It's Gut-Check Time For The Red Wings
By: Will Burchfield
@burchie_kid
There's no such thing as a must-win game in December, they said. There's still a lot of hockey to be played, they said.
A few months later, heads bowed, they skated off the ice for the final time at Joe Louis Arena, wondering how they bid the building such a somber farewell, wondering how they became the first Red Wings team to miss the playoffs in 26 years.
It's fiction threatening to come true.
To start scripting a different story, the Red Wings need to put a stake in their current losing streak, salvage their current homestand and prove they're capable of greater things. That starts tonight against the Kings.
"It's not too late," Frans Nielsen told reporters on Wednesday. "But if we don't start tomorrow, it is going to be too late."
Melodramatic? Not for this team, not the way things have gone so far. The Wings have won 13 times in 30 games, a haul that puts them on pace for their fewest wins in a full season since 1989-90 - the last time they missed the playoffs. With each opportunity that passes them by, another red "L" marking the occasion, the Wings sink further into the abyss.
But it's not just that they've been losing. It's that there's little reason to believe the losing will stop. Both to the eye and by the numbers, the Wings have looked overmatched for much of the season.
We watch them struggle to maintain puck possession, and then notice they have a five-on-five Corsi of 47.51 percent. We watch them fail to consistently drive the net, and then notice they're creating barely six five-on-five high-danger scoring chances per game. Behind every visible flaw, it seems, is a number that validates the eye.
The good news is that the Wings seem to be righting the ship. Their possession rates and scoring chance rates have improved since the first month of the season, when Detroit look flat-out doomed. They're still well within the bottom third of the league in both categories, but progress has to start somewhere.
Jeff Blashill likes to separate the season into five-game segments, aiming for six points in each segment. Over 82 games, that equates to about 98 points - usually a lock for a playoff berth. With 30 points through six segments, the Wings are currently six points off pace.
"We're not going to make that up in one game," said Jeff Blashill, after the Wings' dispiriting loss to the Coyotes on Tuesday.
He's right. But one game has the potential to be so much more. One game can be the antidote to frustration, the stimulus to confidence. One game can be the start of a turnaround - and what better time than now, with the Wings having hit rock bottom last time out?
"We're going to go out on Thursday and try to win a hockey game, in game number one of this segment. We're going to try to come out of this next segment (as) plus, so we're going to get six or more points, and we're going to start clawing our way back to where we want to be," Blashill said. "That's how it works."
Tonight's game is so important because Tuesday night's game was so poor. The Wings need to banish whatever negativity may be lingering from their performance against the Coyotes by playing 60 minutes of crisp, inspired hockey against the Kings. As fiercely as they must compete, so must they execute with precision.
The Wings are still within the playoff picture thanks to the scuffling Atlantic Division, but they cannot be lulled into a false sense of security. Though they're four points shy of third place in the Atlantic, they're also just three points clear of last place in the East. And while the deficit is growing, the cushion is shrinking.
Now they enter the seventh segment of their season, with two games remaining on a five-game homestand that's yielded just one point thus far. After that, they'll hit the road for 10 of their next 11 games. With so much to prove and even more to live up to, they're desperate for a spark.
There's no such thing as a must-win game in December.
The truth, or the team's famous last words?
*Note: All stats courtesy of NaturalStatTrick.com
