In Red Wings Land

Detroit Red Wings destroyed, Jimmy Howard pulled in soft 2nd period of 6-1 loss | Freep

Soft goals and sorry special teams left the Detroit Red Wings to explain another blowout loss.

They returned to Little Caesars Arena on Monday after two lousy outings on the road. Their game against the Nashville Predators began well but a disastrous second period yielded a 6-1 drubbing, the third straight time the Wings have lost by at least four goals.

The Red Wings are really, really bad.

Have we finally reached rock bottom? Or can it actually get worse?

Wings have been outscored 17-4 in the last 3 games and are now 1-10-1 in their last 12 games (outscored 52-20)

Something’s gotta give soon. They certainly weren’t projected to be anything better than a bottom-5 team but their recent results are unacceptably bad

— Prashanth Iyer (@iyer_prashanth) November 5, 2019

The Tank Is On

Wheeler: Preliminary ranking for the 2020 NHL Draft’s top 62 prospects | The Athletic ($)

Alexis Lafrenière or Quinton Byfield… come on down!

Around the League

Why the slapshot is becoming a lost art in today’s fast-paced NHL | Sportsnet

But the disappearance of the slapshot is the result of more than simply increased game speed and dwindling space out on the ice, Turk explains. As the overall skill level in the sport continues to increase at a rapid pace, so too do the number of mind games being played by both shooters and netminders, with both parties training daily to outsmart the other. Amid that back-and-forth, more reasons to move away from slappers have emerged.

This is actually an interesting article. It never occurred to me that we’re seeing fewer slapshots these days in the NHL. It does, however, makes sense.