If Detroit has any designs on winning its fifth straight Western Conference regular season title, then it better find a way to earn a win against the San Jose Sharks Wednesday night at Joe Louis Arena.

The Wings have pulled away in the Central Division and have made slight gains on the Sharks, yet remain five points back with two more games played than San Jose heading into action Wednesday. With this being the final meeting between the two teams, it’s obvious that this is as close to a must-win game that Detroit will face until the postseason.

It’s not as if the Wings have slacked off at any time this season. Their worst month was January (and really that was limited to a late slump), and I doubt the 7-4-2 mark last month sent any of their fans into therapy. In fact, Detroit, one of the model organizations of the league, is on its way to bettering its record for the second straight season. Yet, San Jose is showing no cracks in its game, making it next to impossible for Detroit to gain any traction in the standings. Are the Wings locked into the No. 2 seed in the West? We’ll have a much clearer idea after this battle.

There are a couple of factors working against Detroit here: it’s dropped two of the last three vs. San Jose; and the Wings aren’t exactly soaring right now. Sure, they had rhymed off six straight wins earlier this month, but have been uncharacteristically middling over the past five games (2-2-1) after getting dumped by 5-2 in Minnesota on Saturday.

Some things to watch for in this game:

• Claude Lemieux will not get a standing ovation in his return to Motor City after a five-year retirement. The 43-year-old super pest is among the most hated men in Detroit history. Something tells me the half decade Lemieux spent in his rocking chair hasn’t changed that.
• Detroit’s goaltending situation is in a bit of a mess right now. Prospect Jimmy Howard was brought up from Grand Rapids to take the place of the slumping Chris Osgood, who has been given a “mental breather.” Howard, who is enjoying an excellent season, didn’t fare well in his season debut on Saturday as he got rocked early, but he is someone to keep an eye on for the future. With the aging Osgood suffering through his worst NHL season, Ty Conklin has proved to be a real saviour for the Wings this season, and he’s definitely someone you want to consider adding if you need a goalie. In our pre-season rankings, we expressed concern over Osgood’s ability to handle a huge workload, but certainly didn’t see this collapse coming. Osgood’s 10-day break will end Friday night when he goes back in net against the Kings. If Detroit has any hope of making a move on San Jose, it will need Osgood to return to his form from last season, or at least something resembling that. Conklin, meanwhile, will be looking to extend his 11-game home winning streak – a run that has matched the third best in Red Wing history. Overall, he’s a perfect five-for-five when he starts in February. Like I said, Conklin has been an absolutely lifesaver for the Wings.
• This is a battle pitting the top two power plays in the NHL against each other. However, Detroit didn’t exactly look like the best power play team in the league Saturday, going 0-for-5 with the man advantage, but had gone 9-for-17 in the three games before that loss. And therein lies the difference between these two teams: while San Jose – with the fourth best penalty killing unit in the league – is capable of shutting down Detroit’s power play, the same can’t be said for the Wings, who are one of the worst penalty killing teams in the NHL. Advantage San Jose.
• Dan Cleary, who just keeps getting better since he arrived in Motown, is heating up with three goals and two assists in his past four games. Need a forward? He could be available, and while he isn’t racking up the +/- numbers he did last season, Cleary is headed for his first 45-point season, a total he should easily eclipse now that he’s been moved to the top line in Detroit. Now, if he can just learn to stay healthy, he could turn into a serious difference maker. A jaw injury cost him a good chunk of 2007-08, and this season it was an eye injury.
• Don’t look for the Wings to get shut down very often like Saturday, when the Wild held them to a pair of goals. Detroit definitely had its struggles when it limped out of January on a season-worst five-game losing skid, but since then, the Wings have turned it own, scoring 48 goals in 11 games while going 8-2-1. Having said that, this week is a tough test for Detroit’s NHL-leading offense, as it had to deal with Minnesota, and its second-best GAA in the NHL, and now San Jose, almost as good with the third best GAA.
• As great as he was last season in his debut with the Wings, Brian Rafalski has been even better this season as he puts together a career year, at least offensively, at the age of 35. He’s recorded assists in four straight games (six helpers in total), and going back even further, he has 12 points in his last eight games and has managed two or more points in half of those contests. He made the top 10 in our pre-season rankings, and although his +/- isn’t as high as we’d like, Rafalski certainly has been all that on offense.

The Atlanta Thrashers, a team that’s mostly been a thrashee as opposed to a thrasher this season, have suddenly woken up, winning three of their past four including the first two games of their four-game Western road swing – their longest road trek of the season. Where has this been all season? And why the hell would it emerge during perhaps the toughest stretch the team faces all year long?

