Red Wings experiencing December blahs

I’ve been on the IR again, which is plain old pissing me off, but so are the Red Wings, honestly. At 11-14-and-4 heading into tomorrow’s Hockey Night in Canada game vs. Toronto, the Wings sit tied for 6th in the Atlantic Division, but they’re remarkably only 6 points south of 4th place and/or the 1st Wild Card spot.

With that blessed parity basically saving the Wings’ season thus far, I think the greatest amount of frustration I have is with the Wings’ consistency, or the lack thereof.

It feels like it’s one step forward and two steps back for the team every week, and that certainly felt like the case after the Red Wings had that rousing shootout win over Buffalo in Sebastian Cossa’s NHL debut, only to come out flat as a pancake against the Flyers, playing emotionless, robot-like hockey…

And when the Wings’ secondary scoring goes “poof!” and they play robot hockey, man, is it uncomfortable to watch the team underachieve. It looks like they’re playing Jeff Blashill-era “poke-and-hope while trusting the process” hockey from two or three years ago…

And without having replaced Shayne Gostisbehere on defense, without the vocal bench cheerleader that was David Perron, this team can be very quiet and very plain, especially with Patrick Kane in a slump where every pass goes over his stick and every shot goes over the net.

Andrew Copp at least shows up when he seems most irrelevant and scores a couple of crucial goals. Vladimir Tarasenko is slowly warming up. I really liked the pair of Johansson and Gustafsson last night, and both Ben Chiarot and Jeff Petry have been…competent…most of the time.

But without J.T. Compher and Kane going, and the fine DeBrincat-Larkin-Raymond line shut down, again, it feels like Marco Kasper is doing all the heavy lifting up front, and he’s just not at a position in his career where it’s fair to give the Kaspers, Berggrens and Velenos all the offensive responsibilities. For better or worse, they’re just not that consistent (yet?).

Hell, last night, Christian Fischer led the Wings in shots with 4, Moritz Seider had 3 shots and 5 more attempts, the Larkin line (and Seider) were all -3 thanks to Scott Laughton’s 2 empty-net goals, and Simon Edvinsson didn’t play a shift after 54:56 of the 3rd period, which seemed to indicate either “shift management “or a minor injury.

And the Wings are still at a point where Cam Talbot’s facing 35+ shots a game most games, so while he’s been great, the Wings are over-taxing their goaltenders just as they over-taxed them last year.

Add in the Wings’ inability to win faceoffs last night (they went 17-and-29 on faceoffs, or 37%), and the team’s not starting with the puck, and not finishing with the puck, either.

Now the Wings get a 3-day break after Saturday night’s Hockey Night in Canada game against what might be a Anthony Stolarz-less Maple Leafs team, but the Leafs are rolling along at 18-9-and-2, having won 5 of their last 7 games, so there’s almost an expectation (as my The Flying Octopus co-host Tony Wolak has suggested) that Saturday night’s game might be an inflection point for change, should Detroit come out flat…

Continue reading Red Wings experiencing December blahs

Episode 14 of the Flying Octopus Podcast

It was hard to find some positives after the Red Wings’ 4-1 loss to the Philadelphia Flyers on Thursday, but Evan Sabourin, Tony Wolak, Devin Little and I did our best to figure out the direction of the Red Wings going forward in the latest episode of “The Flying Octopus” podcast:

Frustratingly sick again

Hey, everybody. I am sorry that I’ve missed the past three days and two games. I came home from Aunt Annie’s cardiologist’s appointment with a moderate bug, and it’s kept me out of the loop.

I wasn’t able to muster the energy to watch the Red Wings-Sabres game, and I’ve spent most of the past three days down and out in bed with a fever and fatigue.

I hope to be back by Saturday night vs. Toronto at the very latest. It’s been incredibly frustrating, depressing, and disappointing for my health issues to persist like this, and I am very sorry for my absence. It’s bringing me down, big time.

Red Wings-Sabres morning skate Tweets and game preview: it’s Husso vs. Reimer as two struggle-streaking teams meet in Buffalo

The Detroit Red Wings face a difficult task in battling the Buffalo Sabres this evening (7 PM EST start on FanDuel SportsNet Detroit/MSG-B/97.1 FM). Buffalo has an 11-13-and-3 record because the Sabres, who started well, have dropped 6 straight games, most recently losing 5-to-2 to Utah on Saturday afternoon.

Given that the 10-13-and-4 Red Wings are also on a losing 5-game losing streak (0-3-and-2), something is going to have to give tonight, and Field Level Media reports that the Sabres believe that they’ll prolong Detroit’s pain:

“I think we’re starting games really well and I don’t know if it’s a bit of complacency or what it is, but we’ve got to fix the second periods,” forward Jason Zucker said. “It seems like we come out in the third and get a bit of that fire back and start playing again. We’ve got to fix it.”

