Hanging in there
All things considered 9th place ain’t looking so bad
I haven’t caught enough Red Wings games to have a really good feel for the team. But here are my top three most impressive players at this point in the season. The three stars as it were.
3. Henrik Zetterberg. Z leads the team in assists, points, shots on goal, power play points, game-winning goals, and is a fixture on the PK. He’s the only point a game player on the team and he’s obviously counted on to shut down the opposition’s top talent.
2. Brad Stuart. Stuart has been getting some positive press where Mike Babcock recently said he’s been the team’s best defenseman. Two of the games I’ve caught recently (New Jersey and Anaheim) featured Stuart making goal-saving and game-saving puck re-directions. He also contributed a helper in both games and he’s logged the most minutes among d-men on the PK. He’s also played some on the point on the power play and got the primary helper on Bert’s game-winning goal last night. Hopefully he will be a regular there and supplant Jason Williams. Probably not but a guy can hope.
His plus/minus obviously blows but my uninformed guess is it’s due to two factors: Jimmy Howard and Chris Osgood just playing terribly early on and then losing his defensive partner when Niklas Kronwall went down to injury.
1. Jimmy Howard. I got a good laugh when Tyler over at the Triple Deke said that Jimmy Howard being named the star for a game ought to warrant him getting a human face:
Apparently not. Howard struggled at the start of the season and he let in a really soft goal last night. But let’s consider for a moment what the Red Wings fortunes have looked like since the end of last season:
1. Lost Marian Hossa, Jiri Hudler and Mikael Samuelsson. Sure they also lost Tomas Kopecky but let’s be honest that was about as much of a loss as that golf club Tiger Woods lost when Elin Woods decided to pimp his ride. Not much in the larger scheme of things.
2. Lost top 4 defenseman Niklas Kronwall who was starting to play at a pretty high level. How high? Despite being out of the lineup since November 22 he still leads all Red Wings defensemen in points.
3. As if those offseason losses amongst the top three lines weren’t enough, Valtteri Filppula, Johan Franzen, Jason Williams and now Dan Cleary have all missed significant time due to injuries.
Early on things looked pretty grim as Howard struggled during the first month of the season. I mean 24 goals in October sounds halfway decent, right? But that was in five games! White House security was about the only thing looser than Jimmy Howard’s netminding skills at the start of the season. Then the injury parade started in earnest and Chris Osgood once again thought it would be a good idea to take another full regular season off.
Right around Halloween it looked like making the playoffs would require a herculean feat. We couldn’t even act shocked given the fact that this summer Jimmy Devellano was telling anyone who would listen that this would be the most trying season the Red Wings faced in a really long time.
Then in the beginning of November Jimmy Howard began to show that his billing at the time of his draft as being the next great Red Wings goaltender wasn’t just hopeful thinking. Let’s take a look at his stat line since the beginning of November.
Goals against average: 2.17
Save percentage: 92.6%
Record: 8-4
Of course there are a couple caveats. First off Howard hasn’t been going up against many really good hockey clubs. Only Dallas, Atlanta and Montreal would make the playoffs if they started today. He’s also struggled with consistency throughout his professional career. While there’s no doubt he’s had a solid stretch over the past 12 games Detroit is going to need to have him play at a high level for the full season, particularly with Chris Osgood’s continued inability to turn it on and play at a high level during the regular season.
At this point with all of the adversity the team has faced since this summer I think I’m just going to appreciate Howard’s improved play. One other bright spot is the team has been impenetrable on the penalty kill over the past two dozen or so times they’ve been short-handed. Prior to that this is probably the best graphic representation of what Detroit’s PK has looked like for the past season or so:
So it’s been nice to see the penalty kill once again become a strength.
For better or for worse the Red Wings are going to have to win games grinding it out. I personally prefer those types of games to the 6-5 crapfests that feature terrible hockey play or games that feature regular trips to the penalty box and lots of specialty teams play. If the Wings can make a full commitment to defensive/responsible hockey it could really help them as they have players return from the injured reserve list.
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