It may be disappointing that the Red Wings weren’t able to improve their club via acquisition at the deadline, but I don’t believe they’ve made a huge error. Paul Gaustad is a good hockey player, but he’s not the piece that will send a team over the edge — if you ask me. If he was, the Sabres wouldn’t have been floundering since he got to the big leagues. The Nashville Predators are already a very good team, and they have remained a very good team through the deadline. If they win the Stanley Cup this season, it’ll be with Paul Gaustad and not because of him.

If you expanded the Deadline to include the five days prior to it, the Red Wings got their man: former Colorado Avalanche defenseman Kyle Quincey. Having given up their first round pick, as well as middling prospect Sebastien Piche, the Red Wings felt comfortable with their back-end heading into the spring. If a deal for a forward was there, Holland would have taken it — but he wasn’t going to mortgage the future for a potential rental player like Gaustad or Sami Pahlsson (who ended up in Vancouver).

Detroit was involved in a minor deal this afternoon — trading Mike Commodore to the Tampa Bay Lightning in exchange for a conditional seventh round pick. It’s been made clear that this deal was more of a practical move than a situational one: the Red Wings needed the contract space for a potential forward … and Mike Commodore wasn’t going to be a player they used in the playoffs anyway, with both Holland and Coach Mike Babcock chiming in that Brendan Smith is ready and preferred over Commodore. Smith, by the way, was called up and will be in the lineup tomorrow against the Blue Jackets — the aforementioned Kyle Quincey has a sore groin and won’t be able to play.

Commodore, for his part, had some lovely things to say on Twitter as he was preparing to leave town and catch a flight south:

Thanks for all the tweet folks. I appreciate it. Unexpected busy day. Although my time in the D was short I really did have a great time..

I really enjoyed the city of Detroit, and met a lot of great people around town. I really can’t say enough about the players in that..

locker room. Great guys and a lot of great people in the organization that I will miss. I wish then nothing but the best.

But its time to move on. Super excited to get to Tampa and get things rolling in the state of Florida. What’s that line from #Slapshot?

Gotta sign off, I have an hour to pack and get to the airport. #deadlinedayproblems#packonlytheessentials

The fact is — the Red Wings were comfortable with their team and are confident that this is a group of players that can make some noise in the playoffs. Without giving up too much of their future, they’ve solidified the present and will take a legitimate run at the Cup. While some of their direct obstacles may have improved — none of them left Detroit in the dust today. The Wings are good as anyone in the league — pre-deadline and post-deadline.

The alarmists would have you believe that everyone improved around them, while the Red Wings stood pat. I don’t necessarily see that as the case, but I understand the initial panic: teams like Vancouver were aggressive today, and the Red Wings were their usual casual selves: confident in a group that plays very strongly at home… less so on the road. Maybe it’s Vancouver’s year, and maybe it’s not: but one thing is certain — the Red Wings Way has blazed a path for four Stanley Cups in the last 15 years. The Canucks Way hasn’t won a goddamn thing in the last forever years.

Expect guys like Chris Conner and Gustav Nyquist to make their way from Grand Rapids to Detroit over the next couple of weeks. They may not be regulars when the playoffs start, but they’re certainly good players we have ready to hit the ice. Brendan Smith is already in Detroit and will be looked at closely to see if he’s going to pull a Helm/Abdelkader/Ericsson: guys that were called up to be ringers in the playoffs.

Gingers need a ton of sunscreen

The Detroit Red Wings have traded Mike Commodore to the Tampa Bay Lightning for a conditional 7th round pick. There’s no word yet what the conditions are — but it’s likely “if Commodore re-signs in Tampa,” so it’s very likely a trade just to open up a roster spot — not only on the big club, but also on the 50-contract limit.

Speculation seems to be that there’s another deal in the works — the Wings needed to move a contract to clear room for any kind of acquisition. With this move, the Wings are able to acquire another player — likely a forward — without having to trade anything other than draft picks.

It’s ballsy for Ken Holland to trade an insurance defenseman right after losing Jonathan Ericsson for a month to a fractured wrist. It looks like the Red Wings would rather have the vacant space than Mike Commodore. Brendan Smith has already been recalled and will be in the lineup tomorrow night because “another defenseman” will be sidelined.

