Wings still looking to halt a now six game skid, which hasn’t happened in 17 Years! COL also in a season high slump.

CURRENT STATS: from TSN.ca

DET:  21 games remaining
OVERALL 41-15-5 (1st in NHL, lead DAL by 8 points, DET have 2 games in hand)
CONFERENCE 35-13-4 (1st, lead DAL by 8 points, DET have 2 games in hand)
DIVISION 7-9-2 (1st in Central, lead NAS by 18 points)
HOME 21-7-2
AWAY 20-8-3
LAST 10 4-5-1
STREAK Lost 6

COL:  23 games remaining
OVERALL 30-24-5
CONFERENCE 23-23-5 (9th, 1 points behind VAN and CAL for 8th)
DIVISION 11-6-1 (4th in Northwest, 7 points behind MIN)
HOME 18-10-2
AWAY 12-14-3
LAST 4-5-1
STREAK Lost 3

TEAM LEADERS: from TSN.ca

DET:
Goals Henrik Zetterberg 33
Assists Nicklas Lidstrom 50
Points Henrik Zetterberg 71
Plus/Minus Nicklas Lidstrom 39 League Leader
PP Goals Henrik Zetterberg 11
Wins Chris Osgood 22
GAA Jimmy Howard 1.31
Save PCT Jimmy Howard .950

COL:
Goals Marek Svatos 25
Assists Paul Stastny 32
Points Paul Stastny 49
Plus/Minus Kurt Sauer 17
PP Goals Milan Hejduk 6
Wins Jose Theodore 15
GAA Tyler Weiman 0
Save PCT Tyler Weiman 1.000

TEAM STATS: from NHL.com

DET:  .713 win% (1st), 3.12 G/G (3rd), 2.16 GA/G (1st), 20.7% PP (4th), 84.0% PK (9th) 34.2 S/G (1st), SA/G 23.7 (1st).

COL: .551 win% (tied 14th), 2.75 G/G (16th), 2.71 GA/G (15th), 13.7% PP (29th), 80.7% PK (22nd), 28.8 S/G (16th), SA/G 27.2 (7th).

TEAM COMPARISON from NHL.com

DET . . . . COL
87 Points: 65
41 Wins: 30
7 Shutouts: 1
4 Power Play Rank: 29
9 Penalty Kill Rank: 22
.882 Win % When Leading After 1: .786
.875 Win % When Leading After 2: .870
.267 Win % When Trailing After 1: .318
.333 Win % When Trailing After 2: .182

HEAD TO HEAD ANALYSIS: from CBC.ca

Red Wings Scoring Avalanche
190 Total Goals 162
132 Opp. Goals 160
341 Assists 293
228 Opp. Assists 288
5 Empty Net Goals 6
3 Opp. Empty Net Goals 9
10 Unassisted Goals 7
6 Opp. Unassisted Goals 5
1 OT Goals 3
2089 Shots On Goal 1702
1448 Opp. Shots On Goal 1603
7 Shutouts 1
2 Opp. Shutouts 4

Red Wings Special Teams Avalanche
270 Power Play Opportunities 241
56 Power Play Goals 33
20.7% Power Play % 13.7%
108 Power Play Assists 66
262 Short Handed Opportunities 212
4 Short Handed Goals 2
84.0% Penalty Kill % 80.7%
3 Short Handed Assists 4

Red Wings Penalties Avalanche
311 Total Penalties 270
19 Penalties Major 35
292 Penalties Minor 229
679 Penalty Minutes 693


INJURY REPORT: from TSN.ca

DET:
Dan Cleary (LW/RW)
Broken jaw, early April
Dominik Hasek (G)
Hip injury, day-to-day
Niklas Kronwall (D)
Sprained shoulder, day-to-day - IR
Brian Rafalski (D)
Groin, day-to-day

COL:
Brett Clark (D)
Shoulder injury, sidelined indefinitely - IR
Kyle Cumiskey (D)
Groin, day-to-day - IR
Cody McCormick (W/C)
Shoulder injury, sidelined indefinitely - IR
Scott Parker (RW)
Flu, day-to-day
Joe Sakic (C)
Hernia surgery, mid-March - IR
Paul Stastny (C)
Appendicitis, mid-February - IR

Jeff Sagarin NHL RATINGS (USAToday) Through games of February 15, 2008.

HOME ADVANTAGE = 0.16 . . . . .  RATING . . W . . L . . .  SCED(RANK) . . VS top 10 . . | VS top 16
1 Detroit Red Wings . . . . . . . . . . . . . .= 5.18 41 19 4.06 (15) 19 6 | 27 10
8 Colorado Avalanche . . . . . . . . . .  = 4.24 30 28 4.12 (14) 8 16 | 15 22

GAME NEWS and NOTES: From NHL.com:

The Detroit Red Wings haven’t been playing like the best team in the NHL lately.

They’ll be trying to end their longest losing streak in 17 years on Monday when they visit the Colorado Avalanche.