Buffalo had a three-game winning streak and a winning record before the skid. The Sabres are looking to end a 13-season playoff drought. Detroit has the second-longest postseason drought, spanning a franchise-record eight seasons.

The good news is that one of these teams will emerge with a much-needed victory.

“We just need to get back to executing the way we know how to,” Zucker said. “It’s not a care thing, this room cares. This room has a lot of guys that care and want to do the right thing. It’s about doing it time and time again.”

The Red Wings and Sabres split the first two games of the four-game season series. Buffalo won the first meeting at home, 5-3, on Oct. 26. Detroit collected a 2-1 home victory on Nov. 2.

Buffalo held an optional morning skate today at the KeyBank Center…

Continue reading Red Wings-Sabres morning skate Tweets and game preview: it’s Husso vs. Reimer as two struggle-streaking teams meet in Buffalo

Tweets of note: ‘Razor in a blazer’ and two birthdays

According to the Red Wings, the team will be giving away a “Razor in a Blazer” doll on December 23rd vs. St. Louis…

And two Red Wings have birthdays today:

In search of secondary scoring

The Red Wings changed up their lines ahead of tomorrow night’s game in Buffalo (7 PM EST on FanDuel SportsNet Detroit/MSG-B/97.1 FM), and the Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan spoke with Red Wings coach Derek Lalonde regarding the Wings’ rationale behind their revisions:

Dylan Larkin was between Alex DeBrincat and Lucas Raymond, basically the only three forwards who are scoring goals these days. Marco Kasper was between Michael Rasmussen and Patrick Kane. J.T. Compher centered Vladimir Tarasenko and Andrew Copp. The fourth line consisted of Jonatan Berggren, Joe Veleno, Tyler Motte, with Christian Fischer rotating in.

…

“We’re doing pretty good things away from the puck, defending pretty well, but what’s frustrating is we’re not finishing,” Lalonde said. “Even this stretch of late, it’s a lot different than what we had early when we weren’t scoring. We weren’t getting looks. We’ve had some good looks of late here, and hopefully, we can start finishing.”

Lalonde has talked the last several days about wanting the Wings to be more effective around the net, scoring some “greasy” goals, in hockey parlance — and with that in mind, most of those new lines have a touch of that going for them.

“With some of those lines, (they’re) getting some different skill sets to complement some guys,” Lalonde said.

After Raymond (10 goals, 28 points), DeBrincat (11 goals, 22 points) and Larkin (12 goals, 21 points) there’s a huge drop-off to defenseman Moritz Seider (13 points). The Wings have received minimal secondary scoring among the forwards this season.

“We’d like a little more secondary scoring,” Lalonde said. “Again, we’ll keep pounding (for) some harder offense, on the whole. I don’t think scoring is going to be a natural, or a strength of ours by any means. I didn’t look at shooting percentage but it has to be one of the poorest in the league (23rd of 32 teams). Hopefully, we can keep harping on some things and get some pucks in the back of the net. I still think we can get scoring throughout our lineup, guys willing to continue getting to the inside, some of the harder areas.”

Continued (paywall); there’s no doubt that the Red Wings’ lack of secondary scoring is damning them, offensively speaking…

Video: Kasper, Cossa and Lalonde’s post-Sunday-practice remarks

The Red Wings shook up their forward lines during Sunday’s practice at Little Caesars Arena’s BELFOR Training Center.

Before flying to Buffalo for tomorrow night’s game vs. the Sabres (7 PM EST start on FanDuel SportsNet Detroit/MSG-B/97.1 FM), coach Derek Lalonde told the assembled media that the Wings are uncertain as to whether they’ll start Ville Husso or Sebastian Cossa on Monday evening.

The Red Wings posted a 10:16 video of Marco Kasper, Cossa and coach Lalonde’s post-practice remarks for your viewing pleasure:

Sunday fundraising

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Revise and edit

The Hockey News’s Sam Stockton discusses the Red Wings’ revised forward lines as evidenced by Detroit’s Sunday practice:

Coach Derek Lalonde reunited an Alex DeBrincat–Dylan Larkin–Lucas Raymond trio that found some success early in the season.  He also reconnected J.T. Compher and Andrew Copp, placing them on a line with Vladimir Tarasenko.  Patrick Kane—who has been quiet since returning from injury—moves down to a third line role, beside Marco Kasper and Michael Rasmussen.

The purpose behind the changes is obvious: The Red Wings need to find more goals. As Lalonde explained, “We would like a little more secondary scoring, and again, we keep trying to pound some harder offense. And yes, obviously on the whole for the year, we rank towards the bottom of the league and rightfully so…The early stretches, we were not producing chances, kinda living off our power play there a little bit. But of late, we’re getting some quality looks.”

Continued with an update on the Red Wings’ goaltending situation…