Abel to Yzerman

Abel to Yzerman

Are The Wings Meeting Your Expectations?

10/16/2018 at 2:22pm EDT

from Ansar Khan of Mlive,

They are expected to compete, work hard, show progress. They did the first four games, two of which went to overtime and the other two sealed with empty-net goals in the final minute of regulation.

But they were embarrassed the past two games on the road, losing 8-2 to Boston and 7-3 to Montreal. The Red Wings seemed to lose what confidence they gained from playing well in back-to-back games in Southern California. They didn't handle adversity well, allowing things to snowball out of control.

Offense was the main issue early on and still is a problem. Too many forwards aren't producing. Anthony Mantha has one goal and three points and an alarmingly bad minus-10 rating. Thomas Vanek, signed specifically to provide offense, has one point (a goal). Frans Nielsen has two points (both assists). Justin Abdelkader has no points while playing in a top-six role....

Blashill, in the fourth and final year of his contract, wasn't going to be judged as much on the team's record as he will be on the growth of individual players, particularly the young ones.

His job isn't in jeopardy, in all likelihood, since expectations to win were low and injuries have contributed to the poor start. It would probably take a prolonged run of non-competitive games before the club considered a coaching change.

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Welcome to Abel to Yzerman, a Red Wing blog since 1977. No other site on the internet has better-researched, fact-laden and better prepared discussions than A2Y. Re-phrase: we do little research, find facts and stats highly overrated and claim little to no preparation. There are 19 readers of A2Y. No more, no less. All of them, except maybe one, are juvenile in nature. Reminding them of that in the comment section will only encourage them to prove that.

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