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(Yeah, it’s been a while. But the season only really began a week or two ago, so sue me.)

Tonight — about six weeks after pundits began to say that we’ll see what the Detroit Red Wings are truly made of — we’ll get to see what the Detroit Red Wings are truly made of.

I said, in a post a few months ago — that is conveniently located just below this one because I am so bad at consistent updates — that I wouldn’t worry about the Wings until January 31. Then that date passed and I still wasn’t worried.

Then Canada won gold at the Olympics and I forgot all about the Red Wings for a while. Then they came back with no renewed focus whatsoever, winning a couple of games and dropping a couple of important ones, while languishing in the ninth spot in the Western Conference.

Then … I started worrying.

It’s startling to think just how strange an NHL season it’s been.

The Colorado Avalanche and Phoenix Coyotes comfortably hold playoff spots, while the Detroit Red Wings and Calgary Flames face a life-or-death game on a Monday evening in March.

What odds could you get on that before the season began? 150-1? 200-1?

The most successful team of the past decade is staring down a straight-up brawl to make the post-season, and with the Predators in the fight too, the next two or three weeks have all the indications of a classic stretch of hockey.

One or two of these teams are going to have to get on a roll and really come together in order to make the playoffs. And the teams that survive will be first-round nightmares when they arrive, thanks to the epic struggle that will force them to mature and perfect their games.

It’s the perfect test for the aging Red Wings. They are staring down the barrel of two guns. The Flames, a younger, more physical team that struggles to find cohesion; and the Predators, a team of hungry little brothers who are just starting to hit puberty and learn how to fight back.

If the Flames can find the intestinal fortitude to smack the Motown Dynasty a couple of times on the way to a No. 8 seed, it will mean they have found the elusive bonding glue that brings a team together. If that’s the case, how much trouble will they really have with Joe Thornton and his “playoff leadership” in their opening matchup?

Or, how happy do you think Miikka Kiprusoff will be to know he  has to out-duel Cristobal Huet in net, should the Blackhawks end up as the No. 1 seed?

Meanwhile, the Wings, healthy now and just starting to find their legs, desperately need to knock off a Flames team tonight and worm their way into the last playoff spot over the next couple of weeks. Everybody has bad days and bad weeks — and bad months and bad regular seasons (Hi, Chris Osgood!) — but a champion should be able to shake it off.

If this is a team built to perform when it matters. Well … it fucking matters now.

It’s hard to imagine the team that went to the last minute of a seventh game of a Stanley Cup Final 10 months ago flinching in the face of a wanna-be eighth seed playing for their lives with 14 games remaining in the regular season. But hell, they flinched last week and have flinched every time there’s been an opportunity this season, so I suppose it isn’t exactly out of the question.

On the other hand, if … somehow, someway … Mike Babcock and Nicklas Lidstrom can find enough pretty, inspiring dressing-room words to convince this team that their legacy stands or falls on the next two weeks of hockey; if they can somehow get the message into the heads of younger players like Valtteri Fillpula, Niklas Kronwall, Jimmy Howard and Jonathan Ericsson that a couple of deep playoff runs, or a even a few nice months during the regular season, do not mean they have proven themselves; if they can somehow make Todd Bertuzzi, Patrick Eaves and Jason Williams realize that nothing they have done to this point matters, because real Red Wings hockey is played in March and April … and May and June.

If the coach and the captain can somehow get the message through to Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg that yes, they’re tired and sore and they have every right to feel that way after two full seasons, two full playoff runs and an Olympic games, but … fuck it, they’re also better than anyone else on the ice when they have a mind to be. If, if, if.

If they can do all that and, finally, at long last, get every member of this team on the same page for the first time in 10 months …

Well, then tonight’s game, and the month of hockey to come, could really be something to see.

Would you bet against the Red Wings against the Joe Thornton-led San Jose in the first round of the playoffs? No? What about against the Chicago Blackhawks and the Cristobal Huet/Antii Niemi tandem?

If — and it really is a huge ‘if’ based on the season so far — this collection of aging legends, tired superstars, entitled rookies and hungry castoffs from other teams can finally pull themselves together, then who in the Western conference can take them down in a fair fight?

If, to paraphrase a television cowgirl, ‘given all those fuckin’ givens’ the Wings can finally take two or three steps forward without stumbling, spitting or turning around and walking backwards, then that bet I placed in the dregs of February, the one that had the Wings at 13-1 to win the Western Conference, just might not be a waste of $10.

Regardless of what happens however, nights like tonight are times when the cream rises to the top. I’ll be watching. The NHL world will be watching, and you can be damn sure the Blackhawks and Sharks will be watching. And, depending on the outcome, perhaps changing their pants.

This strange and twisted season, such as it is, really does begin tonight.