It’s no secret that Mike Commodore was unhappy with his playing situation in Detroit — having only gotten into 17 games since signing in July. Ken Holland may have done Commie a favor — allowing him to play more regularly and contribute to the team.

The official press release:

Detroit, MI...  Detroit Red Wings Executive Vice President and General Manager Ken Holland today announced that the club has traded veteran defenseman Mike Commodore to the Tampa Bay Lightning in exchange for a conditional draft pick.

Commodore, 32, was signed by the Red Wings as a free agent on July 1, 2011.  He appeared in 17 games for Detroit this season, collecting two points (0-2-2), 21 PIM and a +3 rating.    The Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta, native has appeared in 471 career NHL games for the New Jersey Devils, Calgary Flames, Carolina Hurricanes, Ottawa Senators, Columbus Blue Jackets and Red Wings.

Mike Commodore, Defense

Born Nov 7 1979  -- Fort Saskatchewan, ALTA

Height 6.04 -- Weight 225 -- Shoots R

Selected by New Jersey in the second round (#42 overall) of the 1999 NHL Entry Draft

                                            --- Regular Season ---  ---- Playoffs ----

Season   Team                        Lge    GP    G    A  Pts  PIM  GP   G   A Pts PIM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2000-01  New Jersey Devils           NHL    20    1    4    5   14  --  --  --  --  --

2000-01  Albany River Rats           AHL    41    2    5    7   59  --  --  --  --  --

2001-02  New Jersey Devils           NHL    37    0    1    1   30  --  --  --  --  --

2001-02  Albany River Rats           AHL    14    0    3    3   31  --  --  --  --  --

2002-03  Calgary Flames              NHL     6    0    1    1   19  --  --  --  --  --

2002-03  Cincinnati Mighty Ducks     AHL    61    2    9   11  210  --  --  --  --  --

2002-03  Saint John Flames           AHL     7    0    3    3   18  --  --  --  --  --

2003-04  Calgary Flames              NHL    12    0    0    0   25  20   0   2   2  19

2003-04  Lowell Lock Monsters        AHL    37    5   11   16   75  --  --  --  --  --

2004-05  Lowell Lock Monsters        AHL    73    6   29   35  175  11   1   2   3  18

2005-06  Carolina Hurricanes         NHL    72    3   10   13  138  25   2   2   4  33

2006-07  Carolina Hurricanes         NHL    82    7   22   29  113  --  --  --  --  --

2007-08  Carolina Hurricanes         NHL    41    3    9   12   74  --  --  --  --  --

2007-08  Ottawa Senators             NHL    26    0    2    2   26   4   0   2   2   0

2008-09  Columbus Blue Jackets       NHL    81    5   19   24  100   4   0   0   0  18

2009-10  Columbus Blue Jackets       NHL    57    2    9   11   62  --  --  --  --  --

2010-11  Columbus Blue Jackets       NHL    20    2    4    6   44  --  --  --  --  --

2010-11  Springfield Falcons         AHL    11    0    2    2   20  --  --  --  --  --

2011-12  Detroit Red Wings           NHL    17    0    2    2   21

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

         NHL Totals                        471   23   83  106  666  53   2   6   8  70

Photo Credit: Rob Grabowski, US Presswire

Either way, the theory goes that you enter a bike race with a fixed amount of matches to burn. Where and when you burn them is the difference between hitting your target finish and spending another week between races tearing apart your preparation.

As a guy who’s spending a hell of a lot of time on the bike these days, training for what will be an epic ride through Leadville, Colorado later this summer, I can’t help but carry the analogy into tonight’s game against Colorado. I can’t help but wonder if we came into this season with a set number matches and that we’ve cooked through the box already. …that we burned them all up tearing out across a 23 game streak.

