Red Wings Mid-Season Review.

The Wings are SO good at losing gracefully. Third in the Atlantic purely because we have 8 OT losses. 25 - 16 - 8 is bullshit. This is sort of just our thing now I guess. We win every few games and catch OTLs for the rest. I was ASTOUNDED that we beat the Isles the other day. 4-2, in regular time no less. That's the thing though. We're 19 for 23 in games where we scored 3 or more this season. When our offense shows up, we win the majority of the time.

Of course, that also means that only 6 of our 25 wins have been under 3 goals. We need to step the fuck up defensively. Our goalie situation is a mess. I used to think we were too hard on Howard because we all had the bar set so high after Osgood, but now I honestly can't tell you that he's better or worse than Mrazek. I lean more towards Mrazek, mostly from that insane performance when Ovechkin was on the cusp of breaking Fedorov's record in November:

This team is so frustrating, because the talent is clearly there, we just tap into it randomly. Dylan Larkin is the best rookie in the game right now, no question. Nyquist, Tatar, and Abdelkader are all good for at least a goal or two a game between the three of them. Zetterberg and Datsyuk aren't the scoring machines they used to be, but they're still great for the assist. To be fair, neither of them are exactly young - Datsyuk was drafted six months before Ocarina of Time came out on N64. Zetterberg came along right after that. The fact that they still produce at this point is fantastic in itself. 

All in all, it goes back to the OT bullshjt. We've had 16 games go to OT or SO. With 8 OTLs, we're .500 on the encore because we can't close for shit.

This is a great team that just needs to find it's rhythm. After the All-Star break we have the Lightning in Tampa Bay. We haven't lost to them since that chokefest in the playoffs. Let's kick their shit in and retake that #2 slot.