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Red Wings rolling at mid-season mark

Samelsson and the Wings celebrate mid-season mark (AP)

The Detroit Red Wings have reached the mid-point of their season on a roll. They have won their last six games and their last seven at Joe Louis Arena.

 

They have a record of 29-7-5 for 63 points, good enough for second place in the Western Conference, behind San Jose who are 31-5-5 through their first 41 games with 67 points.

 

For comparison, last season the Wings set the mark for the best mark at mid-season in NHL history with a record of 30-8-3 for 63 points. “That’s a good record,” pointed out Wings coach Babcock following the team’s win over Buffalo on Saturday night to get the team to the midpoint of the schedule. “We set the record last year and we’re right there knocking on the door this year.”

 

And despite the equal records from year-to-year the defense and goaltending this season has endured some scrutiny while not performing to their capabilities at times, a fact that is not lost on the coach. “I think there has been (a bit of a hangover from winning the Stanley Cup last season), but I think we have enough skill and enough professionalism and enough determination that it hasn’t shown as much in the win-loss department as much as it has shown in our play.”

 

For more on the Wings at this point check out Lamar Tidwell’s analysis here.

 

At the quarter mark of the season I graded each player individually, at this point of the season let’s focus on the team as a collective in various aspects of the game.

 

Offensively the Wings rank second in goals for with 148 and goals per game with 3.61 behind the Boston Bruins who have scored 152 goals in 42 games for an average of 3.62. Most impressive about the Wings scoring is when they score. They are seventh in goals in the first period, fourth in second period scoring, and in the third period, when games are decided, they rank first in goals scored. Extending this analysis a bit further the Wings have the second best winning percentage when trailing after one period at (0.545) and the best winning percentage when trailing after two periods of play (0.417). When playing with the lead the Wings have the seventh best winning percentage when leading after one period (0.742) and the 18^th best winning percentage when leading after two periods (0.850).

 

The Wings powerplay is tops in the league clicking at 27.4% with 48 goals on 175 opportunities. The Wings are extremely efficient on the powerplay away from Joe Louis Arena where they have converted 33.8% of their opportunities. That is 8.3% better than any other team on the road.

 

The Wings also lead the league in shots on goal with a total of 1,519 shots for an average of 37.0 per game, nearly 100 more than the New York Rangers who have played three more games than Detroit. And on the flipside of this statistic the Wings have allowed the fourth lowest shots against, surrendering 1,134 shots or an average of 27.7. The positive differential of 9.3 shots per game is easily the best in the league.

 

Defensively, the Red Wings rank ninth in totals against with 112, but 11^th in goals against per game at 2.73. However, this is an area the team has improved in the last 10 games, allowing just 20 goals while going 8-1-1 over that stretch.

 

“Our goaltending has been better, there is no question,” said Babcock, following the Wings recent win over the Dallas Stars. “Conklin has played real well, and now Ozzie (Chris Osgood) has come back and has been real fresh for us. That is a real good sign. We need good goaltending to have success.

 

“We want to end up being one of the best defensive teams in the league, and we weren’t able to do that in the first half, so we are going to have to really focus on that in the second half,” admitted Babcock. “But if you can play really well defensively and with our talent, the offense is going to come for us, so if we can just looked after the play without the puck we’ll be on offense a lot.”

 

An area the team has identified for improvement in the second half is their penalty killing, but that depends on the location. At home the Wings are the best allowing just nine shorthanded goals in 78 times shorthanded for an 88.5% success rate. On the road however, they are a league worst 73.4% allowing 25 goals on 94 attempts. Overall this places the team21st with an 80.2% success rate.

 

“We’ve talked about it all year long, trying to get better in that area, and I think you are always a work in progress, you’re always trying to get better. We have obviously identified our penalty kill as something that has to get better. It’s great at home, but it’s not where we want it on the road,” said Babcock. “Defense is about work ethic and details, and when you’re committed to it, it obviously goes better for you.”

 

The Wings are also the least penalized team in total minutes with just 415, an average of 10.3 minutes per game which just slightly more than Carolina which averages 10.1 minutes per game. Detroit has the fewest major penalties, and is the only team in single digits in this category with seven.

 

In other statistical categories the Wings rank:

 

1^st in faceoff winning percentage at 55.7%.

2^nd in shootout save percentage allowing 3 goals on 19 attempts (0.842 save percentage).

6^th in shootout scoring percentage, converting 8 of 18 shots (44.4%).

11^th best in giveaways with just 7.2 turnovers a game.

21^st best in takeaways per game with 5.8 takeaways a game.

22^nd in hits per game, averaging 18.2 hits per game.

25^th worst in missed shots per game with an average of 12.8.

30^th in blocked shots per game with nine.

 

It appears there will be a happy ending to the unfortunate stick caper from the Winter Classic at Wrigley Field. The stick was stolen from a 14-year old by a person posing as a security guard at Wrigley Field, and subsequently sold to another fan. The fan who purchased the stick has heard of the terrible misdeed which led to their good fortune and appears willing to return the stick. Please click here for all the details on yahoo.com

For more info: All statistics from www.nhl.com.