Czechmate! (Wings 3, Canucks 2)

Even in Vancouver, it seems we are still not all Canucks, as the Wings grab another victory, albeit a much closer one, over Luongo and the Canucks.

Nice try, but no cigar, Bobby Lu

I missed the first few minutes of the game watching the Oilers shootout, and a good chunk of the middle catching the Red Sox sweep the Rockies to win the World Series in four (go Sox!) but I caught the important highlights:

• The Canucks struck first as Matt Cooke potted his first of the season, but the Wings and Tomas Holmstrom struck back only twelve seconds later to tie it up. Unsurprisingly, Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg both assisted on the goal, which brings Z's point streak to 12 games and 21 points. Keep it up, boys.

• The second goal came on a nice two-on-one rush where Valtteri Filppula managed to fake Roberto Luongo out of position before tipping the puck over to Mikael Samuelsson who tossed it in to put the Wings up again.

• While the Sox were busy winning the World Series, Markus Naslund evened the score up again, but Jiri Hudler came back with some nice stick work and a highlight-reel goal - unsurprisingly, it was right top shelf, just where he likes 'em. Way to go, kid!

• Chris Osgood looked excellent as usual up until the last minute when he tried to score a goal on the empty net, and ended up giving the puck right to a Canuck who nearly pushed it past him - he stopped the shot but was the pushed into the net, resulting in what the crowd thought was a goal, but it was waved off. Come on, Ozzie, you've got two assists already this season, don't be greedy.

For better coverage, Matt at On the Wings has a nice recap, as does Dave at Gorilla Crouch who also makes some interesting points about line shifting as players come back from injury. One thing they don't have to worry about any more is Igor Grigorenko - unable to crack the lineup, he returned to Russia, although he expressed interest in coming back next season and trying again.

Other News...

• Patrice Bergeron has been released from the hospital after the hit that left him lying motionless on the ice and saw him carted off on a stretcher with a neck brace Saturday evening. While there is no other new information on his condition, the word is it's nothing more than a concussion and a broken nose. Get better soon, Patrice, we miss you.

• A while back the lovely HG shared these extremely excellent only-in-Canada Chef Boyaredee masterpieces and proclaimed that, "I am willing to bet that the 15 minutes or so I spent exclaiming over the NHL shaped Chef Boyardee at Costco last night, wondering what it would be like to pick out all the Flames shapes and eat the rest TOTALLY led to the Flames' OT win in Dallas." If that's the case, then I bet my friend Sam in Edmonton's need to find and pick out the Oilers shapes just to photograph their existence TOTALLY led to the Oilers' shootout win over Anaheim:

I mean, how cool are those?

• Finally, a message to all eight-six of you out there who have dedicated yourself to scouring google for "ryan malone tattoos" and "malone tattoos penguins" - courtesy of Empty Netters, here you are. Happy? Okay. Now find something new to search, I like you guys much better than whoever it is still hopped up on finding out about "rod brind'amour's wife".