The struggles for the Red Wings continue, they have lost their last three games and are now in a three way tie for the eighth playoff spot in the West with Phoenix and Minnesota. If the Wings can’t right the ship and start playing much better than this could be the first year they miss the playoff since 1989/90 season. Injuries have played a role in this streak of poor play but the team cannot hang it’s hat on that excuse. The Wings aren’t playing with the fire they’ve had in years past, the fore-checking is spotty and the special teams are atrocious. Detroit is getting outshot in 33% (5 of 15) of the games so far this season. In past years the Wings would go a full 82 games without being outshot in that many games. What factors are causing this strange phenomenon? Injuries do play a part in this stat but aren’t the only factor the retirement of Nicklas Lidstrom is looming larger than anyone thought. He was the cornerstone of that defense and a mentor of the younger rear guards and now that he is gone the defense just doesn’t seem to have a leader. Ian White is back from his injury and Kronwall, Ericsson and him need to step up and provide that leadership. Another factor in the Wings being outshot is the lack of consistent fore-check by the forwards. They are letting the other team start up ice without having to make passes to get around fore-checkers, giving their offense a head of steam and not allowing the defense to stack up on the blueline and stop them. All the forwards, but especially the third and fourth liners need to pick up their fore-check and keep the opposition bottled up. An aggressive fore-check will also lead to turnovers, scoring chances and penalties. Of course, having the other team shorthanded isn’t as much of a benefit as it usually is because of the lack of scoring on the man advantage.
I wrote a blog a week ago about the lack of powerplay scoring and it hasn’t improved at all. They are operating at 14.5% which is good for 23rd in the league. The Wings still have not scored a powerplay goal on the road and it doesn’t look like that will happen anytime soon. Tuesday 2/19 the Wings go to Nashville whose penalty kill is clipping along at an 89% pace and are only giving up 1.03 goals per game. The Wings still haven’t solved the problem of Holmstrom’s retirement and it seems like they are trying too hard to get the perfect shot rather than following the old hockey adage that if you throw rubber at the net good things will happen. With both Franzen and Bertuzzi on the IR Detroit just doesn’t have a traditional big body to put in front of the net. As I said in the other entry I believe Abdelkader and/or Tootoo could do the job although not in the power forward sense but in the sense of just having a body screening the goalie. Just as I said before someone on the back end needs to step up and become the powerplay quarterback the Wings have been without since the retirement of Lidstrom.
Detroit also needs to have more scoring from the defense, the nine defensemen that have played this season have 6 goals and 18 assists and nine of those assists belong to Kronwall. I’m not saying the Wings need to turn everybody loose and defense be damned, but the rest of the defense corps needs to start shooting more. This will lead to more scoring chances both for them and the forwards. Speaking of the forwards, Babcock needs them to start scoring too, after the first line of Datsyuk, Zetterberg and Brunner scoring has been sparse. The top line has accounted for 19 goals and 28 assists in the 32 game so far and the other 15 forwards that have played this season have 14 goals and 24 assists or to put it another way the top line has scored 1.47 points per game and everybody else 1.19 per game. To put it one more way, the top line is scoring 15.7 points per person and everybody else 2.5 points per person. That needs to change if the Wings have any hopes this season. Patrick Eaves, Jordin Tootoo and Justin Abdelkader have yet to score a goal this season and Darren Helm hasn’t scored because he has yet to play a game this season. The Wings need all these guys as well as Johan Franzen and Todd Bertuzzi to start scoring. I also think letting Jiri Hudler go to free agency was a mistake, something Ken Holland doesn’t do very often. Last year Hudler scored 25 goals and already has 4 this season which would put him fourth on the Wings. There just doesn’t seem to be the usual swagger in the Wings and they are letting teams dictate the pace of games and giving up leads entirely too often. The Wings have surrendered five leads this season, and that doesn’t count a one goal early lead but just two or more goals. If the Wings want to win then they have to protect those leads especially late in the game. I guess everything has to come to an end eventually but I’m not ready to see the Wings miss the playoff for the first time since 1989/90. I hope Ken Holland, Jimmy Devellano and Mike Babcock have something in store for the team and the fans or this could be a long shortened season.
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