I’m going to go Babcock’s route and throw this one out without my typical recap format.
In any given season, there are plenty of losses where we can say it was a throwaway game. Sometimes, the loss circles back around to being worthy of getting angry about or whatever, but much of the time, bad losses are outliers with this team. I have to think this is one of those games.
The biggest reason is this:
This is the Wings’ 27th game in 56 days. They’ve basically played every other night for 2 months. It’s the day before the All-Star break.
— Graham Hathway (@Amerinadian19) January 26, 2012
The second point in there is mildy disturbing (obviously, the ideal is that the Wings would be focused all the time, but that’s unreasonable), but still valid. Apart from Jimmy and Pavel, these guys are finally going to get a chance to be with their families without feeling rushed. Their human as much as they are professional so if they got caught looking ahead, so be it.
The other factor is the absence of Nick Lidstrom. Not in the “oh crap what are we going to do when he retires?” way, but in the “oh crap he’s sick on short notice and we have no one better to plug in than Mike Commodore I hope we can cover that gap” way. Lidstrom being out of the lineup on such short notice was going to have an effect that rippled down the lineup. And so it did.
And no, it’s not a preview of things to come. When Nick retires, the team will have the bulk of an offseason to prepare in ways ranging from gunning for free agent defensemen to re-scheming the way they play. No doubt there will be a drop off, but if they can win the Suter sweepstakes this year (for sake of argument), it won’t be to 7-2 losses in Montreal levels. Even if they don’t get a Suter, it shouldn’t be.
Anyway. If the Wings pick up in Calgary on Tuesday where they left off in Montreal last night, then I’ll be concerned. This one gets tossed out otherwise.