from Ryan Ford of the Detroit Free Press,

If they fall off that 44-point pace, they risk finishing behind the century’s worst team so far, the 1999-2000 Atlanta Thrashers, who went 14-57-7-4 (back when teams got a point for ties or OT losses) en route to 39 points in their inaugural season.

Let’s take a look at how this year’s Wings squad compares to those '99-00 Thrashers (who are now in their ninth season as the reborn Winnipeg Jets) and judge which team was worse.

The record

So the Wings have 15 wins through 63 games. Two of those — Jan. 10 vs. the Senators and Feb. 6 vs. the Sabres — have come in shootouts, however. Under the no-shootout point system of the 1999-2000 season, then, their record would actually be 13-44-2-4 and they’d have 32 points, two less than this season. (Yes, the Wings are bad enough to be virtually immune to Gary Bettman’s charity.) That’s worse than the Thrashers were through 63 games; Atlanta had 34 points, with a 12-41-6-4 record.

The worst? Wings.

The scoring

How did Atlanta get there? Well, posting a minus-100 goal differential didn’t help; that was minus-22 behind the next closestmore team and on pace for a minus-130.

The 2019-20 Wings, meanwhile, are already at minus-108 and on pace for a minus-141 goal differential.

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added 8:20am, Helene St. James of the Detroit Free Press on Lane Lambert,