The Wings Are Farther Ahead in the Central Than You'd Think
The Wings are in first in the league right now, hooray! Yet, they’re only one point ahead of Chicago and St. Louis, and St. Louis has a game at hand. So things aren’t as good as they might first seem.
Yet, actually, I think the Wings are in a great place, and doing better than it even looks. Hit the jump to find out why.
It’s been well known this season that Detroit is the number one team at home at 18-2-1, yet comparatively, have struggled on the road, winning 50% of their road games Turns out, the other best team in their own building is St. Louis (20-3-3) and have similarly struggled on the road (8-9-3). Chicago isn’t far behind, going 18-5-4 at home and a 10-8-2 on the road.
So after 47 games, Detroit has 63 points. St. Louis has 62 in 46 games, while Chicago has 62 in 47. Yet, Chicago and St. Louis have played 7 and 6 more games at home than on the road, respectively. Detroit, on the other hand, has played five more games on the road than at home. Thus, when you consider the fact that points on the road are significantly harder to come by than points at home for these teams, Detroit’s looking pretty good right now. I even did a little math and extrapolated each teams projected points based on winning percentage at home and away.
DH=Detroit Home DR=Detroit Road...and so on for each.
Thus, Detroit’s on pace for 113 points, while St. Louis and Chicago are on pace for 107 and 106. Still close, where every point counts, but something that you can’t forget when it comes down to it. Eat it Chicago.
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Just an interesting bit of Trivia loosely related. Detroit has had 6 shut-outs (5 - Jimah 1 - Conks) and failed to score in a game once (1-0 loss to Minnesota back in the wee losing streak). Chicago however have had 0 shut-outs and have failed to score 5 times.
honestly i could care less about 3 point games (IE Overtime games) so long as they are not against Chicago or St Louis or Nashville.
@Instinctz You mean you could'NT care less about 3 point games. Could care less implies you care.
Also I think I remember hearing Kenny talking last night about how Detroit has a lot more home games in the second half of the season versus Chicago who has a lot more difficult away games.
@moorecha It's Friday and after 5pm, my reading comprehension skills are lacking. Good post Chris.
