Wings looking in the rear view mirror

HFNHL Red Wings

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In a conference as tight as the West, playing .500 hockey just doesn’t cut the mustard and as a result the Wings have been watching other teams behind them narrow the gap.
While the central division teams have continued to beat up on one another, and some may argue have faced a tougher schedule, teams like San Jose, Edmonton, Minnesota, and Anaheim have come on strong. The Wings have seen their gap over the Minnesota Wild reduced to one point and the Blues have moved within five.

With the Wings and Blues set to face one another twice more in these final ten games the team cannot afford to take anything for granted and needs to find some spark again.

The key to any final ten game run will be to get Sean Burke enough rest. Ever since facing the Jackets in a home and home series back on game days 111 and 112 Burke has been rather fatigued. As a result, Antero Niitymaki has started 3 of the last 8 games and even that does not seem to have helped. On Friday Burke gave up 4 goals on only 8 shots to the Oilers and was eventually replaced by Niitymaki in the 2nd period. The team is going to try putting Sean into an oxygen chamber for the next few days to see if that will help.

While nothing is certain in such a tight race, the odds of a Minnesota vs. Detroit 1st round matchup is looking increasingly likely. The biggest question is who will start at home and whether it will be an advantage. The Wild have been rather dominant at home this season but the Wings have been equally successful on the road and so it is hard to tell which team will prevail.

Asked if there was any particular team the Wings would prefer to play in the first round, GM Niece simply pointed out that for the first time in the teams history it can claim they have a winning regular season record against all eight of Western Conference play-off teams.

Unfortunately in the case of the team’s next opponent, Philadelphia, the same is not true. Philly has won the first two meetings this season and Detroit will be looking to avoid a sweep.

Go Wings.
 

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