Tryin' To Be Philosophical About It All

SN1 and I were on the phone last night immediately after the horn went off in San Jose, helping each other cope.  We have this sorta long tradition... in that we watch the Wings' playoff games together... in person if circumstances permit and on the phone when they don't, which is usually the case, given his profession.  Midway into the conversation Buck remarked "Well, it was a good season."  I immediately snapped back "No it wasn't!"

Well.  How quickly we forget, eh?  Times have changed.  Our expectations have changed.  Before this year we went to the Western Conference Finals three years in a row, won a Stanley Cup in 2008, and lost another one in a seven game series last year.  That's a whole helluva lot of playoff hockey and it tends to raise the bar where expectations are concerned.  I've reconsidered my position in the Cold Light O' Day after spending the entire morning reading post-mortems in the papers and on the blogs.  It WAS a good season, after all.  Not the best, mind you, but pretty good, considering.  There were all those injuries to deal with.  The loss of Hudler, Samuelsson, and Hossa to free agency.  The perish-the-thought feeling that the Wings might not even MAKE the playoffs back in February and March when they were hovering in ninth place just below the cutoff.  But make it they did... with a fantastic post-Olympics run, a run that might have exhausted them emotionally and physically.  They won the first round in a nail-biting seven game series with those upstart Feral Dogs only to run into a motivated Sharks squad that, ultimately, was the better team.  No excuses here.  The Wings were outplayed by a team built in their image... and those Sharks played the Wings' game better than the Wings themselves.

But, Hey.  Water over the dam and under the bridge.  It's over for this year.  And it really was a good year, after all.  Thanks, Wings... it was a Hella ride and I enjoyed every minute of it.  See ya in October!