My hope is that the theory breaks, that it’s deemed bullshit, that I get ridiculed for even considering how a two-wheeled analogy could carry over into the final stretch of a NHL season, but hear me out…

We have had an absolute hell of a run at the Joe the past few weeks. Before the Vancouver game on Thursday, it had been eons since Wings fans took put their hard earned dollars down on a pair of home game tickets and walked away anything but delighted. Major shit has happened in the world while the Wings were busy winning 20+ at the Joe. In that timespan, we’ve seen posture shifts in our country’s international policy. We’ve seen political candidates rise and fall out of relevancy in their bid or the White House. 23 games represents enough time to start your own home brewing enterprise, get to third base with even the most modest of women and fall in and out of love with any sample size of auto-tuned #1 hits that…by the end of tonight’s game…will have been lost forever to the dustbin of history, in that corner of the junkyard where all the no-talent, marketing machine produced non-artists go to fade into oblivion. The same corner, for the record, where we thought Kyle Quincey’s career was headed when we opted to keep him around instead of some kid out of Notre Dame.

Do the Wings have a fixed set of matches this year? And if so, have we burned them all up?

The skeptic says yes. He looks at the statistics and realizes how difficult it is to keep this pace at home for the rest of the year. He looks at the impact Pavel’s absence had earlier this week and prays, hopes, that the Wings can find a way to push past that loss…temporary as it’s projected to be…even though in the back of his mind he struggles to square how adding Buckets Cleary and Tiberius Howard wasn’t enough to bridge the gap between Pavel and Non-Pavel (if you read that “non” without the French accent, please revisit).

The optimist shrugs all this bullshit off. He doesn’t believe in matches. He doesn’t believe in a fixed number of wins a team is capable of at home. There’s no ceiling for him. There is only an elite goaltender, a budding re-falling in love with a former prospect and a third line that everyone from Babs to HSJ can’t stop blowing.

The question now, is do YOU believe in matches? …or is all this bullshit about probabilities, percentages and the likelihood of ripping off another massive home stand just loser-talk?

Kyle Quincey, pictured here one of the few times he wasn't committing a penalty or scoring, played his first game back with the Wings.

Tonight, the Red Wings lost to the Vancouver Canucks by a score of 4-3 in a shootout.

You know the old saying in the NHL: “after you’ve won 23 games at home, there’s no sense in being angry about losing the next one.” Oh, they don’t say that?

That’s because it’s never been done before. The streak may have come to an end — but there’s nothing to be upset about. The Red Wings hadn’t lost at Joe Louis since November 3rd.

You know when I thought the Canucks were screwed? When they were treating this game like it was important. Hoping that the streak was still in tact so they could potentially break it… acting like this was parallel to a playoff game and such. You know who I want to face all day long in the playoffs? Roberto Luongo. He is to big games as dogs are to the curb. Shits all over ‘em.

On the other end of the ice was Jimmy Howard, playing his second game since returning from a broken finger. He was an absolute monster in the first period — stopping all 17 shots he faced, including some doozies that had no business ending up anywhere except the back of the net.

Darren “No Finish” Helm scored his second goal in three games. It wasn’t pretty — everyone in the arena, including Roberto Luongo, thought he was going to pass to Justin “Abysmal of Late, But Give Me a Minute Here” Abdelkader. It looked like he might have tried to connect and accidentally scored, but whatever — we’ll take it. He would later add TWO assists. Offensive machine that young man is (not really).

In his first game back, Kyle Quincey acquitted himself quite well. He played on a power play unit, as well as a penalty kill unit. That’s huge for a number of reasons: A) he’s able to do those things, thereby being more valuable than whoever he’s replacing; and B) it provides a bit of a respite for someone above him on the depth chart when he’s eating up those minutes. Those are big things for a newcomer to do, and that’s looking like it’s going to be a smart acquisition. Oh, and guess who was on the ice with less than a minute to play, holding onto a one-goal lead? I mean, it didn’t work out… but that shows he’s got the confidence of the coaching staff.

Oh, also, he scored.

How about that? Kyle Quincey, who was clearly excited to come back to Motown, reintroduces himself to the crowd with the Wings’ second goal on the night and gave a pretty little fist-pump in the direction of Denver. I think my favorite part of the trade so far is how much Adrian Dater hates Kyle Quincey all of a sudden.

Justin Abdelkader (start to) make up for playing so terribly the last few weeks by adding a third Wings goal only 20 seconds after the Canucks tied it in the third. That’s a huge goal in a game that the bottom six had no interest in losing. Miller — Abdelkader — Helm was the lifeblood of the Detroit Red Wings tonight and they did what Johan Franzen and Henrik Zetterberg should be doing in games like tonight’s: scoring important goals.

