Five games in...Wings lucky to be at .500
Following Sunday night’s disappointing 2-1 overtime loss to the undefeated Chicago Blackhawks at the United Center, the Detroit Red Wings sit at .500 with slightly more than 10% of the regular season already in the books.
Realistically, Red Wing fans should be actually pretty content with the start, given the overall mediocre play of the team through the opening five contests. The biggest area of concern for the Red Wings entering this season obviously centered around their new group on the blue line. The opening night debacle in St. Louis only cemented those fears. However, in the four contests since that nightmarish season debut, the Red Wings defensively have been as good as you could hope, especially given the injury losses of arguably three of their top four defensemen in
Ian White,
Jonathan Ericsson and
Carlo Colaiacovo during that span. If someone had told you two weeks ago that by Game 4 of the regular season, the Red Wing defense would feature
Brian Lashoff alongside < b>Niklas Kronwall and
Kent Huskins beside
Jakub Kindl, most fans would have cringed and expected the worst.
There have been a couple of bright spots on the backend despite the injuries. The play of youngsters
Brendan Smith and the aforementioned Lashoff have been welcome surprises. Although they are young and might make their fair share of mistakes, I fully expect
Mike Babcock to continue giving both players ample ice time to continue to accelerate their steep learning curve of playing defense in the National Hockey League.
UPDATE 11:22am ET: It appears Jakub Kindl getting the start tonight over Lashoff.
To be fair, a big reason for Detroit’s improved defensive play revolves around the goaltending of
Jimmy Howard. The pending unrestricted free agent this summer, Howard will be in line for a healthy pay raise from his current $2.25 million if he continues keeping the Red Wings in games as he has thus far. It's becoming more and more apparent that the Wings are leaning quite heavily on Howard (once again) and thus far he has played well. It should be interesting to see how Mike Babcock incorporates
Jonas Gustavsson into the "rotation", given the "Monster" appears to have fully healed his sore groin over the past week.
The biggest culprit in the Wings’ mediocre start has been their lack of success on special teams. In particular, a common Red Wing strength has always been their effectiveness in converting with the man advantage. However, under the guidance of new assistant coach
Tom Renney and without
Nicklas Lidstrom running the PP for the first time in Detroit for close to two decades, the Wings have capitalized only on 2 of their first 26 opportunities with the power play this season. Both goals came on Friday night in their 5-3 victory over the Minnesota Wild. Furthermore, aside from that outburst versus the Wild, Detroit only has five goals in their other four games this year.
Which raises the biggest question I have for Red Wing fans...does this team have enough scoring? Five games is too small of a sample size to arrive to a concrete determination on this matter. Yet when you delve into examining the roster, perhaps these issues the Wings are having scoring goals at even strength may become the norm.
It goes without saying that
Damien Brunner has impressed thus far as a guy who can aid the Red Wings need for offense from their wingers. If he can continue to display the offensive touch he exhibited in Switzerland and in particular, his goal on Friday night against Minnesota, where he streaked down the right wing through the neutral zone with good speed, beat a defender wide and picked the top corner glove side on goaltender
Josh Harding, the Wings will have a better chance of improving their even strength play.
Johan Franzen finally got off the snide on Sunday night in Chicago scoring his first goal of the season. The hope is the notoriously streaky scorer can get on a roll playing alongside Zetterberg and Brunner on the team’s top line. Unfortunately, Franzen is also becoming known for his tendency to go long spells without finding the back of the net, something the Red Wings can ill afford.
The issue for the Red Wings if Franzen hits a cold spell is relying on the likes of soon to be 38 year-old
Todd Bertuzzi, 36 year-old
Mikael Samuelsson, a slumping 34 year-old
Daniel Cleary and a playmaker first centre/winger in
Valteri Filppula to supplement the offensive production of Zetterberg and Datsyuk. The Wings have been able to mask their lack of a proven natural goal-scorer for several years, notwithstanding
Marian Hossa’s one year foray in Motown, where he potted 40 goals.
This team’s window for playoff success is as slim as it ever has been with the presence of Zetterberg and Datsyuk leading this team. It appears the Red Wings need that addition to get them back in the conversation of potential contenders.
More importantly though is whether or not Ken Holland feels the need to make a bold move and look to acquire that high-end goal scorer to finally replace Hossa? Is Holland willing to part with some of the prospects in the system to get that NHL player now to help this current team? Do the Wings even have the necessary assets to interest other teams and acquire such a player?
You have to believe if the Red Wings want someone bad enough, they will be able to make it happen. With potentially only just over a season possibly remaining of
Pavel Datsyuk in the NHL, let alone Detroit, the time is now for Ken Holland to act and give Mike Babcock an opportunity to mould another playoff contender.
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As for tonight’s contest vs. Dallas, it provides a golden opportunity for the Red Wings to avenge their 2-1 home loss last week to the Stars.
Kari Lehtonen stood tall for Dallas in the third period of that contest, after
Jimmy Howard kept the Red Wings within striking distance of the opening 40 minutes when Dallas outplayed Detroit.
Tonight the Wings once again face what should be a tired team similar to Sunday night in Chicago. In that contest, Detroit did not take advantage of a Hawks club playing their 5th game in 8 nights and Chicago hung around long enough despite the Wings holding the territorial advantage over the final 40 minutes.
Dallas returns to the Joe this evening playing their 3rd game in 4 nights, after losing last night 2-1 in Columbus. They will be without forward
Derek Roy, who has four points in four games. Luckily for the Stars, they welcomed back
Jamie Benn to the lineup last night in Columbus as he centered a line with
Loui Eriksson and a banged up
Jaromir Jagr, who is battling lower back spasms.
As for Detroit,
Jonathan Ericsson is expected to return to the lineup tonight, bolstering the injured defensive group for Detroit.
Valteri Filppula is still expected to play tonight despite his knee still bothering him. It very well could be an issue for the Finn for the remainder of the season given the condensed schedule.
Jonas Gustavsson might be well enough to return this evening as Jimmy Howard’s backup tonight after having a week to heal from a sore groin.
Darren Helm had an MRI yesterday on his back, revealing no structural damage. He should return to the lineup in about a week.
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