Neither one of us wants to be the first to say goodbye.

According to Twitterverse, Ville Leino has been traded to the Flyers in exchange for a 2011 fifth-round draft pick and Ole(!)-Kristian Tollefsen, who hails from Norway (hi, Andy) and according to Helene St. James, will be placed on waivers and subsequently shipped to Grand Rapids if he clears (kudos to @jennbikegirl for the Freep link). The official, necessary reason for the trade is that the Wings were in a must-act situation due to a lack of cap space upon Johan Franzen's imminent return to action; however, Ken Holland also offered up this tidbit of a quote:

"When we signed him, we had high hopes for him,” general manager Ken Holland said. “He played well for us in Detroit last year and with all the offense we lost last summer, we thought this was a great opportunity for him. For whatever reason, it just didn’t work out, and other players grabbed the reins while we had injuries."

Personally, I can't help but suspect that Leino's unabashed hitting on Dan Bylsma last week had something to do with the move. I mean, just because you're benched and you're bored, you can't walk around the opposing teams' locker room with your pickle hanging out, seeking pubescent-looking hotties to violate, Villster. Take that one as a lesson for the road.

Now, who wants to join TSO in a collective belly laugh picturing Leino fumblefucking around for the bruiser-y and blustery Flyers? Hi-lar-ious.

Eh, whatever. He's out of our hair now, and for fuck's sake, he's not even in our conference now. Best wishes, Villster, former love of my loins for about five minutes while I was being regretfully facetious, and thanks for the memories, mostly of you looking serial killer-grade psychotic:


Sayonara, fuckface. (Nice purple clown tee, though, jackass.)

The Leino-less Wings take on the Kings in L.A. today at 4 p.m. EST. I wonder if any of our California peeps are going to game. Hope it's a good one. These are one of a handful of our playoff-seeking nemeses, so once again, it goes without saying. TCOB, Red Wings.

We're going to try to catch the game; our satellite has been wonky all morning due to the metric shit ton of snow we've accumulated. I was just whining to Dena that we can't even drive on our main road, so if y'all don't hear from us within the next 36 hours or so, you may want to call the law to make sure we're ok.

Now, one last time for the road. Goodbye, Toby FlendersonVille Leino. It's been real:

Return to KRONWORLD.

Two days = massive eternity. No, seriously. I'm not joking on this one. We take a couple days off from the old McBlogster, and so many awesome things occurred in the interim:

1. We found out that Niklas Kronwall returns to the lineup...TONIGHT, against Phoenix.

2. As previously reported, Tomas Holmstrom says he may return to the lineup on Friday against the Predators. If this is true, I Can't. Fucking. Wait. (Is anybody else as seriously stoked as we are to have a Friday game to watch instead of a Saturday game? It gives us something to do other than go to sleep at 10 p.m.)

3. Somebody with the most kickass handle ever, DatsyukianGeek, started following us on Twitter. I could not stop thinking about this all weekend.

We also missed recapping the game against the Kings on Saturday, although, unfortunately, we did not miss the suckass game altogether. Can I take a five and talk to you guys for a second? TSO--both of us--had a particularly chaotic week with our jobs and whatnot, so we went underground for the weekend by literally running away. Before you get all worried and commence sending us greeting cards of your own, we're ok. Actually, last week resulted in some pretty good news for me, in the form of a "promotion" (best way to describe it--more money + more hours + more responsibilities) and the hiring of a new employee I'll get to menace. I'm greatly looking forward to it. I'm considering conducting my own interview, just to see if we hit it off. Here, let me run a question by you guys:

Question: Imagine a person enters our workplace, acts a fool, and then departs. Upon said person's departure, I make a killer sarcastic remark. Your reaction:

A. Laugh along appreciatively.

B. Quickly retort with your own snarky statement, thereby one-upping me and becoming my brand-new BFF and de facto soulmate.

C. Chuckle slightly, only because you're a consummate professional, but later give me an exploding fist bump to celebrate my awesomeness.

D. Scold me for my obvious lack of professionalism.

E. Burst into tears because you've never been able to grasp sarcasm. (Note: I do not believe in tears, so I will not offer you a Kleenex.)

I think it's a good barometer, don't you?