There was less than a minute to play and resident dumbshit Todd Bertuzzi iced the puck with Vancouver’s net empty. It was a bogus icing call, for sure, but why make it close enough to call? The Canucks took the ensuing faceoff in the Wings’ zone and fired a puck past Howard to tie it at 3. It’s the little things. Bertuzzi should know better.

A few chances were exchanged in overtime (including Dan Cleary’s point blank shot he fired directly into Luongo’s logo) and — for the tenth time since New Years — the Wings would head into a shootout. Normal lead-off man, Pavel Datsyuk, was not in the lineup tonight after having minor knee surgery earlier in the week, so Jiri Hudler would go first (and missed). Henrik Zetterberg, usually the fourth shooter, went next and missed the net after a deke. Todd Bertuzzi, in an effort to make up for his late-game flub, hit Luongo’s pads.

Howard shut the door on local hero David Booth and young All-Star Alex Edler, but allowed a goal by Alexandre Burrows.

With tonight in the books, the Wings have 20 more games to play.

—

Odds and Ends

Todd Bertuzzi, fresh off of signing his new two-year extension, was all kindsa riled up with known douchebag Max Lapierre tonight. The two were yapping during the first period (Lapierre was still on the bench) and it looked like they may go at some point during the game. Alas, the game ended without any fisticuffs.

I urged the Red Wings DJ (@tunes_by_t) to change that God-awful song that he plays when the Wings take a penalty. Good friend of the site and executive producer of Red Wings event entertainment, Ayron, informed me that it’s the player’s choice. She’ll ask them if they want a new one — but she’s hesitant to change anything during the streak (good point). She has to ask Kyle Quincey what he wants as his goal song, anyway. I suggested this. With the streak over… GET THAT SONG OUTTA THERE, AYRON!

—

Loss Candy

From something called The Lying Game, Alexandra Chando

Her castmate Rick Malambri

Photo Credit: AP

If you’re interested in having one of these must-have Detroit Red Wings items, shoot Alvin a note

alvinbrant @ yahoo . com

Murder Eyes: Worth an extra quarter mill

***UPDATE: Thursday, 11:55am***
The team has made the signing official — announcing the extension this morning. A few hours later, TSN’s Bob McKenzie would deliver the figures and they’re a little lower than originally reported:

He will make $1.975M next season — and $2.175M in 2013-14. The cap hit, which is calculated by taking the average of salaries over the term of the deal, is $2.075M.

News also broken by McKenzie, Bertuzzi has a no-trade clause attached to the new deal. No word if it’s a full no-trade or no-movement, or if it’s modified and allows for him to submit a list of teams he will (or won’t) accept movement to.

—

The Red Wings are allegedly close to signing shootout specialist (LOL) Todd Bertuzzi to a two-year contract extension worth $2.2M per season. The deal was first reported by The Detroit Free Press and Helene St. James.

Bertuzzi is currently 7th on the Red Wings in scoring (and dead last among the Top 6 forwards). He’s on pace for 16 goals and 23 assists — which would be his lowest point total since the season he was first acquired by the Red Wings (2006-07) when he only suited up for 15 games.

It’s important to note that, because of Bertuzzi’s age, any multi-year deal would be a 35+ contract under the current collective bargaining agreement. While these rules may change with the upcoming CBA negotiations, any cap hit in years two and beyond of a multi-year deal that began after the player’s 35th birthday will count against the team’s cap no matter what happens with the player: if he’s demoted, injured and can’t play, or retires suddenly, Todd Bertuzzi’s cap hit will count against Detroit’s salary cap.

The Wings and Bertuzzi’s agent, Pat Morris, have been working on an extension for the past month or so — and both sides were clear that they wanted to remain working together and allow Bertuzzi to continue his playing career in Detroit. First acquired by the Red Wings at the trade deadline in 2007 (for Shawn Matthias and some conditional picks). He played the rest of the season and the playoffs for the Wings and bolted for Anaheim, where he signed a two-year deal. They only wanted one year of the Tuzz and bought out his contract over the following summer. He signed a one-year deal to play in Calgary before returning to the Red Wings in 2009-10. The second of subsequent one-year contracts was set to expire on July 1st of this upcoming summer.

