Tabula Rasa
I once worked for a company where the head of the division would send out an email on the first business day of every month that basically announced that the slate was clean. If you had a great month the previous month, that was great but it was time to begin work on the new month; and if you had a bad month the slate was clean and it was time for a fresh start.
That approach could work pretty well for the Detroit Red Wings. February was their worst month in about 20 years, which is saying something. But if there’s reason for hope that the team will get the ship righted it’s due to the fact they are going to continue to get reinforcements.
-Niklas Kronwall and Brad Stuart both played in the loss against San Jose.
-Brian Rafalski will return for the game on Wednesday against St. Louis.
-Nicklas Lidstrom is expected back in time for the March 13 game against Dallas.
We’ve also been able to see how some players have done with increased playing time.
-Andreas Lilja went -6 in February and looked out of place playing heavier minutes.
-Brett Lebda had a rough month too, going -6.
-Derek Meech had a pretty good month, going -1 since February 18 while playing heavier minutes. He also tallied 3 assists over a five game stretch.
Regardless, the team as a whole has to take the approach to playing better than they did during the month of February and that’s something Kris Draper mentioned to the media.
“We’ve had a couple players-only talks, we’ve done some video, Babs (coach Mike Babcock) has talked,” Draper said. “Everyone realizes we have to bring a lot more energy everywhere. The one good thing about this is everyone has stayed together. No one has gone through something like this before. We’re going to be better for it when we come out of this.”
That’s the hope: the team struggles through adversity and then once they get healthy they get back to playing the way they did prior to February. That’s what I think will happen. If the Wings can pull out a win tonight against the Sabres it would be an auspicious start to March.
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