Darren Helm played his first game in over nine months. During that time, he dealt with a troubling back injury that I feared had ruined him, given it’s mysterious nature and unwillingness to heal in a timely fashion. I talked myself into moving on from the Darren Helm I used to know because, I thought, even if he did return, he would never be the same. I immediately jumped to that conclusion because spinal stuff scares me and I assumed the worst. Well, I am extremely happy to be wrong.
- Helm scored a breakaway goal on his first shift of the season, proving what many of you hypothesized: he spent the past nine months recovering from secret double hand transplant surgery.
- Petr Mrazek started in goal to give Jimmy Howard a rest, and to spare me from recapping a Jonas Gustavsson game. He came away with his first career shutout, stopping all 14 shots he faced. My most vivid memory of a #34 playing goal against the Oilers in Edmonton is pretty bad and I must say, this was much more pleasant.
- Daylight Savings Time is ending, so don’t forget to set your clocks back one hour tonight. If you’re an Oilers fan, go ahead and set your clock back to before this shit stain of a season started and see if that does anything.
- And if you are an Oilers fan …. how? How do you do it? Physically — how do you do it? Jesus alive.
- Jakub Kindl got on the 2013-14 scoreboard with his first goal. It was a blast. Literally AND figuratively! It was a hard shot and it was also a lot of fun to watch.
- Johan Franzen only played 9:05 last night in Calgary before leaving due to illness, and was scratched against Edmonton. Doctors have diagnosed that he has a case of the Fuck-its.
- I know it was Edmonton, but it was still impressive how Detroit looked to be the fresher of the two teams while coming off a game 24 hours earlier. Quarantining the sickly Franzen from the rest of the team was obviously a key.
- When Jason LaBarbera’s name is said, I hear “Jason LeVar Burton”. If I went to one of those speed dating things, this would be the first fun fact I would say about myself. Jason LeVar Burton. Not his name.
- Jeff told me near the end of the game to include a bullet about how much Brendan Smith sucks. Smith wasn’t awful when he was on the ice, but he nearly had as much penalty time (11 minutes) as ice time (15 minutes). How about that Jeff, huh? When Smith actually becomes good, which I believe will happen, Jeff will flip the switch back to Smith fandom so hard that thing will break right off the wall. I could have just told him this in the G-chat window but here I am answering him in public. Hi Jeff! Congrats on the Red Sox.
- Check this out too, very important.
Go Wings
