Who Are The Red Wings?
by Amerinadian on Jan 11, 2012 1:16 PM CST
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PrintI have no idea why this question is even rattling around in my brain, but after last night's performance and coming off the heels of a 4-game road trip in which the Wings were everything from legitimate Cup contenders to looking like they would challenge for the first overall pick, I can't help but ask the question: who are the Red Wings?
It may seem like a simple enough answer: they're the Detroit Red Wings. Perennial contenders, star players, great head coach, quality organization. But what is this team about? What is it about them that is going to make them successful?
Let me preface all of this by admitting something that was pointed out to me on Twitter by PG Marsh: if you ask this question after a win or string of wins, the answer is probably going to be different. But I took to the Twitterz to ask fans to describe the identity of the Red Wings in one word.
The results were not very surprising, at least to me. Follow the jump for more.
The exact phrase I used to ask the question was this: give me one word you would use to describe the identity of this team. Here were the responses I got back:
Late
Puck-possesion
Complacent
Streaky
Irrational
Pendulum
Mature
Derp (my personal favourite)
Schizophrenic
Resilient
Bipolar
I fully expected someone to break out the "puck possesion" mantra, but is that really an identity? That's a style of play, but a lot of teams have adopted that and been successful.
What was not surprising at all were the number of people who would describe the team the same way I would: inconsistent. We all expect there to be ups and downs over the course of a season; that's perfectly normal. But it's the way the Wings look when they win compared to how they look when they lose that is so baffling. How can a team that can win by 6 or 7 goals on one night get utterly destroyed by the 28th place team on another night? Yea, I realize it's only one game, but how many games have we said the same thing?
When you look at the top teams in the league, they all have something about them that makes them win games. The Bruins will try and out-muscle you. The Canucks play with an edge and use their special teams to hurt you. The Blackhawks will try to outskate you and wear you out. The Blues will out-work you and stay within their system. The Penguins (when healthy) will just out-talent you.
What are the Wings? I grant they are indeed mature and resilient. That comes with experience, which the Wings have in spades. But on a game-to-game basis, we constantly find ourselves asking which Wings team is going to show up, and that's got to be concerning heading into the tough part of the schedule before getting ready for the playoffs. Hell, we don't even know which team is going to show up in a given period, let alone an entire game.
The Wings can play a run-and-gun style and out-score almost any team in the league. They are also capable of playing solid defense and winning a close 2-1 game. The issue that I see is that more often this season than in the past it has been the Wings adapting to the style of play of the other team rather than asserting their will on the opponent. That is very un-Red Wing-like.
That's the real concerning part. A team as talented and as good as the Red Wings should be the ones dictating the play on the ice, not the other way around. It's nice that the Wings can alter their game depending on opponent, but the truly good teams in the league don't do that. I want to know that the Wings are going to play "their game" and if the other team can't deal with that, then the Wings will win.
The Red Wings still have this "aura" around them that causes other teams to respect them, and that's awesome. What's also awesome is that the Wings do have maturity and class throughout their organization. But not knowing which Red Wing team is going to show up scares me.
We're halfway through the season, and the Wings have been up and down the spectrum in terms of their play. Will the Wings show us all who they really are, or are we in for yet another roller coaster?
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I think I understand you here and kinda agree, but I think your thought process here will expose the crux of the issue…
Without launching into an essay on the nature of sports and the difference between looking at the small picture and the large picture, I think the Wings in general play a style of hockey that’s designed to be the most efficient.
While we, as fired up fans, want to see them fly out of the gates and lay waste to every hockey team stupid enough to stand on the same ice surface with a herculean 60-minute effort, these guys simply don’t have the capacity to do that for 82 games in the regular season and then another 20 or so in the playoffs. There’s basically a physical and emotional price to pay for winning every game (or at least playing well enough to have won a game) and only so much tender in the coffers. The Wings spent a lot of that in Chicago because they needed to. They spent very little of it in Long Island… much less than what the Islanders spent. Unfortunately, that wasn’t enough.
Ultimately, a loss to the Islanders in the middle of the season tells us zilch about whether this team is talented enough to beat any other team in the league. We’ve all seen how talented they can be when they’re pouring it on.
The thing about what’s changed (and I absolutely agree that the makeup of the Wings is part of what changed)… but what’s really changed is how much it costs to get a victory in today’s NHL. If you remember cup-winning teams beating up on cupcakes all season long, it’s because even pragmatic teams then didn’t have to spend so much of their physical and emotional tender to get easy victories.
