Roundtable: Red Wings New Years Resolutions

New year, new Wings?

Today, our staff looks to tackle the resolutions we’d make for the team in 2017.

My New Years resolution for the Wings is probably very similar to your own resolutions. I just want them to fully commit to the goal. 

The Wings are that guy, you know, 60-80 lbs overweight who is committed at the start of the year to knocking those numbers down. He goes out immediately and buys his FitBit (Frans Nielsen) to take the place of his old, dependable watch (Datsyuk). But while he’s in Sport Chek he strides on over to the wardrobe section. Sure, he has a bunch of pair of basketball shorts and great cotton t-shirts (Athanasiou, Mantha) but this Under Armour shirt is on sale right now for $26 this year only and it could work out to be pretty snazzy (Thomas Vanek). On the way to the checkout though he comes across the iPod armbands. Yeah, he doesn’t have an iPod but think how much time he’s going to be spending at the gym; eventually he’ll probably have one right? Just toss it in the cart anyways; we’ll see what happens (Steve Ott). Even though he remembers his iPhone 7 came with wireless ear buds and all his shorts have pockets and could hold an iPod/phone just fine (Bertuzzi, Aubry, Nosek, Callahan) for less money, he buys it anyways. He actually goes as far as to cut out the holes in his pockets so everything he’s tried to retain just slips through (Pulkkinen, Frk). 

You can tell from the outset that this stuff may keep him committed for the first few months because it brings some excitement, something fresh; it gives everyone just enough hope to keep going in the start. But old habits die hard. Just when it looked like he was done with traditionally sweetened cola, he buys a 12 pack of Coke late one night and it starts a trend that will last for 5 more years (Darren Helm, Drew Miller). We saw other signs though. Like he thought he was going to get fit while not even giving up smoking (Luke Glendening), in fact he actually started smoking more. What he really needs though is a super expensive juicer that’s going to last for YEARS (Danny DeKeyser, Justin Abdelkader) but he doesn’t juice any vegetables, and as it turns out, just juicing fruit isn’t that great for you. Meanwhile, it’s costing an arm and a leg for the small amounts of juice he gets from these expensive grocery runs. 

He’s thinking about trying to switch gyms because the one he got on board with years ago is super expensive and while at the time it was state-of-the-art, they’re simply maintaining the old machines (Kronwall, Ericsson, Zetterberg). Too bad he signed that 12-year membership deal though to get the ‘discounted’ rate. He was crushing the cardio to begin with (Howard) but wasn’t seeing the results. So he switched to weights (Mrazek) and that gave him some tone instantly. But he hit a wall and now he’s cardio for 15mins, weights for 20, never really committing to a full proper workout from either and wondering why it just doesn’t click, or why he’s hurting himself repeatedly swapping between so often. 

We all just want to hope that this year he can recognize his past mistakes. Maybe he can skip the annual 20K run (the playoffs) that he ends up walking most of anyways. Sure it makes a great Tinder profile picture, but after a couples dates most people see how hollow it actually is. The real problem is his attitude and the way he deceives himself. This year, we all hope he can see past it.

My New Years’ resolution for the Red Wings is a public statement of accountability from the team’s management group, a sort of “mea culpa” if you will. While the team’s been quite horrendous for much of this season, the management group spent the offseason trying to convince themselves of the opposite. As Kyle talks about of committing themselves to the goal, the first. If Ken Holland and Jeff Blashill serve as the “untouchables” and maintain their job security, I’d at least like to see someone in upper to take the blame for this team’s poor performance.

My New Years’ resolution for the Wings is for them to fix their powerplay. At 11.7%, they have the worst powerplay in the league. Their 5v4 SF/60 is a measly 39.97, which is 5th worse in the league. Watching their powerplay is so frustrating because, if they even gain the offensive zone, you have to watch them pass the puck around the outside of it. They get no action in front of the net and generally end up chasing the dumped puck down in their own end. Simply put, they need to shoot the puck on the powerplay and be prepared to bank in rebounds. Getting the puck down low and having someone with silky smooth hands to handle the puck (Tatar or Nyquist) will go a long way. Fixing the powerplay will be crucial to their success in the second half of their season, which is why it should be one of their top priorities in 2017.