Red Wings flying again: Why you shouldn't be surprised at Detroit's 'best team' in years

DETROIT — After barely making the playoffs the past two seasons, the Detroit Red Wings are 17-6-6 for 40 points, one off the lead in the Eastern Conference. They’re on pace for 113 points, which would be their best total since 2007-08, when they posted 115 and won the Stanley Cup. They posted 112 in 2008-09 and went to Game 7 of the Cup final.

“This is the best team we’ve had here since probably ’09, and not necessarily point-wise, but direction-wise,” coach Mike Babcock told reporters the other day. “We have more players going in the right direction than we’ve had in a long time. That’s what good teams have. They have internal competition.”

But here’s a little perspective: The Wings started 15-8-7 for 37 points last season. On the morning of Dec. 7, 2013, they were four points off the lead in the East. They were on pace for 101 points. They weren’t as good as they are now, but they weren’t far off. And they had essentially the same cast of characters.

So what happened last season? Why did the Wings finish 39-28-15 for 93 points and end up with the last wild-card spot in the East?

Injuries.

It’s easy to forget now, but the Wings lost 421 man-games to injury last season. Stephen Weiss missed 56. Darren Helm missed 40. Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg each missed 37. Johan Franzen missed 28. Jonas Gustavsson missed 22. Danny DeKeyser missed 17. Daniel Alfredsson missed 14. Jimmy Howard missed 13. Justin Abdelkader missed 12. The list goes on.

Only 27 times did the Wings have both Datsyuk and Zetterberg in the lineup. In the second half of the season, the Wings played largely without two of the best two-way players in hockey. Datsyuk played 10 games after Jan. 1. Zetterberg played zero games after Feb. 8.

At the general managers meeting last month, Columbus Blue Jackets GM Jarmo Kekalainen tried to put his own injury epidemic in perspective in terms of man-games lost. “One of my colleagues upstairs told me that if you have 400 or 300-and-something, you have no chance of making the playoffs,” he said.

Yet the Wings made it last season, anyway. The real surprise was that team, not this one. The Wings relied on kids and call-ups, particularly Gustav Nyquist, who started the season in the minors because of a logjam and ended up leading the team in goals with 28. He scored 23 in 28 games from Jan. 20 to April 2. The Wings also spackled a hole by trading for veteran center David Legwand at the deadline because they didn’t have enough healthy bodies down the middle.

Two positives came out of it: The Wings extended their playoff streak to 23 seasons – 12 seasons longer than any other active streak – and their young players gained experience and confidence. Entering this season, the theme was simple.

“A lot of it this year will be about staying away from injuries and seeing what we can do as a team,” said defenseman Niklas Kronwall in September. “Last year I didn’t think we really got a chance to do that.”

“Getting everyone back healthy,” Nyquist said then, “it will be real fun to see what we can do as a team.”

Alfredsson is gone. Legwand is gone. So are Todd Bertuzzi, Mikael Samuelsson and Jordin Tootoo, but those three, especially the last two, weren’t main pieces last season. Otherwise, the biggest differences have been health and growth.

Zetterberg leads the team in scoring with 25 points. Datsyuk has been Datsyuk again since recovering from an injury, backchecking and stealing pucks, dancing around and working his magic. He has 12 goals and 22 points in only 18 games.

Nyquist continues to score. He leads the team with 13 goals. Tomas Tatar continues to score, too. He has 12. Others continue to develop, like Riley Sheahan, a big-bodied center who can match up with star players defensively and has six goals and 15 points – on pace for 16 goals and 41 points, which would be career-highs.

Helm is back from injury hell. So is Weiss, the big free-agent bust last season. After two groin surgeries, after so many stops and starts, he has four goals and 10 points in 10 games. Finally he is doing what they expected him to do all along.

The Wings wondered about their scoring entering the season. Well, they rank fourth in goals per game at 3.03. They’re also seventh in goals against at 2.34. They’re a solid possession team at even strength and have top-10 special teams units. Howard, healthy again himself, has rebounded in goal. He has a .918 save percentage.

Babcock deserves credit. He’s the best coach in the NHL, and he has the Wings organized. Another reason they have improved this season: they have been more aggressive pushing the puck up ice. That’s why there is so much consternation about his contract situation. But he has the horses – to survive when injuries are awful, to thrive when injuries are limited.

GM Ken Holland and his staff deserve credit, too. The Wings have lost so many great players over the years – Steve Yzerman, Nicklas Lidstrom and so on. They have lost so many great minds – Scotty Bowman, Jim Nill and so on. Thanks to success and trades, they have not drafted in the top 10 since 1991, and their average first pick over the past 23 years has been – get this – 39th overall. They have made a conscious effort to hold onto most of their picks since the salary cap was introduced in 2005. Even so, their highest pick since 1991 was 15th last year. Their average first pick in the cap era has still only been 29th. They have drafted well (and gotten a little lucky). They have developed well, stayed patient, made players earn NHL jobs and built a deep organization.

The trick will be to replace Datsyuk and Zetterberg one day. But they have a lot of good, young players in the NHL now – players with both skill and will – and they have even more coming. Just one example: Anthony Mantha, who scored 57 goals in 57 games in junior last season, had a shot to make the NHL as a 20-year-old this season. He suffered an injury in camp. He’s now in the minors, and the Wings are not rushing him.

The Wings’ track record should not be taken for granted. They should have fallen off long ago just because of the natural cycle. That’s why so many people have predicted their doom prematurely. But considering how they have defied gravity, considering what happened last season, are they not about where they should be? If they could get 93 points with a team that lost 421 man-games to injury, shouldn’t they be on pace for far more when they’re relatively healthy and those young players have played another year?

The biggest concern now might be this: Last season showed how quickly things can change, how a good start can become a struggle. To stay on this pace, the Wings have to stay healthy.

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