Woolgathering With IPB

After a lazy weekend spent entertaining Katebits (read: plugging in our PS2 and letting her play games to her heart’s content — we’re such grown-ups), we realize that the Devils have hit the midpoint of the season. We should probably take this moment to think about the half-season that was, but frankly, we’re just not put-together enough for that. So instead, here’s a look at what’s going through our mostly-empty minds tonight.

1. When we say we’re playing video games, we mean Guitar Hero, Super Mario Galaxy and Katamari Damacy. Because we’re cool like that. We have two thoughts on this matter. The first is that we agree with Katebits’ assertion that there should be a Suzuki Method for Guitar Hero. The second is that we now totally have a third question we would ask NHLers if we had a chance to interview them (along with, “Do Zach and Travis play muggins?” and “Can you swim?”): “Do you ever play cute games like Super Mario Galaxy and Katamari, or is it all just sports, guitars and shooter games?”

2. If you had told us at the quarter-season mark that the Devils would be in first place in the Atlantic after another 20 games, we would have laughed in your face. Now, as much as we really love this year’s Devils, and we think they’re adorable, awesome, lovable, spunky and charmingly low-scoring (just the way we like a hockey team), this seems like a really damning statement about the rest of the teams in the Atlantic. And to make matters worse for them, the Rangers and Islanders haven’t lost to the Devils yet this year and are still behind them in the standings. We realize some pundits like to bitch about parity, but frankly, we’re enjoying it hugely. For now. Ask us again after the next 20 games, though.

3. The Blackhawks are really serving to remind us all that no matter how bleak things look for us as fans, there’s always a chance things can become miraculously better.

4. Speaking of bleak, there’s Pando’s injury. We are incensed that Sutter’s mapped-out Year Of Rotating A’s had January as Pando’s month, and instead of just bumping the next guy on the list up a month, he’s left it on Madden as a placeholder. PandoNation is narrowing its eyes suspiciously at Sutter, thinking that he’s planning to use some sort of “sorry, Pando, but the order of the A rotation was handed down to me from on high and them’s the rules” excuse to stiff him of his rightful chance at the A. And after the way the Great, Immutable Rotation Of A’s wasn’t revealed until mid-December, so Paulie got shorted, we’re beginning to think that this is maybe personal. Well, Coach Sutter, we’re not sorry for our long-running joke here at stately IPB Manor that you eat kittens. And we’re not taking it back unless you give Pando an A for, at the very least, a full month when he gets back. We’d prefer, of course, for him to get it for the rest of the season. Or better yet, the C. But we don’t think, after the way you demoted him to the fourth line, stripped him of his A, and took him off the PK at the start of the season, that you care overmuch about giving Pando the respect we think he deserves. We suppose he wouldn’t be Pando if he was getting the respect we think he deserves, though.

5. We’re such good little Pavlovian hockey fans: even though we know nothing interesting is going to happen, we’re still starting to get excited for the trade deadline. Our “You Heard It First Here” can’t-miss prediction is that the Sabres are going to unload Soupy as a rental player for a boatload of prospects and draft picks. Okay, so maybe that’s not money in the bank, but if we were GMing in Buffalo, that’s what we’d do. We figure it’s no stupider than paying him $6 million a year for some ridiculous long-term contract, right?

6. The whole Derian Hatcher-biting-Travis Zajac thing is perhaps the funniest thing we’ve seen in ages. Really, we can’t get enough of watching the replays over and over, the slo-mo, zoomed-in, detail shots of Travis yanking his hand back, staring down at his finger, and then looking just like a little kid as he goggles back toward Hatcher, all like, “What in the hell?” And then it’s just so tattle-y the way he holds his hand up for the ref, all, “I’m bleeding!” And then the post-game interview? Priceless. The whole incident is hardly something we think is worth getting all het up about (and we’re charmed by the thought that Travis had an element of culpability that contributed to his “yeah, whatevs” approach afterwards), but is instead something we think is just a magnificent added bit of hockey lore. We’ve loved the whole thing.