It’s a little crappy to say that the Red Wings don’t care about losing games, but there’s a grain of truth to it in a situation like this and I’m personally glad there is. I don’t know what to tell people who believe the Wings don’t care about winning ANY games (other than “I don’t respect that opinion”), but I’d be lying to myself if I were to say I think they’re putting a lot of tears into their Cheerios over half-assing a game against a team like that. The Leafs, the Hawks, and the Islanders measured themselves up against the Red Wings in the last four days. In the same time, the Wings measured themselves against the Hawks. You read things from nobody teams about how a victory against Detroit means something. About how that game can turn a season around and get them headed in the right direction, if not the direction of the playoffs.
To the Wings? It was a lesson in how much more they’ll have to give in future games against nobodies to make sure they actually win next time while also making sure they have enough left in the tank for the games that they really do consider important. Nothing has changed about their track or their expectations.
by J.J. from Kansas on Jan 11, 2012 3:12 PM CST up reply actions 7 recs
CLAP CLAP CLAP
Bravo sir… spoken like a champ.
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Logged in to rec you
That, good sir, was a beautiful mini-essay. I 100% agree with you.
Upon reading this again...
I’m still unsure as to why the Wings wouldn’t have come out and played against the Isle, even if it wasn’t a measuring stick game. Grabbing points from a weaker EC team seems like it would have a lot lower cost of winning than against the Rangers or Bruins. Unless we’re playing some kind of strategy to ride an emotional high into the playoffs, wouldn’t it stand to reason we’d want to get as many points as we can, secure our spot sooner, and then rest some players for the important games?
Or is it that we don’t have the energy/endurance to play for even 50% of our games? Even then, it seems like the cost of winning equation would be too complex, and the bounces and calls in games being too varied to even solve effectively – if anything, being able to come out and play in more games overall and just trying to play your heart out would seem to yield better results. Plus, you cant effectively pick and choose games in the playoffs…your best shot is as the first seed, and you can always choose home – a privilege we’re not going to enjoy if we keep dropping freebies from the EC.
Some pragmatism is okay, but as a fan I would rather they came out and played more often than not. If playing it this way results in a Cup that’s great, but from an enjoyment perspective its about as much fun as watching your team dive, whine, or concuss the other teams into a Cup. This way involves a whole lot less douchebaggery, but they all amount to games that are hard to watch.
Meh. WTB a team of 20 Helms so we can get some work done.
JJ's post had me riding high
but this one brought me back to reality.
“Grabbing points from a weaker EC team seems like it would have a lot lower cost of winning than against the Rangers or Bruins.”
It is true, the Islanders considered this a bigger game than the Wings did. However, teams like Chicago or even St. Louis would get the win. If we keep blowing off games like these (easy fucking wins) we’ll be facing the Hawks or Sharks on their turf. Not having home ice is a big enough problem, having to play a team that loves to beat Detroit (and lets face it, both of those teams probably would).
didn't finish my last sentence
but you know where it was going
My apologies
That was cruel…I should have provided a ‘Disclaimer: Depressing’, warning the reader to have at least receive 30 minutes of enjoyment of the previous post as I did before delving into my ramblings.
If it helps you ride high again, both posts have merit – JJ’s description not only provides an explanation for the two different Wings teams we’ve been seeing, but it’s also a solution you would expect from an older, wiser team that doesn’t need to prove itself as a team and instead is just trying to make it to the playoffs with as much energy and few injuries as possible.
It's not that they didn't want to grab those points
It’s that they miscalculated the cost of what it would take to win.
Overpaying to beat the Islanders is just as damaging as overpaying to beat the Rangers or Bruins. It’s just that beating an actual contender can bring some tender back while spending that much more effort to squeak by a team playing their own one-game playoff round isn’t worth as much.
The points are the same, and the concept of banking them when you can is a good one. The Wings just undervalued the Isles.
Completely agree on the concept of wanting to see the Wings bring it more often than mailing it in… a LOT more often.
by J.J. from Kansas on Jan 12, 2012 11:25 AM CST up reply actions
Right
I think somewhere in my late-night mess of text I was trying to play the ‘cost of miscalculating" combined with “do we have less in the tank than most teams” angle. We’re very much an older team, so guessing wrong with our pragmatism relatively early on is bound to cost us more and more when our show-up-and-play wins do come closer to the playoffs.
It just hurts when I fire up VersNBCustein and have to marvel that both teams are actually working.
by Nim ~ on Jan 12, 2012 2:06 PM CST up reply actions 1 recs
It just hurts when I fire up VersNBCustein and have to marvel that both teams are actually working.
Rec’d for truthiness
by J.J. from Kansas on Jan 12, 2012 4:51 PM CST up reply actions
I would like to add
That they would have won their games against the Sharks with all their accumulated energy from F’in the dog the other nights. As those games are their only 100% true tests.
