The Detroit Red Wings are a proud franchise whose fans have come to demand excellence in both the regular season and the postseason. Success in the regular season has come easily, with 100-point years dating back to the 1990s. The postseason has not been as epic. Detroit Red Wings tickets are supposed to bring Stanley Cup championship play to the Joe Louis Arena every three years, but of late second round exits have frustrated the front office and the fan base.

This season there is no way the Red Wings can reach 100-points. The extreme shortness of the schedule will not allow for this. However, the early season has featured a club struggling to score, play defense, and defend or take advantage of the power play. All this should actually combine for a worse record, but a team with this kind of talent still has time to adjust and evolve from a .500 team to a club included in the upper section of clubs by the beginning of the playoffs.

The first thought has to be that the missing piece is Nicklas Lidstrom. Well, the first line pair of Niclas Kronwall, the offensive minded defensemen, and Brendan Smith, the stay-at-home defensemen, has been very good, despite the subpar plus-minus numbers. Even those playing in the second line have been decent. Really, the probability is that the forwards, or the offense overall, has not been busy enough at the other end. Made shots or missed shots, as long as the puck is on other side of the rink goalie Jimmy Howard is not seeing shots. Howard has yet to find his rhythm this season and he is not going to if he is on edge 60 minutes a game. If this can be amended, and with a player like Henrik Zetterberg, then the Red Wings can attend to every nuance and end the regular season with at least one postseason series.