With Niklas Kronwall and Todd Bertuzzi already signed to extension, cross two pending free agents off of the list. The remaining upcoming free agents are Mike Commodore, Tomas Holmstrom, Jiri Hudler, Nicklas Lidstrom, Brad Stuart (all UFAs); Justin Abdelkader, Darren Helm, Kyle Quincey (all RFAs); Fabian Brunnstrom, Ty Conklin, Chris Conner, Garnet Exelby, Doug Janik, Jamie Johnson, Chris Minard (UFAs who are currently playing in Grand Rapids); Travis Ehrhardt, Tom McCollum, and Logan Pyett (RFAs playing in Grand Rapids).

Photo Credit: Dave Reginek, NHLI via Getty Images

So in response, I present you ladies with both a disappointment (the first of many for those females just now getting to know me) and a challenge.  There will only be one loss candy candidate tonight: Kate Upton.  She’s everything that’s right and hot in this battered universe we live in, and even my girlfriend thinks her tits look real.  She’s also famously gracing the pages of this year’s SI Swimsuit Issue, so this is all very newsworthy and timely.

The challenge to you ladies is to put forth a suitable contender…a proper mate…for Miss Upton.  You must come strong here.  No random shots of some one-off, has-been Calvin Klein model in a back lit Mexican toilet chamber.  If there’s a suitable suitor tabled and agreed upon in the comments below, I agree to feature him once/day for the rest of the working week here on these hallowed TPL pages.  If we win against Vancouver, I’ll throw in a weekend of hunkiness.  If we lose, the joyride stops on Friday.

We’re nothing if not fair and just.

Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images

*Insert caption here about tonight being a wobbly affair for Hank and the fellas…

SCORE: 2-1 Hawks (hey, Mr. P)

THE SKINNY
Lot of action in player movement land today. Q back to the Wings, Pavel under the knife, Jimmy and Buckets into the lineup. The good guys came our roaring, playing as good a first 10 minutes as you’ll see the rest of the season. The next 50 were a different story. There were flashes of brilliance…big hits by Stu, amazing saves by Tiberius…but in the end, we just didn’t have it. Game, Blouses.

NOTES BY PERIOD
First…

• The Wings drew blood early in this one with Flip cashing in a power play opportunity after some very strong work by “no you can’t have #4 back” Jake Kindl. Kindl, for his part, played amazingly well all night.  That’s not a typo. With Quincey coming back into the Detroit orbit, Kindl’s strong game felt a bit like your girlfriend’s super-successful high school ex boyfriend stopping by for a drink because he’s in town on a high profile work assignment/contract modeling job. Time to raise the game.
• We followed that up with a fantastic PK (Holmstrom, tripping). Tons of pressure, totally disabled the Hawks’ ability to get into the zone. One of the better sights of the night, it was great to see Cleary out there on the PK1 unit. First game back, right into the thick of it. Well done, Loins. Cleary made a fantastic pass to Scuttles later in the period…could have been 2-0 Wings and an entirely different game….but the little Czech couldn’t convert the wide open one-on-one against Crawfrord.
• In less essential news, we reaffirmed that on the list of “guys you want breaking out of the penalty box for a breakaway when his 2 minutes expires,” Holmstrom still isn’t your man. He almost got sprung when the aforementioned penalty ran out, but…stumbling and flailing…couldn’t connect on the outlet pass heading into the Chicago zone.

Second…

• If the first 10 minute of the game was all puppies and hookers, the second half of the first was all beat salads. That carried into the second period, and in general, it seemed like the Wings never quite regained their initial form. Things started to unravel with a late first Hawks PP that looked leagues more threatening than their first PP and carried into the second, where Chicago easily shut down a wobbly Detroit PP to start the segment and then settled in for a dominating effort.
• On what has to be the ugliest moment of PP hockey I’ve seen all year, Ian White blew a tire at the blueline, which led to an incredibly clean Frolik break in on Jimmy. Jimmy…being his typical Big Jim Slade self…shut that nonsense down hard and kept the game at 1-0, but it was a sign of things to come: the skaters blowing assignments and Tiberius bailing them out.
• The Hawks g0t on the board when Jimmy Hayes (no relation to our starting goaltender) tapped in a goal midway through the period after beating out Kronwall. I hate to agree w Pierre on anything other than evening wear selections, but you could see this coming. We looked tired…we were scrambling. Unfortunately, it never really got better. Just a strange period. Felt like one of those classic “fat, drunk and stupid” segments where up is down, down is sideways and Kindl is playing like a guy you actually DON’T want to cash in a future first rounder to cover up.

