Detroit Hockey Now’s Max Smith has posted a “Two Truths and a Lie” column, suggesting that the Red Wings won’t be able to make the playoffs this season, but will see significant progress from its prospects:
Lie: This is the year the Red Wings make the Playoffs
This one is more of a prediction, but it’s one I’d be more than happy to be proven wrong on. However, it’s hard to see the Red Wings making it through their Murderer’s Row of division opponents. To put it into perspective, of the eight teams in the Eastern Conference playoffs last year, five of them are in the Atlantic with the Red Wings. And the Florida Panthers won the Stanley Cup. At the moment, the Red Wings are banking on the play of two rookie forwards and one rookie defenseman to be their true needle movers.
John Gibson’s save percentage of .910 is impressive until you see that he only played in 29 games last year, and the goaltender whose roster spot he ostensibly took had 30 games for a .896 save percentage. Gibson should win a few more games for Detroit in net. Hopefully, he stays healthy enough to split the load a little more evenly with Cam Talbot. But there are a lot of “ifs” in this season. At the moment, there’s a lot more hope than evidence that the Red Wings will be truly showing improvement this season.
Continued; there are many moving parts in the Red Wings’ situation which have to line up nearly perfectly for the team to make the playoffs, but I’ve read more than a few predictions suggesting that the Wings won’t finish higher than 7th in the Atlantic, and…
Well, the Wings are going to have to prove a significant slate of “experts” wrong this season, plain and simple.
