Have The Wings Turned A Corner? We'll See Tonight

By Adam W Parks

Swimming With The Sharks/Don't You Hate Easy, Thoughtless, Cliché Titles?

The hockey mecca of California has a couple of decent teams this year. The Los Angeles Kings are currently fourth in the Western Conference with 20 points, while the San Jose Sharks (23) are trailing behind the Avalanche for the top spot. The Sharks won the Presidents Trophy last season with a franchise-record 117 points, but lost 2-4 in the first round of the playoffs against the Anaheim Ducks. San Jose is as notorious for good regular seasons as they are for playoff disappointments, only having reached the Western Finals once (2-4 loss to Calgary). Perhaps the high water mark for this franchise was its first-round upset of the Wings back in the 1994 Playoffs. Cliché #2 Coming at you: the Sharks can swim a tough game, but they have lacked the necessary bite to get to the Stanley Cup Finals. Former Wings assistant and current Sharks head coach Todd McLellan has a few new and well-sharpened tooth at his disposal this season. (That was Cliché #3, last one I promise). San Jose picked up sniper Dan Heatley in a trade that sent Jonathan Cheechoo and those damn train whistles to Ottawa. Heatley has been a greatly welcomed addition to an already potent scoring lineup; he is second on the team in goals with ten, and is third in overall scoring with 18 points. Patrick Marleau (22) and Joe Thornton (20) lead the way for San Jose. Evgeni Nabokov has been doing what he normally does between the pipes with a nice 2.38 goals-against average, a solid .916 save percentage, and an excellent starting record of 10-3-1.

Whose Got My Heady Vancouver Chiropracty?

After eight long months of headaches, Andreas Lilja is starting to feel better. Lilja has not played a game since Shea Webber gave his noggin a floggin' way back in February of last season. The only relief has been a visit to a chiropractor in Vancouver. "I'd been having headaches for eight months," said Lilja. "Then, I see him for one day and headaches disappear for three days." That's a helluva buzz! I mean...I'm sure some legit doctor in a tie dye Rush t-shirt handed him two big handfuls of some chronic chiropracty. Seriously though, Vancouver is notorious for alternative thinking when it comes to curing pain and ailments. For real, if a city can figure out a way to keep those annoying pop-princesses off the stage, they must be doing something right. Alright, all ganja jokes aside, Vancouver is the locale of the International Federation of Sports Chiropractic. Lilja has been able to resume practicing with the team, but still is a little hazy as to when he might return to competitive action.

Detroit Sends One Back, Gets Two In Return

Doug Janik was sent back to Grand Rapids and Derek Meech is back on the scratched list as both Brian Rafalski and Jonathan Ericsson (flu) are healthy enough to play tonight. Brad May (eye) will miss another game, allowing the struggling Ville Leino to remain in the lineup. Leino was even less effective on the fourth line and Mike Babcock might start his juggling act again to help Leino get out of his slump. Speaking of slumps, Daniel Cleary can join Leino on the list of Wings forwards who have not scored a goal in North America this season. Cleary has not scored in his last eleven games despite plenty of time on the first and second lines and getting power-play minutes. He is sitting on 99 for his career.

Coming off his 50th shutout of his career, Chris Osgood will get another start tonight at The Joe. The lines for tonight's tilt against the Sharks should look something like this:

Bertuzzi-Datsyuk-Holmstrom
Cleary-Zetterberg-Williams
Draper-Helm-Eaves
Leino-Abdelkader-Maltby

Lidstrom-Rafalski
Stuart-Kronwall
Ericsson-Lebda

Osgood

Peace.