out to the Griffins' home opener tomorrow, where I will be delighted to see Tomas Tatar, Michael Nylander, and Patrick Rissmiller, who the Griffins just acquired from Hartford (he's under contract to the Rangers) and not the same old Wings who keep trying to win games with as little effort as possible. I'll have a recap of that. The Wings are back in action Saturday in Colorado.