Very insightful
I’d also add that every year since the lockout the fanbase seems to wonder/worry if the Red Wings are “slipping” during the regular season because they seem to struggle at times.
Then the playoffs start…
The Playoff Wings are the “Real Wings”. Yes, the haven’t wont the Cup since 2008, but they haven’t been the best team in the league since then either (ok, you could make a decent argument they were in 2009, too).
Wait for the playoffs folks. Be amazed yet again by how much better the Wings look when they don’t give New York Islander caliber efforts.
by Big Z in Orlando on Jan 12, 2012 5:12 PM CST up reply actions 1 recs
Being female, I can't restrict myself to one word
I would combine two of the words suggested above: mature schizophrenic. As fans we are never sure from night to night, hell, from period to period, which team is going to show up — the real Red Wings who work their magic up and down the ice and have the other team so mesmerized watching their awesome puck movement that the Wings can score almost at will — or their evil twins, the Wed Rings, who can’t hit the open net, can’t hold onto the puck and can’t complete a pass to save their lives.
It seems like the real Red Wings are the ones who tend to show up more frequently at Joe Louis Arena, which is always a good thing since it is nice to know that you can generally win on your home ice. It’s the evil Wed Rings that more often tend to show up on the road (or so it seems this season).
Here’s hoping that they learn to say good bye to their evil twins and the real Red Wings show up both at home and on the road on a consistent basis.
To be fair,
The “one word” exercises are too restrictive. I’m the guy who will break the rules by hyphenating everything.
I hope..
That I never have to ask that question(who are the Red Wings?) legitimately, ever in my life. Who are the Red Wings??? The goddayum Red Wings, that’s who!! Shits happens. Every team has bad games. For good teams… it more than often, happens against bad teams. Just the way the hockey gods work, I guess.
Also.. the Islanders are not the same team they’ve been in years past. All those draft picks had to pay off some time. Seems when it comes to the NHL and whether a team is good or not, getting harder and harder to tell. I mean the damn Minnesota Wild were number 1 for a good while and you would have never known it. Which leads to.. just what are the deciding factors if a team is good or not. Theirs a not-so-fine line between doing good and being good. When it comes to the Red Wings.. they’re just damn good.
"WINGnut--BOLThead"
Let's GO..Wings, Tigers, Lions, Wolverines (oh my!) & Bolts!!!! (RIP Cory Smoot aka Flattus Maximus of GWAR)
by Let's JOE WINGS-BOLTS on Jan 11, 2012 1:52 PM CST reply actions
I guess I missed this one..
My word for this year of course would be inconsistent.
But when i think of the Red Wings as a whole I would say Die-Hard.
Not just because that movie rocks my socks, but mostly because I love the come behind wins. Even down 4-0 last night, if Filp had buried that open net, i think that would have sparked a come back instead he missed and quickly followed a frustrated penalty.
Obviously if they have their heads surgically removed from their rectums during the first 2 periods this wouldnt be as big of a deal. But I never count the Wings out. The broadcasters for the Isle’s last night were still scared with a 4 goal lead and they have a reason to be (beyond the fact that they are the Islanders), but because the Wings can spark a come behind that can match Tebow!
Ill call last night a set back, but not indicative of them as a whole.
This may just be the new normal
For the last two and a half years, this is what the Wings do. They look great some nights and horrible others, and before you know it, they’re bounced out of the playoffs in the 2nd round. They’re a good, but not great team. If they were a great team, they wouldn’t have games like these against the Islanders. If everything goes right, I guess they could win the Cup, but the days are gone when they’re the favorite heading into the postseason. It’s not terribly exciting for those of us used to the Wings dominating, but it’s still better than 75% of the teams in the NHL, right?
by FullMarks55 on Jan 11, 2012 2:09 PM CST reply actions 1 recs
The Red Wings are...."Satisfied"
I know it doesn’t sound right or fitting and the players wouldn’t agree…
but the lack of true hunger in that the team doesn’t need to purge themselves for 2 points every night.
The veterans seem complacent and dont need to go be all-stars – just get the job done – all while the rookies ease their way in. Babcock just has to make sure that the wings play ‘fundamentally’ and dont give away games (or 1st periods).
Clearly the wings have been playing subpar from what is to be expected of them – yet they’re right at the top of the Western conference with the usual suspects so -
meh we’re fine
I want to see more Sak/Tots/Goose (in due time w/ proper wings’ grooming of course)
Also – who is trade bait // and what is realistically available – target-able
"A little rudeness and disrespect can elevate a meaningless interaction to a battle of wills and add drama to an otherwise dull day." ~ Calvin (C & H)
Something Derpy This Way Comes
Dr Strangelove: or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Derp
A Clockwork Derp
The Derparted
Some titles for games like last nights
The sun is blotted out as Joe Don Baker approaches.
