Most NHL franchises would call a season in which they put up 102 points and won a playoff series a success, but most NHL franchises aren’t the Detroit Red Wings. The Wings finished second in the Central Division to Chicago, which was the first time since 1999-2000 that the Wings didn’t win the division.
And, sure, they went and won a Game 7 in Phoenix to advance to the Western Conference semifinals. But they were dominated in five games by San Jose. It was the earliest Detroit—a Cup finalist the previous two years—had been KO’d since 2006. The Coyotes series was the first time in 17 consecutive postseasons that Detroit didn’t have home-ice advantage in the first playoff round.
There was a stretch there that it looked like Detroit might actually miss the playoffs as injuries decimated the team before it surged at the end; after the Olympic break, Detroit was an NHL-best 16-3-2.
Top contributors like Henrik Zetterberg, Tomas Holmstrom, Valtteri Filppula, Niklas Kronwall, Johan Franzen and Daniel Cleary all missed time. Overall, the Wings lost 312 man games to injury. So by simply staying healthier the team should ...
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Article written by Doc Moseman
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October 17th, 2010 by Doc Moseman Leave a reply »
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