A confession: I was never much for watching the standings. I think a lot of it has to do with being spoiled. I'm usually aware of who's in the playoff picture and who isn't, of course, but things like exact points usually stump me. My friends know me as the hockey information guy, but it's usually the most common "small talk" hockey question that stumps me: "what's Detroit's record?" I never know. I can usually get the wins within five or so. The reason I don't know is because it's never mattered. It's been a while since Detroit hasn't had a comfortable division lead at this point in the season. That kind of thing makes things like memorizing the standings meaningless to me. All I've ever needed to tell people is they've got a comfortable division lead. Chasing San Jose recently has been fun, but the Wings have proven countless times that winning the conference means nothing. So as long as we have the division, I'm not too stressed out about how many wins Detroit has. They'll hit 50, eventually. That's how it's been since I've been following hockey.

But.. this season I've been doing a lot of standings-watching, and it doesn't feel right. My home page is TSN's NHL page, but according to my history, the standings page is the most common page accessed from TSN.ca. Without even looking, I can tell you that Detroit's in 9th, one point back of Nashville, and six back of Chicago, but Chicago has a game in hand. Still, they're only four points up on cellar-dwelling St. Louis, making Wednesday's game crucial because St. Louis has two games in hand. It's disgusting. I've never felt the need to know that. But I do, because I check a couple times a day. It's habitual.

Additionally, when I watch other NHL games, I find myself still rooting for Detroit. By this, I mean that I'm rooting for the team that betters Detroit in the standings. I've never felt a strong hatred towards most of Detroit's division rivals. When I watch Columbus, for example, play someone else, I usually root for them, because I'm a Rick Nash fan and I like Columbus' NHL prospects. But now, even against the likes of a-hole Anaheim, I'm rooting for Anaheim because I don't want any Central Division teams pulling away from Detroit. I realize, this is what fans of 29 other teams deal with on a regular basis. But I've never done it. I've never cared if Columbus beats Anaheim in December, and I've never groaned if the game went into overtime because three points are being given away. But now that Detroit needs every single point, I'm agonizing over the numbers. It makes the regular season so much more stressful. I'm not sure if I like this NHL thing anymore.

Still, with a lineup that includes a lot more Meech, Miller, May, and Maltby than anticipated when I boldly predicted the Wings would still win the division this year, Detroit is only six points back of Chicago. Manageable. That makes this month, December 2009, one of the biggest in my time as a Wings' fan. Detroit plays another busy month with 15 games. It's not a rough month. They travel to Dallas, but other than that, the only road games are against Central Division foes. That makes them important, but it makes for an easy travel month for a team with so many injuries. And Mike Babcock's quote before the Rangers game really stuck with me. This isn't just the "injury replacement lineup." This is "the lineup that needs to get Detroit into the playoffs." With this month, the Wings can either secure a spot back among the West's top four teams, or make the last three months of the season a living hell for them as they claw their way towards the 7th or 8th seed.

Holland said earlier this week that they expect Filppula back around Christmas or early January, and Kronwall around the same period, but more than likely closer to the latter. He didn't say anything about Williams, but it's about the same time period. Franzen's later. Lilja sounds like he might be out of the picture completely. Those guys are all going to make this team a lot better. Even Williams, who I know a lot of people aren't a huge fan of, is going to be better than Meech on the second powerplay. At least give him that.

That has... absolutely nothing to do with the Rangers game. But that's all been floating around my head for a while, and I wanted to write it down. Is this where everyone else's head is at? Or has everyone been here, and I'm just late to the party? Or.. am I making a big deal about nothing? (Yes.)

Anyway, the Rangers' game was much better than the Devils' game in my mind. The win helps, obviously, but as a whole the Wings looked like a team that wanted to win, unlike yesterday.

To revisit my thoughts yesterday about the three best players on this team needing to be better, I'll give it a 2.5 out of 3. Zetterberg was just on tonight, and seemed to have some kind of anger towards Henrik Lundqvist that he took out in the form of hard shots from all over the ice. No goals, but his pass on the Cleary goal was exceptional. Datsyuk, on the other hand, finally scored, and like all goals that end slumps, it was hideous. However, to me he still looked off. He's regressed his play three or four years. He's passing up shots that he was taking the past couple years. That one awful powerplay in the second period, he was responsible for killing about 40 seconds of just from not moving his feet through the neutral zone and then firing lazy passes to no one in particular. Still needs to be better, but it beats his effort on Saturday. And Lidstrom, what can you say. Still needs to score, but two assists, and a big fat zero on the stat sheet for Marian Gaborik in terms of points and shots. First time all season he hasn't had a shot, and you better believe it was Lidstrom's doing.

I'm not sure what was eating Bertuzzi tonight, but he sure doesn't like Sean Avery. Bertuzzi was feistier tonight than he's been so far as a Wing, even throwing a big hit or two. Avery said something to him early in the game and Bertuzzi looked like he was going to take exception. You better believe it was a personal shot, I'd wager Steve Moore-related. Not a great game for Avery though, but a pretty legendary dive on the Zetterberg trip. What goes through a ref's head when he sees Avery writhing in pain with Zetterberg skating away from him. "Oh that Zetterberg, king of all cheapshots, must have struck again." Why even bother calling anything on Avery?

Howard got bailed out by Avery being terrible, and Kotalik also missing an open net, but he was great tonight. One of his best games as a Wing in terms of big, timely saves. Penalty shot stop was pretty much the definition of clutch, and then he had a big breakaway stop to boot. He still makes me nervous with a couple rebounds each game, but not like Ty "goalies can move laterally?" Conklin did last year. He's making the difficult stops right now, with the likes of Meech and Lebda in front of him.

I'm getting tired of this "penalty kill or powerplay: pick one" stuff we're seeing. It's always one of the other. Penalty kill was alarmingly solid, they actually didn't have trouble clearing the puck, but meanwhile the Wings were downright anemic tonight with the extra man. That needs to change.

In roster news, Leino was finally a healthy scratch again, and from the way the 4th line is playing, I hope he gets used to it. I don't care if Leino does play the "I'll go back to Finland card" or not, right now he is not making this team better. Kindl will probably go back down because Rafalski is back (but in my mind, he looked to be laboring a bit in the 3rd), but it probably wouldn't hurt to put Ericsson in the press box for an awful first 40 minutes. Other than that, no complaints with effort from anyone else.

St. Louis on Wednesday.