The Thrashers have really been in free fall since the 2006-07 season, when they approached 100 points, won their division and made the one and only playoff appearance in franchise history. Last season was a fiasco, as the team’s offense and defense where both near the bottom of the league. In fact, they finished tied for last in goals against average. This season, while the offense has bounced back, the goaltending has been even more horrific, and if it weren’t for the laughable Leafs, Atlanta would be dead last in GAA. Despite the improved scoring, the Thrashers have completely bottomed out, and currently have the second worst record in the entire NHL.

So now that the pressure of making the playoffs is a thing of the past – Atlanta has already started focusing on the future by dealing away veteran defenseman Mathieu Schneider to Montreal for a pair of draft picks – the team is putting up some Ws. The Thrashers are now closing in on Tampa Bay as they attempt to crawl out of the division cellar. And Thursday night, they could easily continue the roll as they face off against the NHL’s coldest team in Phoenix, losers of six straight at home.

However, expecting the club to continue winning the way they have this week – 8-4 over Anaheim and 7-6 in a shootout over LA – is a stretch. I mean, come on, the last time the Ducks gave up eight goals against anyone was March 21, 2001, the second longest current streak in the league. Atlanta better tighten up its lackluster defensive play if it hopes to continue to show improvements down the stretch. But one bright sign has been the play of rookie defensemen Zach Bogosian and Nathan Oystrick, who have been paired together since the Schneider deal. These two youngsters (well, Oystrick isn’t that much of a youngster, but he’s still a veritable NHL neophyte) have been drawing rave reviews, and Bogosian’s emergence is definitely something to watch. He logged three assists and went +2 in the win over LA, drawing some fantasy traction in the past couple of days. If you’re in a deep league, it may be time to consider last season’s No. 3 overall pick. He’s been rushed to the Show, but for a good reason. This 18-year-old has fans around the league buzzing.

With the trade deadline coming soon and Atlanta clearly falling under the seller umbrella, more house cleaning may be in order soon for the Thrashers. The most likely candidates to be moved now that Schneider has been dispatched are Ilya Kovalchuk and Colby Armstrong, the later of which is enjoying his finest season, and appears headed for his first 20-goal campaign. A move to a contender could definitely provide a nice boost for Armstrong, making him a waiver wire possibility. If your league is deep enough that you can stash him, now might be the time to consider it. Otherwise, wait and see how this situation plays out. One prominent rumour has the Leafs offering a package centred around Nik Antropov that will land both Kovalchuk and Armstrong in Toronto.

As we alluded to, expecting these kind of offensive fireworks from the Thrashers on a regular basis is unwise. Consider that they have potted 13 goals in the first two games of this road trip. Then consider that in the previous eight games, they had totaled just 12 goals. Can you say unsustainable? And even with the goal explosion, the Thrashers still almost found a way to blow it against the Kings on Monday. They frittered away a 6-3 lead, allowing LA to score three times over the final 12:30 to force overtime before the Thrashers pulled out the two points in the shootout.

After topping 50 goals for the second time in three seasons in 2007-08, Kovalchuk has been a major disappointment this year. In fact, he’s been so bad that he earned a not-so-coveted RotoRob Award as our 2008 Fantasy Dud of the Year. However, perhaps the thought of escaping Atlanta has him frothing at the mouth, because he sure looks like a different player lately. He’s scored goals in five straight games, totaling eight scores with three assists during this stretch. The team’s leading scorer (29 goals, 61 points) has five goals and two assists in the last two games alone. Can you can blazing? Kovalchuk is suddenly back on pace to nearly match last season’s point total and is definitely upping his trade value with each passing game. There’s talk he could wind up in Boston, although the Bruins aren’t known for bringing in high-priced talent, and at $7.5 million per year for this season and next, Kovalchuk is one of the top-paid players in the NHL.

Another tremendously hot Thrasher is Slava Kozlov. He potted a pair of assists Monday to run his point-scoring streak to five games, totaling two goals and five assists during this run. Kozlov was slumping for a while, but is clearly past that, and he’s someone we identified as a major target should Kovalchuk be sent packing. The 16-year veteran, who passed the 800 career point mark with his two helpers Monday, stands to be the stud in Atlanta once Kovalchuk is dealt, so if he’s still unowned in your league, you better add him now.

Centre Todd White’s finest NHL season has continued, as he’s got three points in the last two games. His goal Monday was his 15th of the season, already more than he scored all of last season. He has a good chance of recording his first ever 70-point season and you’ve got to figure this is another veteran who stands to gain more responsibility after the trade deadline. Given that he’s currently owned in just over a third of the leagues out there, White makes a great player to target.