Detroit Red Wing Jeff Sharples, his three-quarter visor and his Cooper glove.

Now that we have officially reached (or for some teams, surpassed) the quarter pole in the season, we can officially call the Red Wings what they are: wildly inconsistent. But at least they’re consistently wildly inconsistent.

This week a 1-0 loss to Boston, Glen Hanlon plays his butt off but they can’t score for him. A few days later, the Red Wings score 10 goal — but barely hang on to a 10-8 win over Winnipeg. Greg Stefan plays horribly but gets the win.

Go read everything I said last week about finding a goalie. Heck, just go back and read last week’s post and you’ll have a pretty good feeling of this team.

One of the only developments from last week: Doug Houda sucked much quicker than we thought. He’s gone. In comes Steve Chiasson, who actually played pretty well, recording an assist against Winnipeg.

The only other development from last week? Jeff Sharples became a wrecking machine on par with the likes of Godzilla and King Kong. Before yesterday’s matchup, Sharples had played in eight games. He recorded three points, all assists.

Then against Winnipeg he provides some much needed scoring from the blue line, scoring a goal and adding two assists. For the mathematically challenged (i.e. all the stupid readers out there) that’s what we call doubling your season output in one game.

Sign him long term.

Here’s the updated list of players to sign long term:

Steve Yzerman

Bob Probert

Jeff Sharples

…..OK, maybe we shouldn’t put Jeff Sharples on the list just yet.

In other news, the Blues are on a run, making the Norris Division extremely tight. Until you look at Minnesota’s slide to the bottom of the standings.

The Red Wings will make the playoffs, but let’s be honest, they’re not going to do much damage once they’re there. But hey, at least there are the playoffs. We could be locked out. The league and the NHLPA could be calling in mediators (also known as parents for grown ups that have no power to really change anything) that are tweeting vulgar things at comedians. They could be canceling game just about through the end of the year. They could be doing away with the all-star game.

The Red Wings making the playoffs and not doing anything in it for a second straight year would suck. Having the NHL still locked out would suck even more.

RED WINGS POINT LEADERS

Steve Yzerman, C: 24

Bob Probert, LW: 19

Gerard Gallant, LW: 16

Petr Klima, LW/RW: 13

Shawn Burr, LW/C: 12

RED WINGS GOAL LEADERS

Steve Yzerman, C: 14

Petr Klima, LW/RW: 11

Brent Ashton, LW: 8

Bob Probert, LW: 7

Shawn Burr, LW: 6

RED WINGS ASSIST LEADERS

Bob Probert, LW: 12

Gerard Gallant, LW: 11

Steve Yzerman, C: 10

Darren Veitch, D: 10

Adam Oates, C: 7

GOALTENDING STATS

STANDINGS

FULL RED WINGS STATS