After a disappointing start to the season, here are three ways for the Red Wings to improve their station in the standings
After a disappointing start to the season, here are three ways for the Red Wings to improve their station in the standings
Last Saturday, the Detroit Red Wings won their first game of the month of November with a 2-1 victory over the Buffalo Sabres. It was a good start to the month after a disappointing 4-5-1 record to open the season in October. With 12 more games this month, what is the Red Wings path to a successful November?
There are some contextual factors that help playing the poor October record: a difficult early season schedule and an illness slowly but surely working its way through the dressing room to name the two most acute ones. Still, the standings don't take that context into account, and the simple fact is Detroit wasn't good enough in the first month of the season to get where it intends to go.
To make November successful, it seems fair to assert that the Red Wings would be well served to win more than half their games (i.e. at least six more wins to go with the one already in the bank from the remaining 12 games this month). A key inflection point there will be the California road trip the weekend after next. That trip was a source of momentum for the Red Wings heading into the second half of last season, and the Kings, Ducks, and Sharks certainly seem like beatable opponents.
In the featured video above, I touched on three paths to getting over .500 this month for the Red Wings, including finding more success on the forecheck, added production from Jonatan Berggren and Marco Kasper, and decreasing the collective dependence on Cam Talbot and Alex Lyon in net. Check out the video above for the full breakdown.
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