FanHouse TomasKopecky

It's been a one-way street out of Detroit this offseason, as the Red Wings have watched Marian Hossa, Mikael Samuelsson, Ty Conklin and Tomas Kopecky sign with rival teams in the Western Conference, while Jiri Hudler attempts to make a jump to the KHL (even though the NHL isn't all that happy about it). Such losses would be a sizable blow to most teams, but the Red Wings aren't like most teams.

While it's true they lost some talent and production, and haven't added anything of consequence in the early stages of the offseason, it still shouldn't put much of a dent in the Red Wings' Stanley Cup chances for 2009-10.

Let's take a look at what Detroit is really losing, and what it has coming up through the Grand Rapids pipeline.

The Detroit Red Wings are getting ready to take on the Anaheim Ducks Sunday evening with their Western Conference semifinal series tied at two. They're likely going to be without forward Tomas Kopecky who is looking at the possibility of surgery following his one-sided (not Kopecky's side) fight with Francois Beauchemin on Thursday night.

The Boston Bruins won their ninth straight game on Tuesday night, picking up a 5-2 victory in Pittsburgh. Aside from winning nine in a row, the Bruins finish the month of December with a 12-1 record, while extending their lead in the Eastern Conference to nine points over the No. 2 team, the New York Rangers Washington Capitals.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the ice, the month of December can't end soon enough for the Penguins, as they went 5-9 for the month, including four consecutive losses on home ice. Even worse, Pittsburgh has posted a 2-7 record in its past nine games at Mellon Arena. That's not good. Look, I realize the Penguins have been slow starters the past two seasons before kicking it in gear in February and March, but can you keep relying on that? Might make it a little easier on yourself to actually win some games in October, November and December because, you know, those games count too.

As for this game, Boston received a stellar effort in net from Tim Thomas as he turned aside 32-of-34 shots, while Phil Kessel, Dennis Wideman, Marc Savard, Zdeno Chara and Martin St. Pierre provided the offense. The Bruins went 2-for-8 on the power play, and scored a shorthanded goal on a 3-on-1 break in the third period, pretty much taking Pittsburgh out of the game. I think that speaks volumes about the Penguins power play when they allowed a 3-on-1 rush with the man advantage.

Highlight of the night for Pittsburgh was Tim Wallace, a recent callup from Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, who squared off against Milan Lucic and actually held his own for a while, before getting dropped by Lucic. The two teams meet again on Thursday, in Boston.

Marty Turco's awful season continued on Thursday night against Chicago, as the Dallas Stars goalie gave up five goals on 29 shots, as the Stars fell 6-3. After another dismal performance in the crease, Turco finds himself 42nd in the NHL (out of 43) with a 3.67 Goals Against Average, and 43rd with a .867 save percentage. It's difficult to get much worse than that.

Patrick Kane scored a pair of goals for the Blackhawks, giving him ten on the season, while they also received goals from Martin Havlat, Kris Versteeg, Ben Eager and Brian Campbell. Nikolai Khabibulin earned No. 1 start honors in the game, turning aside 31 shots.

With the win, Chicago improves to 9-4-5 on the season, and 8-2-4 since the firing of coach Denis Savard following the fourth game of the season.

The Stars, meanwhile, find themselves near the bottom of the NHL just one year after playing in the Western Conference Finals.

One game after finding their cojones in Denver, the Red Wings promptly lost them again in a 1-0 loss to the Flames in Calgary. The loss dropped Detroit to 1-6-1 in their last eight games.

But the bad news didn't end there, as defensive stalwart Chris Chelios took a puck off his right knee, an injury that will keep him off the ice tonight against Vancouver and adding yet another member of the Wings to the injured list.

After watching last night's game for a few minutes, I couldn't help but come away with the impression that the way to beat the Wings was to simply pound them without mercy -- and to take that pounding right up to the line. A good example came in the second period, when Dion Phaneuf ran Tomas Kopecky down behind the Calgary goal. With Kopecky down on the ice and sliding, Phaneuf finished his check and ran Kopecky face first into the boards.

Once I got a look at Kopecky when once he got back to the Detroit bench, his face looked like he'd been in a bar fight. Yet, near as I can tell, nobody came close to holding Phaneuf accountable for his transgression. Something tells me that Detroit GM Ken Holland probably agrees, given the news that Darren McCarty is slated to rejoin the Wings sometime next week.