The Red Wings (41-15-5) own the best record in the league, but they have not won since a 3-2 overtime victory at Minnesota on Feb. 5. By dropping its last six games, Detroit is riding its worst losing streak since a seven-game skid from Jan. 14-30, 1991.

The Red Wings, who are coming off Sunday’s 1-0 loss in Dallas, have scored more than two goals only once during the losing streak while getting outscored by a 21-10 margin. Henrik Zetterberg, who leads the team with 33 goals and 71 points, has not scored in five straight games after netting six goals in his previous six.

Detroit also hopes to continue its recent domination of the Avalanche (30-24-5). The Red Wings have won 13 of the last 16 meetings, including seven of nine in Denver.

Detroit has won all three matchups this season, outscoring Colorado 7-2 and posting shutouts in the last two meetings. However, Hasek was in goal for all three games.

Osgood has failed to win any of his last four starts against the Avalanche, going 0-1-1 with two ties and a 3.09 GAA.

The Avalanche fell 2-1 in Chicago on Sunday for their third straight loss - one shy of their season high. Jaroslav Hlinka scored with 2:25 left in the third period for Colorado, which has scored just once in each of the three defeats.

“Today was not good,” coach Joel Quenneville said. “I didn’t like how we played. We were on the receiving end all night.”

The Avalanche remained in ninth place in the Western Conference standings, one point out of the eighth and final playoff spot.

Some good analysis from Bruce MacLeod at Red Wings Corner:

-- How bad have the Red Wings been at even strength? They’ve gone four full games without an even-strength goal scored. Before this stretch, Detroit was held without an even-strength goal just four times in its first 57 games.
Detroit has gone 190-minutes, 43-seconds of even-strength time without a goal. Before their current four-game drought, the Red Wings averaged 2.91 goals scored per 60 minutes of even-strength time. (That extrapolates to nine goals in a 190:43 span.)
-- One thin spot that’s exposed by the recent injuries is on the blue line on penalty kills. With Niklas Kronwall and Brian Rafalski out, the Red Wings are trying to rotate three defensemen—Nicklas Lidstrom, Andreas Lilja and Chris Chelios—on the kill as best as possible. Instead of changing two D, only one will go off at a time. Kyle Quincey did get 2:12 of short-handed time as the fourth D.
-- This was just the seventh game this season in which the Red Wings were outshot.

KHAN! at MLIVE.com also has some quotes from the Wings/Stars tilt: 

It’s a prolonged slump the likes of which the Detroit Red Wings haven’t experienced in some time. But Sunday’s 1-0 loss to the Dallas Stars at the American Airlines Center was at least a step in the right direction, according to coach Mike Babcock.

“We had enough chances to win the game, but when you’ve played as bad as we’ve played, it takes a while to crawl out of mess you made for yourself,’’ Babcock said. “So let’s dig in here. We got to have the same or a better effort (Monday in Colorado) and pretty soon we’ll be back and playing and winning games.’’

The coach was upbeat—at one point he interrupted a media scrum with captain Nicklas Lidstrom to have him autograph a cap—and the dressing room was far from gloomy. Unlike recent games, the Red Wings were pleased with their effort.

“We had a good hockey game,’’ Babcock said. “It’s just the five previous ones make it feel like it wasn’t. The puck didn’t go in, give their goalie credit, but I thought our goalie was good, too. It was unfortunate that one kind of seeing-eye puck bounced off him and they end up with a rebound goal, but I thought that was a high-level game.’’

The latest from TSN.ca ICECHIPS:

The Latest from Colorado
Forward Paul Stastny (groin) is not expected to play tonight. The Avs hope he can return during their upcoming five-game road trip. Joe Sakic (hernia surgery) also hopes to play at some point on the trip. Forward Cody McCormick (chest contusion) is doubtful. - Denver Post

The Latest from Detroit
Chris Osgood is expected to start in net tonight against Colorado, with Jimmy Howard as the backup. Dominik Hasek (hip flexor) didn’t make the trip with the Wings. Defenceman Brian Rafalski will likely sit out tonight’s game with a groin muscle strain. - Detroit News

I know why the wings are in the losing streak.  My wife bought this red wings dog collar for my dog a few weeks back… we haven’t won since.  I took it off him when we played Nashville and ozzie gets lit up.  I’m going to take it out of the room tonight.

Burn it JD—burn it to hell!!!!

KHAN! at MLIVE.com has update from todays skate in Denver:

Update from the morning skate in Denver: As expected, Brian Rafalski (strained groin) won’t play tonight. He didn’t skate, but coach Miike Babcock seemed pretty sure Rafalski would be able to play the next game, Friday in Calgary. Niklas Kronwall (sprained clavicle) continues to skate and shoot and look good doing it, but the team is being extremely cautious with him, as you can imagine. Kronwall keeps saying he might play the next game, Babcock said he’s not likely to play in Calgary and wasn’t sure he would play at all during that three-game Western Canada trip. Dominik Hasek (inflamed hip flexor) worked out off-ice but still hasn’t been on the ice since the Toronto game on Feb. 9. He said he feels better but didn’t sound optimistic about playing Friday.