The last time the Detroit Red Wings missed the NHL playoffs George H. W. Bush was President, the Soviet Union was still in power, Dances With Wolves won the Academy Award for Best Picture and Bette Midler won the Grammy for Record of the Year. Pump up the Jam was burning up the airwaves and Cheers and Seinfield were number one TV shows. 2013 might be the year the Wings miss the post season again. The standings going into play Thursday 4/11/13 have the Red Wings with 43 points in the eighth and last playoff spot. They are three points behind the Minnesota Wild in seventh but only one point ahead of the Phoenix Coyotes in ninth and two points ahead of the Dallas Stars and Columbus Bluejackets in eleventh place. Can the Wings hold off the Coyotes, Stars and Jackets and extend their playoff streak, the longest in North American sports, to 21 years? The Wings have nine games left against, the Sharks, Blackhawks, Flames, Canucks, Coyotes, Kings, Stars and two against the Predators. That is six games against teams already in the playoffs and three against teams behind them battling for that last playoff spot. There are a few aspects of their game the Wings need to improve if they have any chance at staying in eighth.
The powerplay is an area of concern, as it has been all season, the Wings rank 14th on the powerplay at home with 21.4%, 20th on the road with an anemic 14.5% and 14th overall with 18.3%. This stat almost as much as any other is the reason the Wings are struggling this year. I have already written posts on the powerplay and how it can be improved and the Wings have not done enough to improve it. They still haven't found a person to replace Tomas Holmstrom in front of the net, a good powerplay quarterback is still missing and they are still losing the battles in the corners. The lack of powerplay scoring effects most other aspects of the offense and if it isn't changed, and fast, then Detroit will either miss the playoffs or lose in the first round. The Wings are 10-11 in one goal games, 2-4 in two goal games and 7-6 in three or more goal games. They allow 2.60 goals per game but only score 2.53 goals a game, ranking them 24th in goal differential at -3. All these stats mean two things; one, the Wings don't have the horsepower to make any kind of comeback especially if they are down by more than one goal. The other thing it means are teams aren't afraid of the, once potent, Detroit offense which always used to play into Detroit's hands. If teams are afraid of the offense then they will play tight and when you play tight, mistakes will be made and the Wings used to feast on other team's mistakes. Without those mistakes the Wings are having to rely on their talent it it just doesn't seem to be there this year.
Goals are down across the board. The Wings don't have one player in the top 40 in goals scored, in fact they only have two players, Pavel Datsyuk and Damien Brunner, with ten goals or more. There are only seven other team in the entire NHL that have only two ten goal scorers, and only one, Dallas, that has less than Detroit and that includes the other 14 teams not making the playoffs! Brunner started out fast but has only scored one goal in the last 21 games, Henrik Zetterberg only has eight goals and Johan Franzen only has seven. The Wings need to do something to get those guys on track. Detroit is not getting much third and fourth line scoring which puts more pressure on the first two lines, and this year, they're not up for the challenge. Of course offense isn't the only problem facing the Wings.
The defense this year is another area in which the Wings need to improve, although it has improved since the start of the season. Even though he will be the first to admit it Nicklas Kronwall is no Nicklas Lidstrom and is a weaker cornerstone to the defense. Teams are still getting way too many chances once a puck is around the net and, just as in the offensive zone, players are getting beat to loose pucks and losing the battles in the corners. The passing in their end has been bad at best and is leading to entirely too many chances for the opposition and Howard's backup Jonas Gustavsson has played poorly this season shifting a bigger burden onto Howard to play well every time.
These are the issues facing the Red Wings and with only eight games left before the start of the playoffs, they need to figure them out in a hurry or they may miss the playoff for the first time in a long time. Would that be such a bad thing? Yes, in a way it would, the fans of the Red Wings expect their team to make a run at the Stanley Cup ever single year, so it would be quite a shock for them. However, every team needs to go through a rebuilding phase and this looks like the start of Detroit's rebuilding and maybe a lowering of fan expectations is a good thing. I know players have said time and time again that they feel the pressure to win it all every year in Detroit and who knows how much of a role that plays in their success or failure. I know that it is a disappointing year for the last year in the Western Conference but hope springs eternal and next year they move to the East and will only have fifteen game outside their time zone and that can only help. Besides, there is always next year! Detroit fans have gone long periods of time without winning the Cup and managed to get through it, and they will again.
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