Red Wings' forwards are going through a rough patch

It's no secret by now that the Red Wings are struggling. Friday's 2-1 defeat to McDavid and the Edmonton Oilers was Detroit's fourth loss in a row. The Wings now have a record of 3-5-0 so far this season.

As if things weren't bad enough for Detroit fans, the NFL's Detroit Lions have just lost another game, the MLB's Detroit Tigres did not do so well this season and the NBA's Detroit Pistons haven't been good for a while now. The struggles in Michigan are even extending to college football as the Western Michigan Spartans and the Michigan State Wolverines both lost recently. 

Back to hockey and the Red Wings. One major aspect of their play is contributing to their difficulties on the ice over the past few games and that is their overall lack of offense. 

Mantha did have a four-goal game early on in the season. Detroit did play very well against Montreal in their last victory. That being said, too many key players are struggling offensively for the Wings. To give you an idea, the Bertuzzi-Larkin-Mantha line has 11 out of Detroit's 19 goals this season.

Andreas Athanasiou, Valtteri Filppula and Taro Hirose are all looking for their first goal this season. The Wings tend to rely on veteran Filppula for his two-way style of play and Hirose is playing his first full season in the NHL, as such their lack of goals is not so worrying even if coach Blashill would love to see them produce. 

As for Athanasiou, his offensive slump might be more of a cause to worry for the Wings as they rely on him for his offensive production. The 24-year old is a very fast skater with great hands and his teammates are looking for him to be an offensive threat and to create opportunities, which he doesn't seem to be doing all that much at the moment.

But the blame cannot be put solely on the shoulders of Athanasiou or the other aforementioned players. After the loss against Detroit, Dylan Larkin said that he isn't having fun and that all 12 forwards must chip in offensively every game. He added that Detroit must find a way to score dirty goals.

The Detroit Red Wings must end their offensive slump in order to get back to their winning ways. Here's to hoping that Athanasiou and the other Wings' forwards start to find the back of the net regularly.