By Jeff Moss
DetroitSportsRag@GMail.com
October 9, 2014

While preparing for the fourth evening of shiva to mourn the death of the 2014 Detroit Tigers, I just happened to notice that my second-favorite sports team in town begins its season tonight.

Yep, the Red Wings will be back on the ice tonight as they square off against the team (the Boston Bruins) that unceremoniously knocked them out of the playoffs just a few months ago in a five-game massacre.

And guess what? I really don’t give a fuck. After spending the last six months following the Tigers like a mental patient every single night only to watch them get eliminated from the postseason over essentially a long weekend, I don’t have the energy to get back on that horse again.

And even if the Tigers were still alive in the playoffs — and hadn’t rendered the last 180 days of my existence meaningless — I still wouldn’t be able to get too excited about the 2014-15 Red Wings.

Why? Well, imagine the Tigers arrived in Lakeland in February with Torii Hunter still stumbling around right field; Joe Nathan as the closer; Joba Chamberlain as the set-up man; and every potential offseason free-agent acquisition treating Detroit as if it were Ground Zero for the ebola virus.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, that is your 2014-15 Red Wings squad!!!!! I mean, when the most exciting offseason news is that your organization broke ground on a new arena in a bankrupt city that can’t really afford one, well, there isn’t a lot to celebrate.

When the Bruins disposed of the Wings in the first round last April, I didn’t expect the organization to make any drastic moves to prepare for this season, but at the very least, they SHOULD HAVE:

A) Either amnestied or attempted to trade the albatross known as Johan Franzen. After his gutless 2014 postseason there was absolutely no excuse for this loafer to return to Detroit. The Mule is the poster boy of recent postseason failure and his annual cap hit of nearly $4 million until 2020 (!!!!) is onerous.

B) Parted ways with the human turnover machine, Kyle Quincey. The Wings equivalent of Don Kelly/Ryan Raburn/Brandon Inge/Phil Coke was an unrestricted free-agent, so his departure SEEMED to be a no-brainer.

C) Said goodbye to Dan Cleary — a man who played EIGHTY minutes on the team’s power play in 2013-14 without registering a SOLITARY point. Not even a goal off his ass or a meaningless second assist.

D) Signed at least ONE right-handed shooting defenseman, whether it would have been Matt Niskanen, Dan Boyle or WHOMEVER!!!

E) Said goodbye to Jakub Kindl and/or Brian Lashoff and STARTED the season with some combination of Xavier Ouelett, Ryan Sproul or Alexy Marchenko as the team’s third defensive pairing.

F) Let injury-riddled backup goalie Jonas Gustavsson take his tender groin elsewhere and opened up the starting goalie competition between Jimmy Howard and Petr Mrazek, which would have been won by Mrazek — the franchise’s best goaltender.

So what did Ken Holland do? The exact OPPOSITE of everything I just mentioned!!!! He kept Franzen; handed a $8.5 million deal to the “Medical Examiner”; brought back Cleary out of BLIND LOYALTY; Austin Jackson’d on the free-agent market; sent all of their young defensemen back to Grand Rapids (against the advice of Mike Babcock, mind you); and never gave Mrazek a legitimate chance to win the job.

And if all of THAT wasn’t bad enough, did I mention that Holland received a FOUR-YEAR extension a season after making a buffoon out of himself with his “Men’s League” and “Kids Aren’t the Answer” soundbytes; predictably, Pavel Datsyuk was injured during the team’s FIRST exhibition game; and the franchise’s most anticipated prospect since Keith Primeau skated for the Niagra Falls Thunder missed the entire preseason with a fractured tibia.

Yep, if this miserable summer wasn’t awful enough, we never even got a chance to watch Anthony Mantha play in exhibition games,which might have been a good thing since, you know, there was zero chance the kid would have made the Opening Day roster with stalwarts like Cleary and Stephen Weiss ahead of him on the depth chart.

And speaking of charity, I haven’t even mentioned how the Red Wings DID waste their remaining amnesty — on Jordin Tootoo. And what a debacle that signing was from day one.

After the Wings were eliminated by Nashville in the postseason a couple of years ago, Holland signed this loser to a THREE-YEAR deal worth FIVE POINT SEVEN MILLION DOLLARS!!!!! Even though the lousy pugilist was a healthy scratch for the Predators during that series. Against DETROIT.

But Holland had to have this guy. And even though there was ZERO market for his services, Holland gave him that three-year deal anyway. Predictably, the guy stunk. And instead of wisely using that amnesty on Franzen (because Holland couldn’t use it on Weiss due to the fact that his terrible deal was inked AFTER the lockout), he did Tootoo a FAVOR by amnestying the former Mr. Kellie Pickler.

Yep, Holland didn’t want to see “good guy” Jordin Tootoo rot away in Grand Rapids all year, so he amnestied him. And the Devils just signed him to a one-year contract for $550,000. Just a tad less than the ONE POINT NINE MILLION Holland gave him. For three seasons.

Between Cleary and Tootoo, I am not sure if Holland is running an NHL franchise or a non-profit organization.

And this is the General Manager who just received a four-year extension from the Ilitch Family. Ya gotta believe me.

So here we are just hours away from the puck dropping on another Wings season and almost nothing has changed since April.

At this point in my ard where you are probably guessing I am going to wish death on several people; scream in all CAPS that we are all doomed; and call for everyone’s firing.

But after seeing the film “Gone Girl” last night, I am going to totally flip the script halfway through and be a little more positive than that.

[Editor’s Note: Congratulations go out to David Fincher. who actually accomplished the feat of making a movie MORE disturbing than the one where Gwyneth Paltrow’s decapitated head ends up in a box at the end.]

Even though Holland completely fucked up another offseason, there are things to be excited about this coming year

Henrik Zetterberg is healthy. Datsyuk’s injury is minor and he should be back within a week.

Gustav Nyquist won’t have to wait until the biggest bar night of the year to make his 2014-15 debut.

Riley Sheahan, Tomas Jurco and Tomas Tatar are all regular members of the lineup and are starting in the opener instead of either toiling away with the Griffins or eating popcorn in the Joe Louis Arena press box.

Babcock finally has decided to play the best players instead of being loyal to a bunch of worthless slugs; it’s just a matter of time before Ouelett replaces one of the blue-line bums and we can always root for an injury to a defenseman who doesn’t wear #55 or #65 in order to get Sproul to Detroit.

And if this team could put up 93 points last season with the wrong roster for two months and with limited contributions from 13 and 40 due to injury, there is no reason to believe they can’t surpass 100 this season and make the playoffs. Again.

Especially if Mantha heals properly and gets called up and the “Defenseman Kids are the Answer” get the same opportunity the forwards received in 2013-14.

You know how there are times when you are dating a girl who you aren’t 100% attracted to, but you focus on one of her assets during sex so you can get through it?

Well, that is how I will be treating the 2014-15 Red Wings season. I am going to direct my attention to Danny DeKeyser, The Two Tomas’s, Nyquist and the other youngsters while ignoring Quincey, Franzen, Cleary and Weiss.

Yep. This is your slogan for the 2014-5 Red Wings: “Focus On Her Nice Boobs and Not Her Wretched Teeth.”

Hey, it beats “Get Your Red On.”