Detroit Red Wings' Current Slide Should Put Their Season in Perspective

At the beginning of December, I wrote this article suggesting that Red Wings fans should be prepared to throw in the towel on this season.

This generated a few different responses.

I was called a "bandwagon" fan, accused of giving up on the team itself and repeatedly reminded that, this season, the Wings might very well be what the Penguins were last season.

I am not a bandwagon fan, will always be a Red Wings fan, and assert that giving up on a season, is hardly the same as giving up on one's team.

I am a realist.

And though I'd want nothing more for my beloved Wings to go on a tear and make the playoffs, I'm here to tell you that holding out hope for this is simply setting yourself up for disappointment.

The Wings started the season by playing unfocused hockey, giving up leads and looking about as sharp as a sack of wet mice.

53 games into the season, they look about the same.

Now, of course, they've lost over 300 man-games to injuries, among those, most of their top players.

But, they were healthy to start the season, and still played poorly.  Now, they are very near healthy, and are still playing poorly.

There are times when a team runs into a season in which nothing seems to click, everything seems to go against them and even flashes of success aren't enough to pull them out of their malaise and back on the winning road.

Roster changes, multiple key injuries, young players learning how to play in the NHL, incompetent referees, and extremely tough inter-conference opponents have all played a part in Detroit's lack of success.

The longest the Red Wings have had a sustained presence in the playoff picture this year is 11 days.

Looking at the competition in the West, it is very possible that the eighth seed spot would come at a price at or around 100 points.

The Wings currently have 59 points and, as of Wednesday's debacle in Minnesota, have fallen back to ninth place.

If they are to reach that 100 point plateau, they will need to go 21-9 over their remaining games.

Think about that, 21-9.

For a team that hasn't won more than three games in a row all season, calling that a tall order would be the same as calling Salma Hayek a "decent looking woman".

Now, its true, we've got a few more players set to comeback from injury, the most important being Johan Franzen.

However, as much as I truly love "the Mule", is he really capable of putting the entire team on his back and charging through the rest of the season as world beaters en route to another playoff berth?

Before you answer, consider that the two players who have proved capable of doing such a thing, Henrik Zetterberg and Pavel Datsyuk, are both far below their point totals of the last two seasons.

If Detroit's two best offensive players cannot get the team on a run, hoping that their third best who's missed nearly an entire season of hockey will is a tad unrealistic.

Detroit is 3-4-3 over their past 10 games and they've surrendered two-goal leads in four of those games, losing three.

One could take this 10 game stretch and replicate it five times and create a disturbingly accurate picture of the Wings' entire season to date.

If you're waiting for the Red Wings to "come back", don't.

They're here.

This is the 2009-10 Red Wings.

As much as we all want to see them succeed and push their consecutive years of playoff appearances to 19, hoping for it would only set us up for more heartache than we've already gone through.

Realizing that this season is headed for disaster isn't giving up on your team, it's simply accepting reality.