Detroit Red Wings: 4 Things That Will Be Better This Coming Season

By most team's standards, the Detroit Red Wings had a fairly successful season last year. They won the Central division, but lost in seven games to the Sharks in the second round of the playoffs.

Fortunately, Detroit fans are not most team's fans.

Detroit's fanbase holds the team to a high standard every year, and this being the 20th straight year (the longest in professional sports currently) of the Red Wings in the playoffs, Red Wings fans have a right to hold the team to a higher standard.

In the second round of last year's playoffs, Detroit took San Jose to a Game 7 after falling behind three games to none, only to lose and watch their season come to an end.

Detroit's season came to an end, but Detroit fans never give up on their teams (just ask Lions fans and Red Wings fans before 1997).

As annoying as it was to go out to San Jose for the second straight year in the second round, Wings fans know that with just a small amount of tweaking, and a little bit of luck, Detroit will be back in the driver's seat this season, ready to make another run deep into the playoffs.

Many fans who only follow casually might have missed the overall big picture, but this slideshow will show how the Red Wings will rebound (even with the loss of Rafalski) and be a better squad than last year.

Pavel Datsyuk's Hand

I cannot express in words how much injuries affect a team in a season.

Fans (and strangely enough, some coaches) excuse their team's performance when a star player, or significant player on the team is injured and unable to play or play well.

Having said that I am not going to blame last year's second round exit to San Jose on injuries.

Pavel Datsyuk broke his hand in December and was out for about a month.

While he made it back a month later, one could tell that Datsyuk's game was off a little bit defensively.

This was evident, as Datsyuk's takeaway numbers dropped from 132 takeaways and 1st in the league in that category, to 11th in the league with 71.

Part of this can be attributed to the reduced number of games that he played, but the other bit might be due to his hand not being strong enough to stick lift other players as much.

This should not be the case next season, and if Datsyuk plays a whole season next year, he could be looking at 90-95 points with an outside shot at 100.

Defense, Defense, Defense

Last year, Detroit dropped the ball defensively.

Yes they might have scored 3.13 goals per game, second only to Vancouver, but their defense was absolutely atrocious, giving up 2.89 goals per game, good for 23rd in the league.

For those of you who are good at statistics, that doesn't leave much room for error; if you don't score three goals, you lose.

Compare that to a team like Vancouver, who had a goals per game of 3.15, and gave up 2.20 goals per game.

That's almost an entire goal differential.

If Detroit hopes to come anywhere near the Stanley Cup this year, they must improve their goals against per game to be a top ten team in goals against.

Some stats don't lie, and as the best two regular season defensive teams made it to the Stanley Cup Finals last season, it goes without saying that Detroit must vastly crunch down on their goals given up per game if they hope to succeed next season.

After Rafalski's retirement, the Wings went out and signed Ian White.

White, a player who must Detroit fans had seen enough of in the seven game series against the Sharks, will now be playing for the Wings and hoping to better their defense and improve on last season's unfortunate numbers.

Fortunately for Detroit, coach Mike Babcock is not content to let his team go down hill defensively.

Johan Franzen's Ankle

As I said before with Datsyuk's injury, I can't blame the team for playing bad without him; but I will not make excuses for their performance while he wasn't playing 100%.

The same can almost be said with Franzen's injury.

Franzen was rammed into the boards at an awkward angle by Shane Doan.

Franzen was not the same afterwards in the playoffs, trying to come back a couple times, both in that round and in the next one.

But it didn't take a hockey analyst to see that Franzen had trouble even moving around on the ice.

The Red Wings hope that Franzen can get back to normal for the start of the season, and I for one see no reason why he shouldn't be 100% by the start of the season.

Any Red Wings fan will remember Franzen's abilities when he is 100%, but just in case you forgot, they are listed here and here.

The Mule will kick back next season

Detroit Penalty Kill

Detroit's power play last season was a top 5 power play.

Their penalty kill was not so good.

In fact it ranked 17th in the league.

Now Detroit killed off 82.3% of the penalties they took, but it isn't how many a team kills, it's the ability to kill them in timely situations.

Detroit's inability to kill them off in the second round of the playoffs was quite obvious as Detroit only killed off 76.1% of penalties in the playoffs (that number hovering around 66% in the first round).

If Detroit wants to go further than the second round, and finally beat San Jose if they were to play them again, the success of the penalty kill is a must.

Once again, it's not about the number of penalty kills, it's about the timeliness of them.

Detroit should be semi-improved in this area next season with the addition of Ian White.

Rafalski was a decent penalty killer, but his inability to move around the ice later on in the season was clear from the way he struggled to get the puck out of the zone, turning the puck over in front of his own goal.

Keys to Victory

Year in and year out, Detroit is one of the most talented teams in the NHL.

That is quite obvious by their streak of 20 straight years in the post-season.

It is not a question of if, but when they make the Cup Finals and win the Cup.

Each season, more and more questions come up regarding the age of this team.

However, Detroit has gotten a lot younger this season, with the retirements of Draper, Osgood, and Rafalski, but they still have some things to prove and questions to answer, moving forward into next season.

Will their penalty kill and defense improve?

Will their goal scoring touch and power play continue to dominate?

Is Jimmy Howard the answer in goal?

Are they young and able enough to compete for a whole season again?

Will they remain healthy for the most part?

All these questions and more will be answered throughout the course of this season, but don't be surprised to see this "aging" Red Wings squad make the playoffs and be a serious contender again.

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