It’s been a long time since the Detroit Red Wings had won eight games in the month of October. In fact, the last time it happened was 18 years ago in 2007, which was the beginning of their most recent Stanley Cup-winning season.
In fact, before this October, the Red Wings had won eight games during that month only four times in their century-long history. Three of those occasions resulted in a Stanley Cup win.
Currently, the Red Wings are 4-3 away from Little Caesars Arena through their first seven road games. The last time they had a winning record on the road was the 2015-16 campaign, which was both the rookie season for Dylan Larkin and also the last time the Red Wings played beyond the 82nd game of the regular season.
Their ongoing road trip has been a success, having won three of four games with one last tilt on deck on Tuesday evening at T-Mobile Arena against the Vegas Golden Knights (10:00 p.m. ET, ESPN+).
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Just because they’re assured a winning record during the five-game trip regardless of Tuesday’s result doesn’t mean they’re already looking ahead, however.
“The trip’s not over, it’s like we’re putting a bow on it, and there’s nothing worse than that,” head coach Todd McLellan said.
“You classify it as a successful trip to this point, but there’s a lot of teams in the league that will go 3-2 on a five-game road trip and you just become average if you just blend in.”
The Red Wings have been determined not to be a team that simply just blends in this time around. They were directly challenged by McLellan following their disappointing 5-1 loss in their Home Opener, and they responded with five straight wins.
While it hasn’t been completely smooth sailing since then, their 9-4 mark through 13 games is good for second overall in the Atlantic Division. They have the same number of points (18) as the Montreal Canadiens, who have a game in hand.
Nothing is a sure thing in the NHL these days. The Red Wings proved that last month against the St. Louis Blues, who held a 4-0 lead on Oct. 25 before Detroit stormed back with six unanswered goals, just the fifth time in their history that they claimed victory after initially trailing by four goals.
But the fact that the Red Wings have now twice accomplished something that had previously occurred only four previous times in their history bodes well for what they could potentially accomplish in their centennial campaign.
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