With the exception of the giant egg laid in Toronto the Detroit Red Wings are starting to show signs of shaking the off cobwebs.
The latest win over the visiting Vancouver Canucks, a game in which coach Mike Babcock thought his team looked a little sluggish coming off a 9-1 demolition of the Columbus Blue Jacket, was the Red Wings fifth win in six starts. Included in that stretch were wins against Calgary and San Jose.
There are a number of reasons why the Red Wings are playing better, but the most obvious is the emergence of Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg as the team's top two players. Often considered one of the league's best, both got off to sluggish starts.
Take Zetterberg, whose backhand winner against the Canucks pushed his total to three goals and three assists over the last six. In the same span of games, Datsyuk has managed a goal and five helpers - numbers we are accustomed to seeing from the NHL's best two-way forward.
In trying to figure out how he should approach this season, with so many new bodies and his team playing its first two games in Sweden, Babcock said he never imagined he'd also be faced with so many injuries to key players. Johan Franzen went down with a knee injury in the third game of the season while Valtteri Filppula (wrist) and Jason Williams (ankle) were also lost for long periods of time.
Leaving coach Babcock with a dilemma:
"We have two groups (of players) here," Babcock told sportsnet.ca. "We have one group that can do a walk-through on our drills because they have been here and know what is expected. We have another group that has to do the drills over and over and over again before they get it right, the way we want it to be done.
"What you want is to come up with a blueprint that can be used game after game. We need to get ourselves in a position where we know what we have to do and then we do it night after night. Sometimes though, we tend to get a little too cute and end up making bad turnovers that lead to us doing more defending than we'd like to do."
So it remains a work in progress.
Much has been made of the offence the Red Wings lost in the summer with Marian Hossa, Jiri Hudler and Mikael Samuelsson all leaving town. Also, many wondered how some of the Red Wings depth players would endure when given more responsibility. While their numbers might not be as gaudy as they'd like, Babcock admits the likes of Darren Helm, Justin Abdelkader and newcomer Patrick Eaves are indeed getting the job done. Abdelkader scored twice in the big win over the Blue Jackets Wednesday and Babcock says the line of Helm, Eaves and veteran Kris Draper has helped breathe new energy into the team.
The goaltending, meanwhile, is what it is. The Red Wings elected to not direct a great deal of cap space towards goaltending, so it is a little unrealistic to expect the Wings to have a stopper who will steal games night after night. That said, Babcock insisted that the win over Vancouver was a perfect example of Jimmy Howard, the backup to Chris Osgood, doing exactly that - stealing a game. Howard held down the fort while the Red Wings tried to find their legs as they were out-shot 15-5 by Vancouver in the first period.
Perhaps the best news of all is that the Red Wings have climbed back into a playoff position. It seemed a little weird to see the Red Wings on the outside looking in for such a long period of time at the beginning of a season. Slowly, but surely Detroit is starting to find its Wings - pun intended.
"We're 9-3-3 in the games we have played since the trip to Sweden," Babcock said. "I don't think too many teams would complain about that record."
TAKE IT FROM THE HITTER
There has been much talk the past few weeks about the severity of hitting in the NHL. Many feel players too often take advantage of opponents in a vulnerable position and deliver lethal hits meant to inure when a hit with a lesser impact would suffice. Cal Clutterbuck of the Minnesota Wild just happened to lead the NHL in hits last season with 356 in 78 games, an average of nearly five per game.
Clutterbuck told Hockeycentral@Noon this week, "I hit to wear people down. I hit to separate them from the puck. If a guy is in a vulnerable position, I don't hit him to hurt him."
That is the kind of attitude more players need to adopt. The big hit will always be a part of the game, but when it leads to players being lost to their teams for extended periods of time due to head injuries, players need to stop and ask themselves, "Was it worth it?" and, "Could that be me the next time?"
