Outside the top eight.

Yes, there are over four months left in the season.  And everyone knows that the NHL season is a marathon, not a sprint.

But this poor start is still a little unsettling in Hockeytown.

“I haven’t liked our goaltending and I thought as a group we have turned over the puck too much,” said Red Wing’s coach Mike Babcock.  

Maybe it is the goaltending.  Without Ty Conklin, a strong backup who departed for St. Louis over the summer, more pressure has been placed on starter Chris Osgood and new backup Jimmy Howard.  

Howard has been given his first chance in the NHL this season, after only playing sparingly the past three seasons and spending most of his time in the minors, Howard has been moved up to the team permanently, trying to finally prove his worth to management.

With Howard still getting acquainted with his new team, all is not well with Osgood.  

After a poor start to the season last year, he vowed that it would not happen again.  Unfortunately, for Osgood and the Red Wings, it has.

Maybe goaltending isn’t the problem.  Maybe it’s all of the new faces.

Team leaders such as Marian Hossa, Mikael Samuelsson, and Jiri Hudler all left to play elsewhere.  Current players Johan Franzen, Valtteri Filppula and Brad May are out with injuries while Jonathan Ericsson and Brian Rafalski are suffering from the flu.

That’s a total of seven regulars from last year and one note-worthy player from this year who are all currently out for the Red Wings.  Either the Red Wing’s need a new team doctor or have been hit by a terrible string of luck.

It is also possible that it is the team’s rough schedule that has led to the poor start.

“We played nine exhibition games in 12 nights, traveled to Sweden (for two games) and went on a five game road trip for 11 days,” Babcock said.  ”I knew all this before it started, but what do you do?”

Playing games across the Atlantic, and then coming back and then heading out on the always dreaded Western Canada road trip has not been easy at all on team.  

Still, all hope is not lost.  There is more than enough time to turn things around.

Just look at the Pittsburgh Penguins last year.  They were on the outside-looking-in in Febuary, so they fired their head coach and hired Dan Bylsma, who led them to a Stanley Cup Championship

So, even if it is early November, Babcock needs to find a way to turn this team around soon.  He doesn’t want managment have to resort to the same approach the Penguins needed last year.