Jeff Riger: Wings Desperately Want To End The Losing!
After the Wings latest loss, a 2-1 defeat to the hands of the Kings on Wednesday night, the team got back to practice to try to correct their latest flaws on Thursday afternoon. Detroit has lost 4 games in a row and it seems like there are a couple problems that the team needs to fix immediately. Over the course of the losing skid, the Wings have scored just 1 goal in 3 of those games and led 4 to 1 in the 3rd period of the other game before losing 5-4 in a shootout. When Nick Lidstrom was asked what is wrong with Detroit lately he said "I think there's more then one thing, just our overall play defensively and having a third man high coming back in our own zone and sorting it out. I think there are details in our game that we need to work on, not just one specific thing."
As the team gets ready to try to break the skid and take on the Oilers on Friday, the question around the dressing room was, is it easy to over look a bad team that has no chance of making the playoffs like Edmonton? "Well every team is capable of beating you" said Mike Babcock. " Do we have any reason not to be prepared? We should be the most prepared team in hockey I would assume, so I'm not buying into any of that. It's not like we just won 10 in a row." Jimmy Howard said "you can't take anyone for granted because anyone can beat anyone on any given night in this league. We have to go out there and take care of business and not give them anything."
Another problem for Detroit has been winning in Detroit. The Wings started off the season with a 10-1 and 2 record at home but dropped to 7-10 and 2 at the Joe since the start of December. "We want to do a lot better job at winning more games at home and playing better at home too" Lidstrom said. 9 of the Wings last 15 games of the season are at home, meaning they have a great chance to improve on that Joe record before the post season starts in April. Listen to the Wings take on the Oilers Friday, broadcast time 7:10pm on "The Ticket." Also watch the videos below, it's easy to tell that Babcock is not happy at the way his team has played of late.
