Bad Things: Dallas Stars 2 - Detroit Red Wings 1

Hello, my name is Tyler. You may know me from the prematurely cancelled 80s sitcom The Triple Deke, or my silver medal-winning performance in the bobsled at the 1992 Winter Olympics. In more recent times, you may know me as "the other guy" on those WIIM podcasts you listen to. Now they are letting me write recaps here occasionally and there are some words below this paragraph because of that. Let's be friends!

• Tomas Holmstrom sat with John Keating for a few minutes before the game. When pressed about it, Homer admitted that had Lidstrom decided to come back for another year and really begged him to, Homer may have returned as well. Yet another reason to hate the deplorable Nick Lidstrom.
• The Wings put on an extravagant pregame ceremony made up of red glow sticks, questionable music and player introductions. I was a bit worried when the public address announcer began with: "The following are Red Wings players not in the lineup tonight --" but much to my surprise the game actually began before Groundhog Day.
• This game of course was the debut of Kent Huskins, a desperate free agent signing by Ken Holland today to plug Detroit's rapidly disintegrating blue line. Mickey Redmond gave his ringing endorsement with the first words out of his mouth being, "Anybody with a 'D' next to their name, we'll take."
• Speaking of, what was with all of that staring at the camera during the 1st intermission interview? I felt like he was eye-fucking me through the television. The eye contact, the heavy breathing, the sweating .... I'm actually pretty sure they were filming a cologne commercial. Bold. Ambitious. Seductive. "Muskins" -- the new scent from Kent Huskins.
• It's becoming clear that goal scoring (a very important aspect to hockey IMO) is an issue for this team. Also, when our guys don't have the puck, (i.e: defense), that seems to cause the Wings trouble too. That's only two things, so I think this is good news. Only two things that Mike Babcock has to address to the team in practice. That's what, 5 minutes total for both problems? With this compressed schedule, a quick 10 minute practice is just what this team needs to get squared away, and then that leaves the remainder of the day for rest and pizza.
• This was a for real actual statistic that John Niyo of The Detroit News said during the 2nd intermission: "Wings have 1 shot total on their three power plays tonight. Stars have 4 shorthanded shots on those three power plays. Yikes." Super!
• In an effort to get anything going offensively, Babcock mixed up the lines to start the 3rd period, taking Datsyuk off the Zetterberg and Brunner line and replacing him with Franzen. Franzen didn't seem to notice.
• At one point in the 3rd after a scramble in front of the net, Johan Franzen fell to the ice. And he stayed there, lying down. A full 10 seconds passed. Sheep began to jump over his sleepy body. Val Filppula came to his side and set down a glass of warm milk. Enya's "Only Time" played. The lights in the Joe were dimmed, and the Mule finally gave in to those heavy eyelids. Sleep gently, our little angel.
• After the Stars scored their second goal the Wings DJ played that "we will be victorious" song by Muse. The Wings did not end up being victorious. We must find this man and set him on fire for lying and/or playing Muse.
• Red Wings star of the game was unquestionably Jimmy Howard, who had a disgusting glove save to keep the Wings in it late. Let's go to the video: /is new/ /doesn't know what a video is/
  
• True story: At one point during the 3rd period I had my head down looking at the computer and heard, "power play coming up," and I yelled "dammit" before hearing which team took the penalty.
• Kyle Quincey is potentially heading for an historic season. Per Maria on Twitter, Bill Mikelsson's record of a minus-82 rating could be in trouble. Q is minus-4 through three games with 6 penalty minutes and is becoming synonymous with everything that is awful. This is a pretty big deal and not the type of thing that we longtime writers here at WIIM will overlook, so stay tuned in the whole season to follow The Chase For Mortality.
• Pistons won!
• Karen Newman, longtime national anthem singer at Joe Louis Arena, was mysteriously absent as the song was sung by some pink-haired weirdo instead. I don't have a total grasp yet on how OK it is for me to implicate someone in a serious crime on SBNation, but I think it's pretty obvious that this person has kidnapped and probably killed Karen Newman.
• (This just in: Karen was not kidnapped. She's actually day-to-day with a groin pull.)