Much Better!

Pavel Datsyuk (right) and Tomas Holmstrom celebrate Holmstrom's goal in the second period. Photo: Detroit Free Press.

Yesterday’s threatened thunderstorms never materialized, but I think the Weather Gods are gonna deliver today. The sky has been a roiling mix of spectacular, towering, glowering thunderheads all day and the Weather Channel’s radar display shows thunderstorms all around (but not over) Portales. This could get interesting (there’s that word, again!).

Hockey: Last evening’s performance by the Beloved Wings was better. Much better. Pavel Datsyuk is returning to form after a long layoff due to injury, and his performance is absolutely crucial to the Wings’ success in the playoffs, especially since Steve Yzerman is day-to-day with a lower back injury. And Nick Lidstrom scored last night, too, his first of the playoffs. Granted, Lidstrom hasn’t lacked for shots, what with ringing more than a few off the crossbar and the goal posts. Lidstrom’s shots need to find the back of the net. It seems the Wings couldn’t buy a break during the first three games, but last night the breaks finally went their way. And that’s a good thing. The Wings special teams are doing their job, and doing it well. Three of Detroit’s four goals came on the power play; it’s good to see the Wings score at least one even-strength goal. More, please! And the penalty killers were superb, killing off a full minute and a half of 5-on-3 play late in the second period, followed by 30 seconds of 4-on-3 play. That’s a long time to hold your breath, let me tell ya!

The series returns to Detroit all tied up, which, of course, is much more preferable to being down 3-1. It’s come down to the best two out of three. We can do this.

I’ve been suffering from news burn-out all week long, and if the truth were told, the burn-out has probably existed for a lot longer than that. The news (and the associated politics) of late just seems to be the same ol’, same ol’…same players, same accusations, same stories, same rants. The Anchoress has a post up that’s somewhat in the same vein, although she’s been distracted by other commitments, not by the banality of it all. Still and even, her post is worth a read. And she also provides a very good link to a “Left-Right” discussion at Shrinkwrapped. The comments section of SW’s post is remarkable, if only for the fact that there are (gasp!) well-reasoned and thoughtful comments from a few Lefties. I always knew there were level-headed liberals out there (after all, I was one, back in the day), it just seems so hard to find them these days.