Sens at Land's End

The NHL named the Eastern Conference All-Star Team roster today, and Dany Heatley and Jason Spezza will join Alfie (who was voted in on the starting lineup) in the game. I have had “Heatzza! You’re an all-star! Get your game on, go play!” running through my head all day. The Sens’ big three are currently the only line in the NHL where each player has more than 50 points. It’s great to see them get to go to the All-Star Game all together. They complement each other so well, as Spezza said in an interview today:

“I think it’s pretty neat that the three of us get to go together,” Spezza said Friday after practice in Ottawa. “The reason why we’re all going there is probably because of each other, we help each other out.

“Dany and Danny are a big reason why I’m going and we all try to make each other better players and I think we’ve all done that up to this point so it makes it even more special to go with a couple of teammates.”

They go together, like rama-lama-lama, ka-dinga de dinga-dong. They … complete each other. And they are officially seen as more of a package deal than the frickin’ Sedin twins, with only Henrik making the All-Star cut. (But I wonder if both twins will go and try to pass as one guy. They should definitely try it, cause that’d be hilarious and I bet no one would notice.)

Tomorrow is the Sens’ big game against the Detroit Red Wings, the only team in the league with a better record than they have, as well as the only team sending more players to the All-Star Game. I’m very excited about this game! For one thing, it’s on TV in Vancouver, because even the CBC couldn’t deny that this is the marquee matchup of the entire year and they’d have to have no brain at all not to make it the national game (also the Leafs are in San Jose and don’t play till 10pm Eastern time, so really they couldn’t have made their usual decision anyway). For another, it just plain should be a great game. I haven’t seen the Wings play at all this season. I tend to assume their stats are a bit inflated because their division is so weak — the Wings have 70 points; second place in their division is St. Louis, with 49 points, giving the Wings a ridiculous 21 point lead; the Sens, who have 60 points, have the second biggest divisional lead in the league, and theirs is only 8 points — but there’s no doubt they’re a great team. I’m sure the Sens will play well due to their habit of playing to their opponent’s level, which is a very bad thing when they end up losing to a crappy team, but should be good against Detroit. I have no idea how the two teams are going to match up, but obviously I’m hoping the Sens won’t get stomped on. I have confidence that the Sens are a great team when they want to be so that doesn’t worry me. I just don’t know how good the Red Wings really are, and I’m very interested to find out.