Friday, May 9, 2008

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Notebook: Where is Dom?
Jennifer Miller	12/21/2006
I definitely think it's time to haul out the handy dandy notebook and share come of my recent thoughts with all of you. I can certainly say that I have more than a couple of things on my mind right now. * First of all, why is Dominik Hasek not on the All-star ballot? Is he not leading the league in goals against? I'm writing him in but why should I have to? Also, the rest of Hockeytown needs to get into the voting as well. Currently Nicklas Lidstrom, our new captain and NHL +/- leader is not on a pace to be in the starting line up. Come on people, judging from the number of winged wheels in the stands no matter where the Wings play, I dare say there are enough of us to impose our wishes on the rest of the hockey world. We are like Yankee fans in that aspect and we all see every summer how that works out for the Yankees come All-star time. * In light of recent games, I say we all start calling Robert Lang Dr. Hook. Or maybe just McCracken. If he hadn't scored two of our three goals last night against Columbus, I might be really ticked with him right now. But he seems to have found his offense of late so it's hard to fault him that much. Still, he could stay out of the penalty box at least every few games. * A huge and hearty welcome back to Chris Osgood. I was glad to have Johan Franzen and Niklas Kronwall back, for sure. But when Hasek looked every bit of his 41 years last night, I was so grateful to have Ozzie back on the bench. I must say the Wizard of Oz looked pretty darned good out there too. * I really do need to address the recent hits to the heads of Red Wings lately. The argument I hear is that these are legal hits and really it's just too bad if a player is injured. To that I say that only one I saw was legal and perhaps couldn't have been delivered any other way. That would be the hit to Jason Williams. With the height of Raffi Torres and the fact that Williams had his head down, I'm not sure there's any way that Torres could have delivered that hit to Williams' chest. The reaction of Torres following the hit sort of backs up my thinking here. He kept hovering around Williams looking for confirmation that he hadn't just killed or permanently maimed someone. The hit to Johan Franzen resulting in a concussion and partially torn MCL was a late hit for starters. In fact, if memory serves, there was a call made on the play because it was a good three or four Mississippi after Franzen got rid of the puck before the hit came. To top that one off, there was no reason that hit had to be aimed at Franzen's jaw as it was. Onto the hit that Dallas Drake put on Brett Lebda. Thankfully Lebda was not hurt badly. He surely could have been. I'm not sure how both referees missed Drake jumping a good foot in the air to deliver that hit but I understand they can't see everything. I am very glad the folks in the war room in Toronto did see it clearly and decided to suspend Drake for two games. That could have been very serious and things like that need to be dealt with in a stern manner. * Now we can chat a little about how we can stop these awful things from happening. For starters, the punishment has to be strong. I didn't see any reason for Raffi Torres to be fined or suspended. But whichever player hit Franzen (and my memory is failing me on this) should have gotten at least a four minute double minor. Think about it, when a high stick results in a cut or loss of teeth or any other even slightly serious injury, it is automatically a double. If determined to be intentional, it can get even more severe of a penalty. Why should an interference call be different if it still results in a serious injury? As far as I was concerned watching the hit, there should have been an intent to injure call made which comes with a game misconduct and at least a one game suspension. It's not just Red Wing fan me that thinks so either. I have seen more than a couple of analysts with no affiliation to the Wings say the same thing. Hockey players are smarter than many give them credit for and when they have consistent punishment for certain things, they learn to control themselves. There has to be more attention paid to protecting the heads of players or else we will see a lot more guys lying motionless on the ice in pools of their blood. And that's the best case because some of these hits could result in career and even life threatening injuries. * Speaking of punishing bad behavior, I haven't heard yet the punishment that was or will be handed down by David Stern to the players involved in that ugly scene the other night between the Knicks and the Nuggets. But things need to be swift and strict and with no regard to haw popular or talented the players are. What I mean by this is that some of the actions of Carmelo Anthony were particularly repugnant and should be punished severely and I fear that his status as a superstar and one of the players who puts butts in seats may serve to protect him from being held accountable for his actions. I further feel that any player that was not originally part of the initial confrontation should be fined and suspended as well as any player that left the bench. The NHL learned a while ago that when a team is gutted by the stupidity of its players, those players get smart really fast. Okay, kiddies, I've got two kids home sick that I'm trying to get healthy before the fat man makes his flight. And a ton and a half of Christmas shopping still to do so I will bid you a fond farewell for now. Happy Chanukkah everyone!