There was some concern about the adjustment that the Red Wings would make coming over from the West into the East, specifically since they have not had a chance to play a team from the East last season. There were questions on how would the team handle the fairly tough new Atlantic division with up and coming teams like Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, and Tampa bay. Oh, there is also a fairly decent team in Boston Bruins. So the plate was full for Mr. Babcock and GM Kenny Holland, besides figuring out how to fit their seemingly endless supply of graduating of rookies into the roster.
The first 10 games tell a fitting story – the Red Wings are still doing their ol’ Red Wings thing.
With the record of 6 wins and 1 loss to the East, the Wings are already showing that the East might have a new top dog in town. There was some concern over the first meeting with Boston and the 4-1 loss to the bigger and tougher team. The young defense did not really experience the kind of style Boston plays before, and adjustments needed to be made. In the next meeting, the Wings used their speed to their advantage in taking a 3-2 victory. While Boston is a very good barometer of your team, the Wings did manage victories over Buffalo, Carolina, Philadelphia, and Columbus. The next two games are coming against Ottawa (3-3-2) and NY Rangers (2-5) – two teams that really are looking for some traction as each expected much better starts. I will not go into how interesting it will be to watch Daniel Alfredsson coming back to Ottawa because you figure that out on your own.
While the East has been a fairly smooth ride so far, the team did struggle against the West, with two fairly big losses to the Phoenix Coyotes and a 1-0 loss in a shootout to San Jose Sharks. In both games we saw a repeated concern in lack of scoring depth and awful coverage by the young defense. Both of the last two loses were without the team’s best defender and one of the leaders, Niklas Kronwall. He suffered a fairly brutal hit to the head, but seems to be recovering fairly quickly and will rejoin the squad soon. The October month will end with a game in Vancouver as the Wings prepare to tour some of the Western Canada to start November.
That is 10 games in a nutshell, and while the record is as good as we could have hoped for, there are some issues to mend.
The defense is holding up, but is not as good as we want it to be. I mean, this is not really news, but what I would like to focus on is not the defensive issues, but rather the lack of offense that this defense is providing. Without Kronwall on the score sheet our defense has combined for 7 points whereas it had 13 with Kronwall’s 6. This is very alarming to me, and in my opinion is the reason for lack of secondary scoring. Other teams that generated a similar amount of goals have much more support offensively from their back end. TampaBay has 17 points from their defense, the Montreal Canadiens have 25 points, and Chicago Blackhawks have 20 points. This stretches beyond the pure scoring category.
The issues come also from the inaccurate passing during the breakouts, D to D, and power play set up. I know not everyone can dish it out like Nicklas Lidstrom and Brian Rafalski, but boy oh boy has it been sloppy. The Wings are a puck possession team and passing is very key to this structure. Defense plays a huge roll in the way the puck moves up, down, and side-to-side in this system. Our D has to be better in the delivery, so the forwards do not have to stay as deep or adjust their progress to accept the pass and stretch the neutral zone a bit more.
To highlight this horrid passing is the ludicrous amount of icings that occurred during the game against the Sharks.
Pointing the fingers is never a good idea, but the minus 13 sticks out like a sore thumb for Brendan Smith and Kyle Quincey. Both need to be better and specifically in the passing game. Making the right decision with an accurate pass has got to get better. Turnovers have happened for no reason for these two. Confidence is especially lacking in Brendan Smith and I think he really missed an opportunity to play with Lidstrom to absorb his cool, controlled, and error free play like so many others have had a chance to. Smith is not a bad player and before you get your pitchforks think about how little he has played in the NHL. Smith is 24 years old and has only played 54 games in NHL. Yeah, he did show some very good promise in 11-12 with seven points in 14 games, but he was playing 3rd pairing with very limited minutes. He had more “freedom” as you may say, as we had good old #5 eating up huge amounts of ice time. He will get better and it might get a bit uglier before getting better, but it will get better, rest assured.
While most Red Wings will not be pleased with the first 10 games and find so many wrongs with this and that, I offer a brighter side of things to end this 10 game report of sorts.
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Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg are still spewing enough magic to carry this red bus anywhere it needs to go. The magic is still all pure sizzle and I am sure Mr.Alfredsson has probably enjoyed experiencing some of it. The super-Swede has made an impact, but not where we thought he would. Daniel only has 1 goal and, while he is shooting a bunch, the pucks are still not going in as often as he would like. For the most part Detroit is not exactly breaking offensive records right now, but still winning with gritty, tight defensive play. Weiss has only two goals and has been moved down to the third line duties, but if anything this is just to get him more room to shoot the puck. Weiss only has 12 shots on net and we would want about 25 to 30 out of him by now. Alfredsson needs to hit the net a bit more as some of his chances have been going wide.
Darren Helm is coming back and this news cannot be more welcomed by everyone who has ever thought about inking themselves with a Red Wing tattoo. This guy is a die hard fan’s favorite ‘little engine that could’, and having him back will provide tons of speed to the bottom six. Thomas Tatar has two games under his belt and zero points, but he has been very active and I would like to see him get a short stint playing with the Euro Twins as I feel like he has a good finishing touch and is not afraid to bang the body.
There has to be something said about how fantastic Jonas Gustavsson who has played in the few games Jimmy Howard could not go. Last year we heard a lot of fans hammering to see more of Petr Mrazek in the NHL, but those voices have quietly faded away due to such strong play from the “Monster”. Who would have thought that this guy could deliver such stellar performance edging out Sidney Crosby and taking the 1st star of the week honors?
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The good is good when you are winning but the train has to keep on rolling. There are strong rumors about moving Jordan Tootoo out of Hockeytown to make room for Helm and other forwards we have stacked in Grand Rapids or in the press box. I’d like to see a draft pick come back our way, but who knows when or what that will be.
The East has been a fun joy ride so far, but it has been only ten games and a long road ahead. This will be interesting to see what Xavier Ouellet can do as it seems like he is destined to see more games this year. And I am still holding my breath to see Gustav Nyquist back in the line up – come on Dan Cleary groin, work with us!
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