Swamped at work, so just a few brief words:

Data Collection Continues: It’s way early still, but the data collected so far on this team is not encouraging. I have it at 1-0-0 against crappy teams and 0-2-0 against legit teams. And four goals in three games.

Obviously, there are injuries that are skewing the results, but the forward corps is still pretty healthy so that doesn’t explain the lack of scoring. Not encouraging.

Brunner: What may explain the lack of scoring is what seems like 90% of the team’s scoring chances are going to Damien Brunner, who has thus far scored on like 1% of them.

I have noticed a lack of chemistry between Brunner and Pavel relative to that between Brunner and Z. That’s obviously going to happen given how new they are to each other.

But when Babcock threw the lines in a blender last night, one of the bits that slopped out onto the counter was a Franzen/Datsyuk/Zetterberg line. If we’re not going to wait for Pavel and Brunner to gel, my preference would not have been to reward Franzen (who played like a doornail), but to swap out Datsyuk for Filppula on a trial basis.

Anyway, Brunner managed to rob Lehtonen of the shutout much the way Kari robbed the Wings of goals prior to that point, so maybe he’s going to blow up now.

Lehtonen: Speaking of robbing the Wings of goals… I don’t want to take away from Lehtonen’s performance, which was very good. But I was frustrated to see the Wings make yet another goalie look so good.

Goalies in the NHL have like a 50/50 chance of either getting shellacked or kicking off a Vezina campaign when they play the Wings. (not) Glad to see that survived the lockout.

Jimmy: I thought he looked very good, though he didn’t match Lehtonen save for save. He gave the Wings a chance and it’s not his fault they blew it.

Though I wish he would have kept his skate away from Ian White.

Renney: The PP had some moments (mainly Brunner), but overall it was flat. Whatcha doin, Tom?

Tootoo: Totally wrecked a guy I think in the first period. I think the dude was a little too far away from the boards for my liking, but something like that is why you’re here, Jordin.

Kyle Quincey: [negative comment]

Next: The Wings host the Wild, so we’ll get a taste of what Life After Lidstrom could have been mingled in with what it’s actually like. Fun.