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News of Wings’ demise is premature

The Red Wings are 5-4-1. They are not playing very well apparently. They are five points out of first in the conference, with a game in hand.

Drew Sharp: Expect wobbly Red Wings to get back to winning | Detroit Free Press | freep.com

Panic is premature. It’s only 10 games. […] They simply have too much of an offensive arsenal to believe that this goal-a-game nonsense will persist much longer. Of greater concern should be that the gap separating the Wings from their Western Conference competitors keeps shrinking. Soon, it’ll be short enough to qualify for a Kim Kardashian marriage. Of greater concern should be that the Wings are rationalizing losses and undisciplined play with uncustomary refrains of how they’re playing better, but just aren’t getting the right bounces.

Uncustomary to Wings maybe, but we Kings fans hear this one all the time.

[…] Coach Mike Babcock shook up the forward lines Wednesday, splitting up Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg. They’re both minus players right now, but your best players will inevitably step up. However, the secondary scorers haven’t made the expected leap from valuable role player to burgeoning star. The Wings figured that Valtteri Filppula was ready for that jump. He has struggled, arguably hitting an early-season low in Tuesday’s loss to the Wild. Babcock publicly challenged Jiri Hudler following last spring’s playoff exit to San Jose to elevate his game. He benched Hudler on Tuesday because in the previous four losses, Hudler hadn’t even thrown a single shot on net. Where’s Danny Cleary? Where’s the Mule?

I am posting this as a reminder to Kings fans that everyone has their own “what’s up with Penner?” or “what happened the chemistry of Kopitar and Brown?” And everyone has their (“not getting the right bounces”) sound-bytes.

(About Detroit though: every year since the lock-out, fans and pundits have been eager to pronounce the Detroit era over, but the Wings always seem to be there when the dust settles. I’m referring to the two cup finals appearances and the one cup.)

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