Thursday, April 1, 2010

Wings and Spartans Get Hot at the Right Time

That's what you got to love about the good quality teams. (Especially when they are your teams.) They get hot at the right time. They know how to pace themselves. And they know when to turn it on.

That's what happened with the Spartans (9 wins in 2 years in the NCAA tourney with hopefully two more to come) and now the Red Wings winners of six in a row with six games to go before the playoffs start.

People were down on the Wings but I always believed that somehow, someway the Wings would be there and be ready to go. Of course, the people who were down on them knew more about hockey than I do. But they just couldn't see the forest for the trees.

The Red Wings had some bad luck this year with major injuries (especially the Johan Franzen ACL tear) but that negative is a positive as he is playing well and better rested than he would have been without the injury.

And then how about Jimmy Howard? It seems like Wings management and fans had given up on this guy and now he is carrying the whole load. If he comes through in the playoffs he could be the guy for years to come and would erase a huge question mark about who the goalie of the future will be.

And then the Spartans. Like a machine. This was not expected with the way they ended their season, the injuries and the tough draw in the Midwest region. But in this wide open tournament where 3 #1 seeds didn't make it to the Final Four and 2 #5 seeds did, the Spartans, though underdogs, are in a great position to tough it out and win it all.

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