Writing 4 - Sunday, November 17, 13 Once more into the breech, oh captain, my captain, we again take out the old keyboard and begin dancing our fingers ever so gently yet persuasively upon its flat surface and watch the resultant words and punctuation appear magically upon the large 27” screen. Thus is the lot of an incipient writer, trying oh so desperately to string together a gem of an essay at least 800 marvelous words in length to be shared, whether the world wants them or not, my thoughts on just about anything anywhere. So let us begin by picking a topic for this week’s lollapalooza. How about we talk this week about the demise of the Detroit Red Wings. It is a once proud organization that can no longer win hockey games, even against less than stellar opposition. The team is old, small, and slow. What else can I even talk about that isn’t encapsulated in those three deadly adjectives? I understand that Coach Babcock has to look always on the bright side, but after awhile it gets stale and unproductive. Does he not see what a problem player Johann Franzen has been in almost every game this year? Why has the mule not been a healthy scratch on most of the nights he was god-awful? Is it because they are paying him too much money for him to be sitting even though he most deservedly should sit? How does the fact that such a big man plays so small on a small team sit with his teammates as they watch from the bench or if they are on the ice with him and see him coast shift after shift? The most disappointing player thus far though has been Niklas Kronwall; he really has had a subpar year, especially in his own end. He has made many unforced errors with the puck and in his man coverage. These are things he never used to do. In Saturday night’s game against the Islanders, he left John Tavares completely alone in front of the net to pursue the forward who skating away from the net, near the boards. He had to have seen Tavares lurking near the front of the net, yet he ignored the obvious danger in the situation. It was a microcosm of the Wings season thus far. And yet all this moaning and dripping by me still sees the team in the middle of the playoff picture, which is rather unusual to say the least. How can a team with a mere 9 wins in 20 games still be in the middle of the pack for the eight teams that make the playoffs in the East? However, if they don’t start winning on a regular basis; that is beginning tonight at home against Nashville, then all bets are off; the Red Wings will be, what I’ve long suspected, a team that just isn’t good enough to make the playoffs. Surprise, surprise we lost 2-0 to Nashville last night. We were completely underwhelming in a very boring game filled with very few scoring chances between either team. We looked lethargic and not in any seemingly way interested in winning. Franzen was absolutely god-awful in his unique style of skating up and down without making much effort to induce the opposition into considering him a threat in any way. Babcock rewarded this indifferent and casual play by putting the slug on the penalty kill. I don’t know how the coaching staff, or his teammates for that matter don’t take the mule aside and throttle him. He is a coaster in a league all his own. Well, I just got home from visiting my father-in-law in the hospital and my Wings were up 1-0 against the Carolina Hurricanes. In fact, that is how the first period ended. Anyway they brought up Gustav Nyquist from the minors, what took so long? He only scored 17 seconds into the game. Meanwhile Franzen continues to coast like the figure skater he is. When Babcock make him a healthy scratch, it will not only send a clear message to the Mule but also let the team know that slack play will not be tolerated on this team. We’ll see. I have to call Harry Carson for the beautiful Red Wings cap he brought back from the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit last week. I think I’ll call him after the Wings win a game; I hope I don’t have to wait until Christmas. But I digress. This essay is about the 2013-14 Wings and their many, many shortcomings. As I write that sentence the Wings score their second goal of the game by the best third line centre in the NHL, Darren Helm. Shortly after the Hurricanes score on a pretty set up that made us look bad in our own end. Here we go again; we just cannot run away with a game. We have to always court disaster.