Anyway, as previously mentioned, the Wings take on the Coyotes tonight, and, as also previously mentioned, Nik Jr. comes back with a vengeance tonight. Now, if any of you read my comments on here--no, really, you all don't need to raise your hands at once--you may have noticed that I promised one of our readers, Dena, a surprise upon Kronwall's return. You see, Dena, as well as one of our anonymous commenters, has a lovesick, almost actually sick, obsession with #55, and, as you all know, we love to celebrate obsessions and fanatics of all kinds here at TSO. See, others would possibly consider putting them on a reality show or sending her to love rehab (Dr. Drew's available, right?), but over here, we place passionate fans like them on a pedestal. I mean, it's not as if I haven't been caught peering into the window of #96's home. Without further adieu, here goes:

Hey, look, I made a collage without the use of "chickenpox" (my feeble attempt at recreating freckles, as Brian is a freckleface. I'm glad the person who commented that it was chickenpox didn't guess herpes, though. I mean, I would have found it funny, but I'm not sure Brian would have enjoyed being known around the internets as Herpesface. And I definitely wouldn't want to be known as girlfriend of Herpesface. Wait, hearing that in my head just now did make me giggle...)

I have no idea what Dena or the anonymous commenter look like, so I just made them both Smurfs. Hope neither of you mind. Also, you guys have the longest torsos ever. Does that mean you're constantly looking for tunics or muumuus to wear since regular shirts are virtually impossible? On a positive note, can I just say that those shades of lipstick look fabulous on the two of you? Hope you ladies have the time of your lives watching the game tonight.

So that's what's up. The puck drops at 7 p.m. tonight. Alas, we won't be watching it. (Bitchface Versus.) However, you may be treated to one of Brian's fabulous "Recap of a game I didn't watch" recaps. Or you could just go to a blog with standards and consistency. In any event, let's go, Wings!

Holy shit, Jimmy Howard.

What else do you expect me to write when the Wings get outshot 52-24 and still win 2-1? Making 51 saves during a not-so-hot performance by the Wings' defense and offense, Jimmy should have earned his second career shutout tonight.

The only other thing to add: Holy shit, Darren Helm and his game-winning goal, scored with 18.2 seconds left in the third period following the Kings' tying goal on a power play. Wow.

Hey, at least we were the beneficiaries of one of these ridiculously lopsided games.

That's all I'm writing tonight. I don't have the courage to discuss Homer...yet. Let's just say there were tears tonight, and I'm not ready to go into detail.

Wings beat Kings, 5-2.

Woohoooooooo.

--The biggest news by far is that Nicklas Lidstrom scored his 1,000th career point tonight, becoming the second Swede and first Swedish defenseman to do so. He scored two assists tonight, one on a goal by Tomas Holmstrom, the other on a goal by Henrik Zetterberg. Speaking of which...

--Zetterberg scored a goal and an assist tonight.

--Ozzie did a great job. There really wasn't much he could do on the two Kings' goals. He prevented a couple of nice scoring chances the Kings had, especially toward the beginning of the first period.

--I thought the Wings really brought their A-game for most of the third period; it finally felt like we were watching real Wings' hockey, with the exception of the penalties, but hey, the PK was pretty solid.

--I can't believe Tomas Holmstrom is leading the team in goals. He's the biggest boss that I've seen thus far. (Yeah. I went there. You liked it, too.)

--That move by Todd Bertuzzi that set up Kirk Maltby's goal was just awesome. Kirk Maltby has two goals so far this season. I'm just saying.

--Was it just me, or did Brian Rafalski look like he was ready to cry when the refs called a penalty on him? Regardless, he scored his first goal of the season with an empty netter at the end of the game. His expression after the penalty call was still funny as hell, though.

--To me, Davis Drewiske = Davis Drewski = guy whose unfortunate surname sounds like a nickname a fratdouche would coin for himself.

--Watching FSD via Center Ice really, really, really makes me crave Tim Hortons. Midwesterners and Canadians don't know how good they have it. The closest Tim Hortons to here is 3+ hours away. Boo. No matter what Southerners tell you, Tim Hortons is always > Krispy Kreme.

--I do not, under any circumstances, approve of the organist at the Joe playing the theme from The Addams Family. Unless we acquire a player by the name of Adams/Addams. Or, as Brian put it, unless we acquire a player who's just a hand.