The NHL Closer is written by the five feathered friends at Melt Your Face-Off. When not flying south for the winter and molting, they recap the night in Hockey. Reasonable Doubt, contrary to popular belief, is not a Red Wing. He has not, nor has he ever been, a member of the communist party. He might switch for Emma Andersson, though.
Johan Holmqvist is on Line 1, Mr. Turco. The Detroit Red Wings dominated the Stars in Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals, winning 4-1 in a game that was never even close, thanks to Marty Turco blowing goats all night long.
Niklaus Lidstrom took a slapshot straight at Marty Turco, who blocked it, but couldn't find the rebound. Brian Rafalski could, however, and slapped it home before Turco could even react. With that, Detroit opened the scoring on a powerplay goal. That set Dallas back on their heels, and the pressure just kept mounting late in the first when Kronwell took a slapshot from the blue line that bounced off the stick off Franzen that went five-hole on Turco. The second period kept the dice rolling as Rafalski kept an attempted clearing in the zone and which lead to Holmstrom who tipped the puck in for the third powerplay goal of the game. Tomas Holmstrom was literally sitting in Turco's face on the third goal, coming dangerously close to an interference call.
Turco's confidence is obviously shaken with another guy's ass in his face when not wearing his make-up. Valterri Filppula tacked on another, and then, the Turco Death Watch was on. Brenden Morrow chipped in a goal, but by then it was far, far too late. Turco did manage to save face after almost being caught playing Goalfenseman, but the Stars couldn't capitalize on their late chances, and time ran out. Game 2 will be at The Joe in Detroit on Saturday night. These two Red Wing fans may or may not be in attendance, but they popped up under a Google Image Search of Sexy Red Wing fans, so it's good enough for me.
Puckdump:
Deadspin's sixth favorite hockey blogger, Greg Wyshynski, has brought to my attention that hockey-reference.com is up and selling sponsorships for your favorite NHL players. MYFO is slowly buying up our favorites, but Wysh bought Sean Avery and Chris Pronger's page. Selfish bastard. He's running a reader contest to see who can come up with the best label for Pronger's page. See how many ways you can fit in "douchebag" in 255 characters. [Yahoooooooooo!]
Frequent MYFO Commenters Loser Domi and wraparoundcurl have teamed up for a running series chronicling Sean Avery's internship at Vogue. If "shimmerier" isn't already a word, I vote for making it one. [TWWOLD]
Kimmo Timonen looks like he's out for the rest of the playoffs. On the bright side, the way Hockey Jesus has been playing, that will only be the next week or so. [The Broad Street Blog]
Good news, Detroit! You can now toss your calamari around some more! [Skate2Stick]
And finally, here's the longest hockey fight I've ever seen...just when you think they're settling down...they start again! It's Hockey Fight Christmas!