Red Wings display their multiple personalities in loss to Calgary

Holmstrom screens Kiprusoff on Lidstrom goal (AP, Paul Sancya)

Every team needs an identity to hang their personality on, and be able to definitively say that's who they are.

The problem for the defending Stanley Cup champions is that with just 14 games left in the regular season, they have multiple personalities.

And on Thursday night they displayed the various faces of those personalities in a 6-5 shootout loss to the Calgary Flames.

The first personality to make their appearance on Thursday was the one that allows soft goals. Calgary's Olli Jokinen scored from the goal line off to the side of the net when goaltender Ty Conklin left some space between himself and the post on the short side. And while the crowd gave a collective groan, they were willing to give Conklin the benefit of the doubt, after all he was going for his 14th straight win at Joe Louis Arena.

The next personalities to make their appearance were the dominant Wings, and the Wings who have trouble beating a "hot goalie".

Starting with a five-minute boarding penalty to Calgary's Dion Phaneuf for a phantom hit on Dan Cleary, Calgary made a parade to the penalty box for overly aggressive behavior after the whistles. And while the Wings enjoyed a 7:12 stretch of power play time including 4:45 of five-on-three play they outshot Calgary 22-0. They dominated the Flames throughout the opening period outshooting them by a total of 28-4, however managed just two goals during that stretch, unable to beat Mikka Kiprusoff on many great opportunities, and alas creating the "hot goalie."

The Wings again revealed their dominant personality, coincidentally at the same time that Calgary was two-men short in the second period as Nicklas Lidstrom scored on the powerplay to stretch the lead to 3-1.

The Red Wings are the highest scoring team in the league and they have accomplished that with a roster that has scoring threats throughout the lineup, and they displayed that personality as Valtteri Filppula continued his hot streak with his fourth goal in his last five games to open a 4-1 lead. Calgary responded quickly and the teams went to the second intermission with the score 4-2 in favor of Detroit.

Then the third period revealed the other Wings team that has followed the champs like a black cloud all season. They abandoned their aggressive attacking style and settled on just chipping the puck out of their zone. Knowing that Detroit was not attempting to mount any offense, the Flames didn't need to concern themselves with defense and began to attack in five man waves. Just getting the puck out of zone became difficult as the Flames allowed no time and space to anyone. The result? Calgary scored three goals in a span of 2:02 late in the period and looked like they were going to steal this game in regulation. At this point the Wings had yet to register a single shot in the third period with just 1:40 left to play.

And low and behold the dominant Wings re-emerged when Dan Cleary scored on their first shot of the period with just 42 seconds left to play to force overtime. Calgary dominated the black cloud Wings in the third and outshot them 17-2

Calgary capped the incredible comeback win as Olli Jokinen scored the deciding goal in the shootout.

At this point in the season ideally you would like to be reinforcing and refining who and what you are as a team, but the Wings have yet to resolve their inner personality conflict and decide whether they are the team that is chasing the President's Trophy or the team that has lost 8-0, 8-2 and coughed up a two-goal lead in the final four minutes of a game at home, all in the last 10 days.

Be sure to check out the slide show for some snapshots from the game.

And on this date, March 13, in Red Wings and NHL history:

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