Detroit Red Wings Shine Bright Even With Power Outages in Detroit
Heading into Tuesday’s game against the Florida Panthers the Detroit Red Wings were on a 4 game win streak. The power delayed the start of Sunday’s game and the power went out again before Tuesday’s game, but came back in time for there to be hockey played. Even though the Red Wings fell to the Panthers 4-3, things are looking up for the team. In the past 4 games the Red Wings have been playing some of their best hockey all season.
Scoring power
The Red Wings have outscored their opponents 20 to 12 over their four game win streak. In the last 10 games they have outscored their opponents 37 to 28. At the start of the season, the Red Wings were losing low scoring games and if they weren’t outscoring teams by three goals they were getting beat by three or four goals. Scoring hasn’t been a consistent thing for the Red Wings this season but in the past ten games scoring has been on the rise. Center Pavel Datsyuk has netted 4 goals in the last three games since returning from an injury. Stephen Weiss also got himself 3 goals in the past four games. Players are producing and that is always a good thing for the Red Wings who weren’t scoring much at the start of the season. Also always a good thing for the Red Wings, they won a game that went into overtime or a shootout, always a good thing.
Beating one of the best in the west
The Red Wings past four games haven’t been against the best teams in the eastern division but, Sunday’s game against the Vancouver Canucks which the Red Wings won 5-3 was a small hope that the team could have a good chance against the western conference. Earlier this season the Red Wings took down the Chicago Blackhawks 4-1. The Red Wings are 4-1 against the west this season and getting 2 points against them will help in the long run if the team can also steal games from the top of the eastern division.
Looking ahead
Abby hurt in Canucks win
The Red Wings lost winger Justin Abdelkader in Sunday’s game against the Canucks and might be without him for a week. Abdelkader is listed as day to day with a shoulder injury. He has 7 goals and 8 assists on the season and has been an important player for the Red Wings this season. He is making the hits and breaking up passes and is starting to become the next big name on the team to people outside of Detroit. So the next few games without him could be problematic and may have an effect on the play of the team in his absence.
December in Detroit
The Red Wings play 10 games in Detroit in the month of December and only travel four times. Playing at home hasn’t been this great all mighty winning advantage for the team, but, home games are more times than not some sort of an advantage for any team. The Red Wings playing at the Joe and not having to travel a lot this month will help when the team has to hit the road in January for 8 games including a long two week road trip that takes them to western Canada and then back to the east coast to take on Washington, Buffalo and St. Louis. So the rest for the team will be good for the month of January.