Wings continue to lose games
Last night, the Detroit Red Wings lost to San Jose, 3-2, in their ninth loss in ten games. February was a rough month to say the least for Red Wings fans as the team went 4-8-2.
IwoCPO @ Abel to Yzerman sums up what has happened over the last 29 days:
The MSM didn’t even mention Detroit anymore because it was so clearly the Wings and everyone else. Oh, well, there was the occasional, “they need some adversity.”
I think…no, I’m positive…that we’ve met the adversity quota, thanks. Kronwall started it, because he’s Kronwall. Broken clavicle the night before this throw-up-in-your-mouth of a month began, and then the wackiness just kept on comin’. Buckets took a puck to the puss on 9 February, Rafalski’s groin gave out in Nashville three days later. Lidstrom went down the following week, Chelios four days after that, and Hasek’s hip flares because he’s 74 and that’s what happens.
And next thing you know, conference leads started to dwindle, third-period leads disappeared, secondary scoring became a secondary priority, Osgood gets yanked twice in a row, then benched. And the losses piled up. The bellows began from the restless natives. “The deadline will save us,” they yelled. But the deadline didn’t, nor should it have. Tick Tock got us a top 4 defenseman and nature slowly healed some–not all, but some–wounds.
When we got our first four straight losses since Mike Babcock has been the Wings’ head coach, it was cause for concern but just a bump along the road. Then the injuries and losses continued to pile up and the concern quickly grew.
Eric McErlain has also noted the recent downfall for the Wings last month:
February was a miserable month for the Wings, no doubt about it. As the AP pointed out in its game notes from last night, back on February 5, the Wings were 17 points on top of Dallas in the Western Conference. After last night, that lead is down to just four points, and the Stars are all of a sudden looking more potent offensively after the addition of center Brad Richards.
Meanwhile, the Wings were limited to importing journeyman defenseman Brad Stuart from Los Angeles. They’re going to need him, as three of the team’s top defensemen, Nik Lidstrom, Chris Chelios and Brian Rafalski, are on the shelf, with Chelios proclaiming just the other day that he wasn’t “even close” to coming back.
While the news isn’t all bad for the Wings — both Dom Hasek and Nik Kronwall returned from their own stays on the injured list last night — you can forgive the folks in Detroit for feeling like the sky is falling.
So how in the world did this losing streak happen after playing such a strong first half of the season?
Well, obviously the injury epidemic has played a huge role in this. You can’t expect a team to win every game with injuries to the likes of Dominik Hasek, Nicklas Lidstrom, Niklas Kronwall, Brian Rafalski, Dan Cleary, and Chris Chelios. The Wings roster has consisted of a good chunk of Grand Rapids Griffins players so imagine where the team would be in the standings had only one or two players gotten the injury bug.
I’ve got a spreadsheet in front of me with the ice time of all the Detroit defenders over the past 10 games, and it’s rather unbelievable. Rookie Derek Meech, for instance, played 27:19 last night against Edmonton. Brett Lebda led the group with 27:41.
Another rookie, Jonathan Ericsson, was playing key minutes on the power play and Kyle Quincey the penalty kill, with Garret Stafford picking up just five minutes ice time total.
Other than Lilja and Lebda, the Detroit blueline hadn’t had more than a handful of games of experience in the NHL prior to this season.
The Wings are struggling to score on even strength. According to Bruce MacLeod, the Wings have not scored on even strength in seven of the last eleven games. That’s ridiculous.
Personally, I think the team heavily relies on its defensive core and with key players missing, the team is struggling to get in sync and maybe the current injuries are too great to overcome. Maybe we won’t see any improvement until some more players return. While our lead in the league and conference is quickly shrinking, Detroit still has a 18 point lead in the Central Division. While this could certainly change as 14 of our last 15 games are against the Central and we only have a 7-9-2 record against our division, our strong first half of the season allows the team to get its act together and find some sort of chemistry in the midst of all these injuries before the start of the playoffs.
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2 Responses to “Wings continue to lose games”
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March 3rd, 2008 at 11:13 pm
I don’t understand this. How can they continue to lose? They’re beginning to look like the Sens of the Western Conference.
March 6th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
Well it looks like they may have finally turned the corner now that a couple key defensemen have returned. It still was certainly unsettling to see the team play like crap for a month.