Dario, I agree with the assessment of Cumiskey. Age and wisdom will do wonders for that kid. I’m not calling him the second coming of Bobby Orr or anything, but he may surprise some people with his skills from the blueline.

Leoprone and Sauer can’t get back soon enough. Hopefully that will result in a scratch for Skratch just to see how it feels. Q will probably automatically demote Cumiskey though, which I believe is a mistake. You know what you get with him every night. Skratch has one good game, followed by some brutal defensive plays. He can’t hang with the better skaters, and against the better teams, he’s lucky if he’s even in position to block shots effectively, which used to be his forte.

That 4th line looks wierd. My proposed lines go something like this:

The Duke-SoS-Smyth
Svats Machine-The Missing H-Link-The Highlander
Wolly Wolski-Richardson-Hensiiiick
The Handlebar-Lappy-McCormick

It had everything to do with Skrastins at the point. I can’t seem to remember Pronger, Bourque, Stevens, Lidstrom or any of the greats ever chasing a forward to the blue line when both teams are in their zone. Skrastins must practice a brand of Eastern European defense that only Cloutier understands. That was embarrassing.

McNabism of the night for you since you missed it DD. He was between the benches for another all access night and he got to do a pregame, on ice interview with Lidstrom. McNabb was so flustered he was pointing the mic at Lidstrom while he was talking and then pointing it at himself while Lidstrom was talking. He was like a giddy school girl, it was awesome. Not really a McNabism per se but I enjoyed it. In his defense, I would have probably swallowed the mic. However, McNabb is like a pro right? Hell, he played the game and was a pretty good player himself so maybe he just wasn’t warmed up.

As to Downey and Lappy, McNabb commented that they were talking lots of trash before the first faceoff of the game. Obviously Downey wouldn’t go and his coaches were smart not to let him.

Aside from Skrastins’ play and Wolski yet again looking confused on the point for the power play I thought it wasn’t a bad game overall. I think the Avs might be the perfectly built team to take down the Red Wings as they are built right now. Two vulnerabilities I see on this Red Wing team; 1. Their ability to play a physical game. The Avs with McLeod, McCormick, Lappy and Guite present a lot of checking strength that not only hit hard but can skate. Anaheim and San Jose are certainly bigger and harder hitting over all, but they can’t skate with Detroit. 2. Detroit seemed to have all kinds of trouble with defensemen rushing in to their zone. I think Detroit has intimidated every team in the league this year and they are all keeping their defensemen back. Liles, Clark and Cumiskey had some rushes in to the Detroit zone that were almost effortless. Perhaps Babcock and company would make adjustments but I find those two chinks in the Detroit armor encouraging.

At first I was thinking that Cumiskey just doesn’t have very good hands because his passes are sloppy and he’s not making quality shots. But the more I watch him play I think he actually has pretty good hands (that stick handling through the heart of the Detroit defense was crazy). I think with more experience and maturity he will get better vision of the ice, see plays develop so he can anticipate better and he’ll start making better shots on goal. I’d love to see him rush the zone like that and curl behind the net or curl on the side boards for trailing forwards in the meantime.