5 on 5 with The Production Line

The guys over at The Production Line asked us to do a segment that they call “5 On 5”, where they send bloggers 5 questions and we send them 5 questions. Well, TPL did a fantastic job. We asked the obvious questions, asked about death matches and what Voldemort and Lidstrom have in common. Head over to the TPL and read our answers.

1) The Red Wings are consistently the tops in the NHL regarding average age of players.  How does it feel to be the Florida of the NHL, and are the any benefits/drawbacks to being the team where hockey players go to die.

TPL: First of all, being the Florida of anything isn’t all that bad. They’ve got a fine appreciation for dark skinned women in extremely small bikinis and NASA has a sizable operation down there.  While rocket science and busty Latinas don’t play well in Boston, they’ve always had a special place in my heart.  As for how we deal with the age question, four Stanley Cups in the past few years…all at a time when this YOU’RE OLD argument has been running rampant…tend to calm my fears about father time cramping our style.

2) Red Wings are probably coming on over in the East, welcome in advance.  That being said, there is naturally going to be some hazing of the new kid.  Personally we’d like to see Thornton give Holmstrom a wedgie, or Marchand slip itching powder into Howard’s  pads.  You got any clever ideas?

TPL: f I can offer any advice on this matter, it’s this: Don’t being a knife to a gun fight, my friend.  If you’re hoping to execute this Holmstrom wedgie on his massive, industrial-sized ass, you better bring two men and they better be a lot tougher than Thornton. Shots…maybe something rugged like Wild Turkey…always seemed to do the trick on the hazing front in college.  Happy to pick that tradition back up next year if we make the jump with you boys.

3. The Red Wings have one of the oldest rosters in the NHL. With guys like Niklas Lidstrom (41), Tomas Holmstrom (38), Todd “Neck Breaker” Bertuzzi (36) and Ty Conklin (35) to name a few. With the upcoming move to the East and a slew of guys on the downside of the hill, how do you think these guys can compete with young teams like Boston (who’s oldest player in their top 2 lines is 26) and Toronto?

TPL: I take serious offense to this assertion that Ty Conklin is on our team.  I haven’t seen the man show up for a game all year, and for all I know, the nights he’s penciled in as the starter we’re swapping him out for one of those old lacrosse “Esther the Arrester” shooter tutors.  If the “old” argument is based on Ty Conklin, you’re setting yourself up for failure, because there isn’t a single person on the team…or at TPL…who actually thinks that guy belongs on the ice.  As for the rest of the guys you mentioned, Lidstrom is impossible to replace.  That is going to hurt whenever it happens.  …but we have a handful of guys in the pipeline like Brendan Smith who you’ll likely see on Friday night that are making the case that they’ll be around Detroit…and probably the Eastern Conference…for a long time.  There’s no real “replacing” #5.  We’re all hoping he sticks around for another year, but nobody’s too optimistic about that.

4. Niklas Lidstrom is 41 years old and playing like a god damn spring chicken. Last season he won the Norris trophy and there’s a rumor that he did it while drinking unicorn’s blood to stay young and healthy. Our question to you is simple: Where is Lidstrom’s horcruxes and how can we destroy them?

TPL: Full marks for fitting horcruxes into a Lidstrom question.  Now that I see those two phrases paired up, I’m wondering how I missed that connection before. I hate to disappoint, but Nick’s power is anything but magic. The elder Swede is all about old-fashioned conditioning and hard work.

Little known fact: Nick told me over beers last week that he relies on a steady diet of taxing fat chicks from BU and MIT to keep himself healthy.  Strange?  Not really.  His rationale is that it take so much aerobic effort because of the sheer mass on these broads that one session is equivalent to 30 minutes of TOI.  If you do some math, it’s actually a really smart way to condense his training.  Chelios used to ride a stationary bike in the sauna.  Draper did offseason workouts with the Lions.  For Nick, it’s fat Northeastern women. He says it keeps him young, limber and healthy.  I’m not about to question his methods.  Neither are the fine rotund women of collegiate Boston.

5. You have one seat open for Thanksgiving dinner. You send out invites to all the Red Wings of the past and only Brendan Shanahan, Sergei Fedorov and Kris Draper accept your invite. Because you have only one invite, you decide it’s best to settle this with a good ole fashioned fight to the death. Who walks out the winner? How did they do it?

TPL: Great question.  Shanny is the only one of these guys I’ve ever seen get into a scrap, so that’s the easiest answer, but my gut says Kris Draper comes out of that pile alive.  For one, we could easily swap him out with his stunt double, Chuck Norris, who would obviously clean house.  Two, he’s still one of the toughest guys on the planet as far as I’m concerned.

It’s also worth noting that the first one to die is Federov.  Do I even need to state that?  Is that implied?  Was that a red herring?