Third…

• The third period was essentially Second Period, Redux. We started off chasing our tails and eventually coughed up a tally when Kruger scored on a nice play by…again…Jimmy Hayes. I won’t spend any more time blowing Hayes here because the NBC team did enough of that, but suffice to say, the young man (did you hear he was over 6 foot?) had a nice evening.

OF HORSECOPS AND ASSES
Horsecop tonight goes to the pair of guys fresh off the injured list – Jimmy and the man from Newfoundland, Danny Cleary. Nice efforts out of both guys. I’m struggling to find one non-Ericsson guy to pin tonight on, just because it seems so cliche by now, so I’ll go with Babs. I’m generally loathe to pin anything on Babcock, but there were a number of things that happened tonight that fall to the bench to get right….things line changes…things we didn’t do well and that cost us.

NEXT UP
…we get Vancouver back at the Joe. Thursday night. I’ll be scouring the town for a red lycra outfit to wear while I watch in front of my tv so I can show those green-clad bitches in British Columbia how a real playa does spandex.

TSN’s Bob McKenzie has confirmed that the trade is final and that the Red Wings are now the proud owners of Kyle Quincey’s contract, which will be expiring on July 1st. His cap hit is $3.125M. He will be an improvement on the current third blueline pair, which consists of Jonathan Ericsson and Jakub Kindl. Mike Commodore will likely remain on the roster in an 8th defenseman capacity.

On July 1st, Quincey will be a restricted free agent.

Going the other way is Detroit’s first round draft pick in this upcoming draft and part-time Griffin/part-time Walleye defenseman Sebastien Piche. Piche, has not been able to elevate himself in Grand Rapids’ system after being signed as an undrafted free agent in 2009.

Quincey was originally drafted by the Red Wings in the fourth round of the 2003 Draft. He played in 13 games for the Red Wings before being waived (to keep Chris Chelios on the roster) in 2008. The Los Angeles Kings claimed him and he spent the rest of the year in Hollywood. He was traded to Colorado, where he’s been playing since 2009-10.

The 6-2, 207 lbs gritty defenseman has 5 goals, 18 assists, and 60 penalty minutes in 54 games played this season.

TO DETROIT: Kyle Quincey D
TO TAMPA BAY: Sebastien Piche D, Detroit’s 1st Round Pick in 2012
TO COLORADO: Steve Downie F

One's out. One's in.

Here’s an odd, out-of-left-field story for your Tuesday afternoon: Pavel Datsyuk had minor arthroscopic surgery to remove some bone fragments removed in what was dubbed “an old thing” by coach Mike Babcock. It was done now to make sure that he’s back to 100% for the playoffs.

Datsyuk comes out of the lineup, and Dan Cleary goes back in. Cleary is expected to play tonight in Chicago after missing the last five. He twice had a cyst in his knee drained to take some pressure out of the joint — a similar situation to the one that essentially removed me from the game altogether. I also had a cyst in my knee joint — but it was wrapped around the tendons and both inside and out of the joint — and had it removed. That he’s back after five games is pretty amazing considering it took me 18 months to walk to the bathroom without pain.

The new lines look a little something like this, per Babcock:

Franzen :: Zetterberg :: Bertuzzi
Cleary :: Filppula :: Hudler
Miller :: Helm :: Abdelkader
Mursak :: Emmerton :: Holmstrom

With twelve healthy forwards, no one will be recalled for now. If it becomes apparent that Cleary isn’t in game shape, or another forward is lost to injury, the top candidates for recall are Gustav Nyquist, Chris Conner, and Tomas Tatar — who has been called up twice, but scratched at the last minute both times.