How about the Red Wings?  After struggling throughout most of the regular season due to multiple injuries, Detroit has found a way to make the postseason for a 19th consecutive time which continues to be a North American record.  Of course just because Detroit is in,  that doesn't mean they know who they will play in the 1st round of the Stanley Cup playoffs, but they do seem to know who their goalie will be.  Jimmy Howard has been remarkable this season for the Wings.  After a slow start, the rookie now has 34 victories and is in the top ten in the NHL for save percentage, goals against and wins.  Bottom line...if Jimmy doesn't win the Caulder Trophy (awarded to the best rookie in the game) I guess they will not be handing one out this season because there is no other player that comes as close to deserving it.

But I'm not writing to state the obvious today, instead I wanted to question Mike Babcock a bit.  When it comes to Babcock, there is really nothing negative you can say.  In four full seasons he has won a cup, been back to the finals and got to the Western Conference Finals in his second year.  He also coached Team Canada to a gold medal when his and his countries back was against the wall earlier this year.  I know he won't win the Jack Adams (coach of the year) this season but he should definitely be a finalist.  However there is one small thing that I wanted to throw out there...has he handled the goalie situation properly?  At a glance you would say yes, because Detroit has made the playoffs again and Jimmy Howard has been great, however if you look a little deeper you might question it too.

The Wings lost to the Flyers on Sunday afternoon 4-3 and Chris Osgood was the goalie for the first time in over 2 months.  Howard has started for 25 consecutive games and the rust was evident on Ozzie.  The 1st shot of the game Philly's Dan Carcillo got one passed Osgood and while Ozzie got better throughout the game, you wonder if he would have had more work recently would it have been different?  In the 25 games that Howard has started since Osgood's last start back on January 27th, Jimmy went 16-4 and 5 which is a huge part of why this team is going back to the postseason.  However, during that span there were 3 sets of games that were back-to-backs and mostly every other contest was played every other day.  I guess what I wonder is if Osgood could have got 4 or 5 of those games would he be more ready down the stretch or in the playoffs if needed?

Again, this is a very minor criticism of Babcock but with as rusty as Ozzie looked on Sunday which could have been the difference between getting the 5th or 6th seed in the Western Conference (playing the Canucks or the Coyotes in the 1st round) wouldn't it have been better to find Ozzie some more time at some time?  I understand that when you have very little margin for error, you have to go with the best chance to win and that was, and is Howard.  However if Howard struggles in the postseason or gets injured the weight of the world will once again rest on the veteran Ozzie.  Now Osgood has been great over the last couple years when the Wings have needed him the most, but can he repeat the same feat without having got proper work over the last two months?  Hopefully we wont have to find out, but as good as Howard was during that 25 game span, you have to wonder if it might have hurt Ozzie if the Wings are forced to make their yearly call for him to be the hero once again?