Welcome back to another edition of Wings Weekly, a weekly review of the Detroit Red Wings 2017-18 season. The Wings entered the week in the throes of a seven game losing streak. With a light schedule (only two games were played), they had a lot of time to reflect and reset for two of the best teams in the league. With the call-up of Tyler Bertuzzi mid-week, there was a lot going on in Wings Nation, so let’s get to it!

So yes, they finally broke the losing streak which had peaked with a 10-1 loss to the Montreal Canadiens. The feeling of relief, however, was cut short by a loss to the Central Division-leading St. Louis Blues.

The win was a 5-1 victory against the surprisingly good Winnipeg Jets. Jimmy Howard played a spectacular game that saw him turn away 25 shots, only ceding one on the powerplay. All of Detroit’s goals were scored at 5v5, despite having six powerplay opportunities, one of which was a 5-on-3. While the team finally found the scoring support that they’ve been sorely missing, their possession metrics at even strength were sub-optimal, as they were out-attempted 39-37 by the Jets. Gustav Nyquist scored twice and David Booth added another thanks to some patience by Andreas Athanasiou.

In their second game of the week, the Wings took a massive step back as they fell 6-1 to the powerhouse that is the St. Louis Blues. It actually wasn’t a bad performance by the players who out-attempted and out-shot the Blues. Howard fell off of his A-game as he let in four goals on eight shots. After the second period, Blashill opted to let Mrazek finish the game, but he wasn’t good enough to stop the bleeding, despite a third period push that resulted in a Frans Nielsen goal.

The big news of the Blues game was that Tyler Bertuzzi made his season debut for the Red Wings. Widely thought to be a lock to make the roster out of training camp, Bertuzzi experienced a setback with a wrist injury and returned to Grand Rapids where he played in 12 games for the Griffins, scoring five goals and four assists.

With the Scott Wilson trade last week, Detroit needed another forward to suit up when David Booth was ruled out with an undisclosed injury. Bertuzzi was paired with Athanasiou and Martin Frk on the fourth line. He didn’t get a ton of playing time (only 9 minutes and 13 seconds), but he looked good out there. He skated hard, dropped to block shots, and was trying to throw his weight around. He will need to improve his awareness when he’s not around the puck as he was caught out of position a couple of times, but those skills will come the more he plays in the NHL. For now, he is staying with the team. We’ll see if he can stimulate any energy in the locker room going forward.

Nyquist was a star this week as he has a three point (2 goals, 1 assist) night against the Jets on Tuesday. Jonathan Ericsson continues his impressive play by jumping in on the offense with his two assists this week. As I pointed out a couple of weeks ago, Big E is having an improved season. He’s been smarter in his own zone and been more confident in his play, even joining the forwards on rushes.

There are some notable absences from the scoresheet this week, including Dylan Larkin, Anthony Mantha, and Mike Green. All three players, along with Justin Abdelkader, are leading the team in points this season and are heavily relied upon for primary scoring. Larkin and Mantha are young and prone to slumps, but they are going to need to figure out how to bust out of this one. If the goalies are going to play sub-0.900 hockey, then the team is going to have to offset that with lots of goals.

As mentioned above, the Wings took a little dip in their shot attempts percentage against the Jets, but played a pretty good game against the Blues. The real story of Detroit’s underlying stats this season is the inconsistency they are playing with. Rarely have we been getting a similar performance from game-to-game. Instead, we get these spikes where a good game comes crashing down into a bad one the following night. And then, it’s back up in the next game. Nobody is expecting these players to be Corsi Gods, but if they could hover just over 50% game-to-game, they’ll have a shot at snagging that last playoff spot.

Despite not showing up on the scoreboard, Dylan Larkin has been Detroit’s best possession driver. He’s followed closely by Martin Frk, who continues to be a 5v5 monster for Detroit. He should get another look in the top-6 sometime soon. I would love to see a reunion of the FML line (Frk – Mantha – Larkin) to see if the youngsters can build off of each other’s energy.

On the bottom end of the chart is Danny DeKeyser who continues to be a train wreck. In his defense, he has the toughest match-ups on the team every night and is paired with Mike Green, who is also a disaster in the defensive zone. Seeing Athanasiou with the second worst relative Corsi-For percentage on the team is concerning, but he has been getting fourth line minutes with no chance to really get anything going. He has looked great on the powerplay though, as the Red Wings use the power of their youth to really terrorize their opponents at 5v4.

That seven game losing skid hurt Detroit, but the fact that two of those losses came at the hands of the Montreal Canadiens made it even worse. That being said, they are only three points behind Montreal and five behind Boston for that highly coveted third place spot. A win this week against the Bruins would be a huge help in the standings.

Coming up from behind are the Florida Panthers who now only need a single win to overtake the Wings. The Senators aren’t far behind either, but I’m not quite sure what’s going on with them. Their plummet in the standings has been dramatic and devastating for them. I would expect them to bounce back soon.

This week’s player of the week is Tyler Bertuzzi, who made his season debut with the Wings on Saturday! Bertuzzi had a shot on goal and a blocked shot in Detroit’s 6-1 loss. He wasn’t a game breaker, but he didn’t have any glaring screw ups either. He’ll continue to improve the more games he gets into. Keep it up, Bert!

This week was a rollercoaster and I expect the rest of the season to continue down that path. In a candid interview with Jon Keating after their 10-1 loss, Ken Holland said that there will be no teardown or tanking happening in Detroit. This team is going to compete for a playoff spot. Well, if they’re going to compete, then they need to show up. It’s clear now how much this team relies on their goalie’s performance and Howard can’t take another night off like the one he took against the Blues. Maybe it’s time to give Mrazek a string of starts to see what he can bring to the table. With an important week ahead, they need to dig deep and play hard.

The Wings have three games this week and they are all within the Atlantic Division. They need to get to work on putting some distance between the Florida Panthers and themselves and they need to gain ground on the Boston Bruins. Stay tuned because this week is either going to be really fun or really disappointing.

Monday, December 11 – vs. Florida Panthers, 7:30 P.M. ET

Wednesday, December 13 – vs. Boston Bruins, 8:00 P.M. ET

Friday, December 15 – vs. Toronto Maple Leafs, 7:00 P.M. ET