Stick tap to Zach for letting me steal the Hunter S. Thompson-esque title. I would quote HST every post if I had an excuse to.

So, I've vanished. Here's the deal. I wrote a nice somewhat combined LA/STL recap about not being cynical, looking forward, all that. It was pretty long -- and this is from the guy who writes long stuff to being with. I was on my last sentence. A totally non-Wings related factoid. I went to bold a name. Instead of hitting CTRL-B for bold, I hit CTRL-W. Which apparently closes your tab. And no, Bloguin doesn't auto save. And yes, it kills me. And no, I'm still not smart enough to save in the middle of posts. I'm still writing here, despite what all my instincts tell me.

Briefly on the cynicism thing -- it's tough. A few weeks ago I declared I would not be cynical, or less cynical, as it were. The Wings have won maybe one or two games since then. It's tough to be positive. But you know what sucks: seeing a tough loss and then seeing a million people on Twitter whining and moaning. I can't stand it, at all. These are the worst types of fans to me. Everyone knows we're going to be fine, everyone knows we're capable of winning a playoff series. Yet, the Wings lose another tough one and I have to hear ten different hilarious zingers. Just stop. What are you accomplishing? What you did do is help me condense my Twitter/RSS feeds.

What's so frustrating is the teams around us suck, and they're playing terrible hockey. Nashville, Calgary, Dallas, us, Anaheim, Minnesota, St. Louis. Wins in their last ten games? Three, Three, six, two, six, five, four. It's frustrating that every night we win, everyone we don't need to win also wins. And when we lose, we somehow kinda keep pace. It's the weirdest thing. Dallas is the hottest team in that group and they just traded for the most injury prone goalie in the league. Curious.

But if you want to be optimistic, and realistic, you'll realize that we're basically being served a playoff spot on a silver platter. How screwed would we be if even one other team went on a Los Angeles style run and went 9-1 in their past ten. Nashville and Calgary just cannot put us away, and they've had all the opportunities to. I don't know how anyone can be discouraged by Detroit putting up 50+ shots on San Jose. James Mirtle tweeted the other day that Detroit is 2-5-5 in the past month. He said that like it's news. Is it news to any Wings fan that Detroit is 2-5-5? It didn't exactly happen overnight. By my count, it happened over the course of a month. Huge story there. And that's not a slight to Mirtle, he does outstanding work, but people made a huge deal about it. Trust me, it wasn't news to me.

Yeah, we lost, I get it. But the types of things people come up with blow my mind. It's unprofessional and it's petty, but I'm singling out the one guy who's driving me up the wall right now. He's driving me up the wall because I know he knows what he's talking about. He's the only non-troll who supports trading Nick Lidstrom. And he's the only guy I know who will blame a loss like that on Lidstrom. It's Keith B. After the game, Keith asked where Nick's defensive game was on the Joe Thornton goal. Yes, that was the goal that was a split second rebound off the boards which Thornton put in despite being shoved into the net simultaneously. I know people call Nick superhuman, but it's mentally absurd (that's a nicer term for the word I want to use) to suggest he could have got to Joe any faster than he did.

Look, Lidstrom is human. He's having an off season. An off season for him is just not the same as it is for anyone else. He's been virtually flawless in the past decade. No other defenseman has come close. Sometimes I watch Zdeno Chara and chuckle that he won the Norris last year. Guy's good for one big mistake per game. Still has those awkward moments where it looks like he doesn't know he's 6'9. Wings fans are spoiled rotten that Lidstrom has been so perfect, and there's some illusion that all elite defensemen in the league are as mistake free as that. Not true. Not at all. Lidstrom won't win the Norris this year, but flat out, I guarantee you, 100%, there is not a better defensive defenseman in the league. And his offense is coming around recently, so it's not too hard to see to guess at who is still the best overall defenseman in the league.

But that's ok if you disagree. Hockey is great for opinions. Lidstrom has really only turned it on the past month. A month does not make a season. I'm just saying, right now, if I had to win one game, there is no defenseman I would rather have. If we were down three goals, maybe I'd take a fourth forward like Mike Green. At 0-0, there is no one better.

Too many people just look at stats these days, and Keith is the best possible example. (For the record, if you want to look at stats, they do support the idea that Lidstrom is still tops in his own end). Fed up, once he told me that Lidstrom is merely a "top ten" defensemen instead of a top two, I flat out asked, "who?" Here's the list I was given:

Technically, he said Bouwmeester and Hamhuis are "right behind" Nick. That in itself is offensive. Let's think about it.

Mike Green is a perfect example of why +/- is a terrible stat. Keith points out that he's a +27 (now a +28). Plus-minus is only useful in context. Mike Green almost always plays with Ovechkin, and Ovechkin is +15 ahead of Green. Jeff Schultz is a second pairing defenseman and he is +10 above Green. Elite defenseman are always, always head and shoulders their teams best +/- player. The Capitals don't have a singular regular player in the minuses. On a team boasting a whopping EIGHT players in the pluses, Lidstrom is a +20. Plus-five ahead of Brian Rafalski (second place) and +8 ahead of third place, some Selke-winner named Pavel Datsyuk. Who? But to be perfectly fair, one of those eight players in the pluses is Kris Newbury. Oh wait...

Tell me, who's +/- is more impressive?

The only two defensemen I would give the Norris over Lidstrom, despite his three dormant offensive months, is Keith and Weber. Both two solid season offensively, with solid defensive play. But both, especially Keith, make a significant amount of mistakes. Anyone know offhand how many penalties Weber took against Detroit last game (correction: second to last game, but the point still stands)? Three. Can you name the last three penalties Lidstrom took? You can't, because he quietly goes about his business and doesn't hurt the team by trying to play tough all the time.

From a guy who watched Doughty his entire OHL career, Doughty will never be an elite defensive defenseman. He'll probably win a Norris -- and he's made huge strides, but I'm pretty sure he'd slap you if you told him he was a better defenseman than Lidstrom. Not yet, but an incredible year.

But Bouwmeester and Hamhuis are absolutely offensive. Bouwmeester was supposed to be the piece that put Calgary over the top this season, and look where they are. He's the best skating defenseman, sure, but he's never become that elite defenseman he was supposed to be and anyone in Calgary or Florida will tell you that. And Hamhuis? Dude, he'd be a #5 on Detroit. I guarantee if you watch a highlight reel you'll see Hamhuis on the wrong end once or twice. Ryan Suter averages three more minutes per game than Hammy. Kevin Klein is like 45 seconds away. Hamhuis is a huge bust for what he was promised to be, his inclusion in there is clearly on a list from a guy who does not watch the Nashville Predators.

Asinine.

But apparently Keith will never read this, because he let me know that I'm full of shit for not agreeing with him. I don't know why he'd read someone who's full of shit, but I digress. Apparently I've built him up as a god, even though I've acknowledged nearly every day he's having an off season. Because he couldn't cover Jumbo Joe on a rebound off the boards. Oh, the world we live in today.

The internet needs to invent a punch in the face button. Also, please refer to BDS' new poll.

In conclusion, some people need to shut the hell up, some people need to smarten the hell up, and some people need to calm the hell down. This team is not winning but there is still so much time left. A win against red hot Ottawa tomorrow would be perfection. Andreas Lilja might even play. We should be perfectly healthy after the break, and nothing this team has done in the past month suggests to me that we can't hit sixth or seventh before the end of the year. And if worst comes to worst, there's always San Jose in the first round.