CBC-Sports

What gives with the Wings?

October 30, 2009 03:39 PM | Posted by   Scott Morrison  

Okay, one month does not make a season, we all know that.

But history has shown that one month, the first month of the season, can have a profound impact on how the final month of the playoffs plays out.

Meaning, in recent years the championship teams have traditionally had a strong October, though the Pittsburgh Penguins interrupted that streak a year ago. For the previous dozen years, though, no Stanley Cup champion had an October win percentage lower than .636.

Which brings us to the Detroit Red Wings, who have meandered through the first month of the season with a 4-4-1-2 record, which includes a 6-5 shootout loss to the Edmonton Oilers on Thursday, which followed a 5-4 win over the Vancouver Canucks on Tuesday.

Eight times this season, in their first 11 games, the Wings have allowed three or more goals. Their record, not surprisingly, is 1-7 in those games. In the games in which they have allowed fewer than three goals, they are a perfect 3-0.

So what gives with the Wings?

Well, as general manager Ken Holland has said, this is very much a team in transition, one that lost the likes of Marian Hossa, Jiri Hudler and Mikael Samuelsson in the off season, taking with them a total of 82 goals. They have also lost Johan Franzen and Valtteri Filppula to injury, meaning another 46 goals.

That's a 128 goals gone missing, though goal scoring hasn't exactly been an issue of late. On any given night, the Wings have upwards of three rookies (for the first time since 2002) and nine new faces overall in their lineup. As coach Mike Babcock said recently, every night they have six forwards who didn't play last season. Hence the transition year.

Which brings us to the defensive issues confronting the Wings. Is the problem entirely in goal or is it the overall defensive play? Or both? It's probably a bit of both.

Now, with so much turnover, the most the Wings have had in years, you could argue it may take a while before they all get the defensive system down pat, which is fair enough. And as Babcock says, right now, it's all about winning. They will earn the style points in time.

But the bottom line remains that the goaltending, regardless of the defensive play in front, has not been very good. Some would use a much stronger adjective.

The other night in Vancouver, Osgood was hooked after giving up two goals on four shots. Two nights later in Edmonton, the Oilers had three goals against rookie Jimmy Howard on their first dozen shots, including a goal 42 seconds into the game, and were up 4-0 early in the second on 13 shots. The only reason Howard didn't get pulled is because Babcock was reluctant to throw Osgood back into another mess.
Now, in fairness to Howard, he did make a couple of big saves as the Wings mounted their comeback, which fell short in the shootout.

But the question remains: is the goaltending good enough to get the Wings to where they want to be?

Osgood, as of Friday morning, ranked 30th with a 3.41 goals against average in eight appearances. Howard ranked 32nd with a 3.52 GAA in five appearances. In terms of save percentage, they ranked 33rd and 34th out of 35. The only good news, of course, is that Columbus' Steve Mason is in their statistical neighborhood, though there are no questions or concerns about the quality of goaltending with the Blue Jackets.

Bottom line is that even if the Wings are able to battle through the injuries and the transition, this may just be the season that Holland has to make a move in goal. Now, they will want to give Howard time to establish his worth and Osgood, a veteran, time to find his game.

It will be interesting to see, though, if Howard has NHL game and whether time, as it inevitably will one day, has run out on Osgood.

This much we do know, the Wings will be patient, they are still deep enough to weather the storm and stay in the playoff hunt, but if they are going to get things turned around they will need vastly improved goaltending to do it. Whether that goaltending can come from Osgood and Howard, well, no one could answer that with any certainty today.

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