Smithless
That’s my word to describe this team.
Brendan Smith fan
by JeffHancock41 on Jan 11, 2012 3:40 PM CST reply actions 1 recs
Didn't you hear?
Smith got traded to Chicago for signed Patrick Kane mouthguard
by DeathtotheHawks on Jan 11, 2012 3:51 PM CST up reply actions
I heard we traded him to the Kings for a scoring forward
We got Dustin Penner and his wife’s delicious pancakes
The sun is blotted out as Joe Don Baker approaches.
i heard
he got traded to the Ducks for Corey Perry
You wanna tell me that to mah face?!
YET ANOTHER Detroit Red Wings blog.
by uvgt2bkdnme on Jan 11, 2012 4:56 PM CST via iPhone app up reply actions
I think that the team is still trying to figure out their identity. With so many changes on the team, I think they are still looking for their identity this year, searching for who they are as a team. I believe this has lead to much of the inconsistency this year. I expected some of this when it became apparent in the off season that this would be a new team, different than any before. They will settle in and find their identity and I wonder if it doesn’t take some adversity to bring them together;a cause or event that makes them a team through and through.
by SlapshotGoal on Jan 11, 2012 4:31 PM CST via Android app reply actions
I think the Wings
will work everything out and be fine down the stretch.
Go Wings!!!
11-11-11 !!!
Go Wings !!!
Marcelo Garcia rules.
missing
the wings are missing a top six winger. end of story! bert is not a top six guy anymore, he takes dumb penalties at the wrong time and slows down the top line. however this doesn’t mean the team is broken, they just need to upgrade at the deadline for a true top six guy (I.e. Nash, Priese, Gatzlaf, Rayen NOT penner or hemsky) will that happen? probably not, the asking price will be very high. But I strongly believe that for one of those guys who are still entering/in their prime is the long term solution. a bet worth betting the farm on (see what I did there…)! with the roster the wings have in place now they cannot go the all the way, sure the’ll win a round or two but I don’t see this team making the finals. we just don’t have enough depth at the top.
SHUMU OUT!
by SHUMU on Jan 11, 2012 6:04 PM CST via Android app reply actions 1 recs
How about “givesupthefirstgoaltoooften”
by beal99 on Jan 11, 2012 7:51 PM CST via mobile reply actions
I've been a pessimist about this team all season.
And I think it’s because they’ve given me reasons to be that way. I have trouble seeing a Stanley Cup contender in them because of games like this. While JJ brings up the great point that they don’t give a shit about games against the Islanders, it’s how they’ve won certain games as well. It’s as if the team is collectively assuming the mentality of Johan Franzen. I just hope they can turn it on come playoff time because it’s going to be a tough grind as it is every year now.
My view is that turning it on comes through applying a certain minimum effort throughout the season. That doesn’t mean that they need to crush every team they play or win every game they play, but getting absolutely dominated (!) by the Islanders (!) is the type of thing I’m talking about. It’s also the tendency of this team as of late to spot their opponents a couple goals before starting. That’s an issue that needs to be addressed. It’s hard to consider this team as a serious Cup contender for me because of how good Boston, Vancouver, and even shockingly Chicago (their bottom six nor their goaltending have not been as poor as I thought they would be) have been this year. It’s scary. Plain and simple.
Living in Chicago is great... apart from the Blackhawks fans.
will say one thing that i noticed this year that seems different.
there have been times this year where our very best players have looked down right bad. there was a time where if i saw pav or hank on the ice i felt calm. like its ok… anything can happen now as long as they want it to happen. i mean ive even seen TPH give the puck away at the worse possible time or play a two on one a little too far over to cover the pass. its just a gut feeling that is a little off. only way i cant describe it. a general uneasy-ness that i feel during a game that i wouldnt feel in years past. at least not this often. and thats not to say the wings are bad… just that they dont always feel right.
and by the way i got to go to the game against the kings where we won by like 7 goals. even at the start of that game i felt weird… then like 40 seconds later we had the lead haha.
Cammalleri
Mike Cammalleri wants out of Montreal. He’s getting very little ice time there. Would likely put up some good numbers paired with Pavel.
Franzen 2.0
“He’s a 40 goal scorer!”
Has never scored 40 goals.
So:
Cammalleri-Datsyuk-Franzen
Filppula-Zetterberg-Hudler
Cleary-Helm-Bertuzzi
Abdelkader/Eaves/Miller/Emmerton/Mursak/Holmstrom
Seems like an upgrade, assuming the Habs would let him go for a package of one of those 4th liners or Griffins + draft picks.
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