After back-to-back Stanley Cup Finals appearances, the Detroit Red Wings are in danger of missing the playoffs for the first time since 1989-1990. After 19 consecutive postseason berths that saw them win four Stanley Cup championships and have two Cup Finals losses, how did ?Hockeytown? get here? Detroit entered Saturday tied for the 8th spot in the deep Western Conference with Calgary; they hold the advantage at the moment with one more game remaining than the Flames. But that is a big improvement from where they started the season. After the first two months of the regular season had concluded, they had only won 13 of their 26 games, and continued their mediocrity through the end of the 2009 calendar year, having won 20 of 40 games by the time 2010 began. So how did a perennial powerhouse become so average, and so quickly? As everyone expected before the season began, age would become a little bit of a factor. Nicklas Lidstrom, their captain and one of the greatest defensemen of all-time, will be 40 at the end of April. Their #1 goalie to start the season (Chris Osgood) is 37. Their top two forwards, while not old, are exiting their prime years (Pavel Datsyuk is 31, Henrik Zetterberg is 29). All in all, only eight of their 23 roster players are 28-years-old or younger. Another key factor is the departure of important offensive players from 2008-09. Marion Hossa left via free agency, taking with him his 40 goals from last year. Jiri Hudler fled to Europe, leaving Detroit without his 23 goals and 57 points. Mikael Samuelsson signed with Vancouver in the offseason, and Detroit would sure love to have the 30 goals he has scored for the Canucks this year. While offseason turnover is expected in the salary cap era, it doesn?t always make for an easy transition. Goaltending was a big issue early in the season as well, as 37-year-old starter Osgood?s play had fallen dramatically. He was the undisputed #1 goalie over the first two months of the season, but was unable to find his stellar postseason form. In his first 16 games, his record was 6-5-4. Since December 5th, he has only played in 6 games, and has a mediocre line of 7-8-4 with a 2.97 goals against average and an 89% save percentage this season. Rookie Jimmy Howard has helped to spark the playoff run, posting a 27-15-9 record with a 2.31GAA (6th in the league) and a 92.4% save percentage (4th). But as much as teams hate to give this excuse, injuries have been the biggest culprit. Unofficial calculations of man games lost to injury for Detroit this season sit at an astounding 345 games. They have had key players miss significant time, and only three players have played in all 70 games so far: Lidstrom, forward Todd Bertuzzi, and defenseman Brad Stuart. The defensively adept defenseman Niklas Kronwall missed two months early in the season after a knee-on-knee hit, and 34 games in all. Key sniper Johan Franzen, expected to take on a bigger role offensively due to the above departures, had to undergo major surgery for ligament damage in his knee just three games into the season; he has only played in 15 games this year and has 7 goals. Center Valtteri Filpulla has missed 27 games, mostly due to a broken wrist. Jason Williams broke his leg in November and missed 38 games. Young D-man Jonathan Ericsson has missed 20 games, most with a leg injury. Veteran grinder Kirk Maltby has missed 18 so far, and is out for the season. Key offensive players Tomas Holmstrom and Daniel Cleary have missed 14 and 12 respectively, while Zetterberg missed 8 early in the year. But the largest total goes to blue-liner Andres Lilja, who missed the first 61 games of the year because of a concussion suffered last February. With all of those names, and all of those games, it would be fair to conclude that Detroit should be higher than 8th in the conference; in fact, in the first edition of OCTR (Obe?s Comprehensive Team Rankings) they were rated 12th in the league and 6th in the West. Detroit had a difficult adjustment to the salary cap era, and one wonders how their roster and salary situation looks going forward. Fortunately, they have both goalies under contract next year, and four of their defensemen. One notable that isn?t under contract on the back-end is captain Lidstrom. At 40, does he want to come back another season or two? He can certainly still play at the NHL level, but would he be willing to accept a significant pay cut from the $7.45 million he makes this year? If he signs for two more years at $2 million or $3 million per season, it would be a fair deal for both sides and not kill Detroit?s cap room. Up front, Detroit will only have six forwards under contract, but they are all key players: Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Franzen, Filpulla, Cleary and veteran Kris Draper. They have four young forwards who will be restricted free agents who they could retain for cheap if they wanted, and four veteran unrestricted free agents. Of those, they will likely not bring back Brad May, and may let Jason Williams go, especially if they can persuade Hudler to come back from Europe. They would be wise to resign Bertuzzi for another year or two, as he is having a nice season in red and white (15 goals, 37 points) as a complimentary player. It?s also doubtful that 37-year-old Maltby goes to any other team, and retirement may be on his mind. The good news is, they look to have about $20 million in available cap room. If they are able to retain Lidstrom, Bertuzzi and a couple of youngsters, they should still have about $12 million in cap room to take into free agency with only a couple of holes to fill. They wouldn?t be likely to bid big on a free agent like Ilya Kovalchuk, but it will be interesting to see if they make plays for other unrestricted free agents like Tomas Plekanec, Patrick Marleau, Brendan Morrison, Milan Hejduk, Alexander Frolov, Raffi Torres, Alexei Ponikarovsky, Pavel Kubina, Kim Johnsson, Paul Martin, or Willie Mitchell. So while Detroit seemed down early in the season, it was premature to call them out. They are playing better hockey lately (minus a loss to Edmonton in the shootout Friday), their roster is getting healthy once again, and they do have some room going forward to add to a formidable core of Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Franzen, Kronwall, Ericsson and Brian Rafalski. Nick can be reached at nickobergan@hotmail.com or on twitter at @nickobergan