Since the lockout, the Red Wings have largely relied on two mainstays to power their on-ice juggernaut. These two greats include recently retired Pavel Datsyuk and the current captain, Henrik Zetterberg. Not to discount their other players, particularly Nicklas Lidstrom, but these two have been the fixtures of the offense in a major way. Be it their scoring touch, their leadership, or their flair, these two have won the hearts of fans all over Hockeytown. Given Pavel’s retirement to his homeland of Russia, this team has had a noticeable decline in the last season. Many blame the young coach Jeff Blashill, others the long time GM Ken Holland, and some just throw blame at anyone who wears the Winged Wheel. It’s uncertain where the blame lies, but everyone seems to come to the same conclusion, this team isn’t performing up to the standards of the last twenty years. I believe in the last season we can really see the issues that this young team has and find a reasonable solution going forward.
Let’s start at the top with our Swedish overloard Henrik Zetterberg. Henrik had a bounce back performance this season after a few years of dealing with back troubles, but it wasn’t enough to keep the Red Wings streak of twenty-five consecutive playoff appearances in tact. While he wasn’t able to fix the problems of the team, he certainly provided a much needed sense of relief when on the ice. Whether he was with Anthony Mantha, Tomas Tatar, Gus Nyquist, or any combination of forwards, he elevated their performance. His anchor in the middle of the top line gave this team a fighting chance for most of the season no matter who was around him. The problems begin when you look at the rest of the roster. No matter who was paired with Frans Nielsen, Dylan Larkin, Darren Helm, or anyone else, there was always a struggle for this team offensively. As a team they only scored 198 goals, below the league average of 227, posting a powerplay that reached an abysmal 15.08% to end the season 27th of 30. They had their issues defensively as well, posting a combined save percentage of .906 and allowing 244 goals, but that was largely due to injuries (Helm, Abdelkader, Howard, Kronwall, and Ericsson all out for large portions of the season), the youth of the defense (Jensen, Sproul, Ouellet, and Russo), and incredibly poor years from the likes of Mike Green and Danny DeKeyser on the top pairing.
| Spec | Spec | Spec | Spec | Spec | Spec | Spec | Spec | Shot | Shot | Shot | Shot | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rk | Team | PTS | GF | GA | PP | PPO | PP% ▼ |
PPA | PPOA | PK% | SH | SHA | S | S% | SA | SV% |
| 1 | BUF | 78 | 201 | 237 | 57 | 233 | 24.46 | 53 | 237 | 77.64 | 3 | 4 | 2491 | 8.0 | 2813 | .918 |
| 2 | TOR* | 95 | 251 | 242 | 57 | 244 | 23.36 | 44 | 251 | 82.47 | 6 | 7 | 2617 | 9.6 | 2673 | .912 |
| 3 | PIT* | 111 | 282 | 234 | 60 | 260 | 23.08 | 52 | 257 | 79.77 | 5 | 7 | 2745 | 10.1 | 2671 | .914 |
| 4 | WSH* | 118 | 263 | 182 | 57 | 248 | 22.98 | 44 | 272 | 83.82 | 5 | 3 | 2495 | 10.5 | 2282 | .922 |
| 5 | EDM* | 103 | 247 | 212 | 56 | 245 | 22.86 | 43 | 223 | 80.72 | 4 | 5 | 2547 | 9.5 | 2416 | .914 |
| 6 | TBL | 94 | 234 | 227 | 62 | 272 | 22.79 | 48 | 258 | 81.40 | 4 | 8 | 2452 | 9.4 | 2492 | .910 |
| 7 | BOS* | 95 | 234 | 212 | 53 | 244 | 21.72 | 38 | 266 | 85.71 | 10 | 6 | 2721 | 8.5 | 2194 | .905 |
| 8 | STL* | 99 | 235 | 218 | 50 | 235 | 21.28 | 40 | 263 | 84.79 | 3 | 5 | 2330 | 10.0 | 2327 | .907 |
| 9 | MIN* | 106 | 266 | 208 | 47 | 224 | 20.98 | 37 | 217 | 82.95 | 5 | 3 | 2527 | 10.4 | 2465 | .916 |
| 10 | NYR* | 102 | 256 | 220 | 47 | 232 | 20.26 | 45 | 224 | 79.91 | 9 | 5 | 2438 | 10.4 | 2465 | .912 |
| 11 | CGY* | 94 | 226 | 221 | 52 | 258 | 20.16 | 51 | 277 | 81.59 | 8 | 5 | 2388 | 9.3 | 2354 | .907 |
| 12 | CBJ* | 108 | 249 | 195 | 42 | 211 | 19.91 | 39 | 223 | 82.51 | 10 | 2 | 2540 | 9.7 | 2489 | .922 |
| 13 | MON* | 103 | 226 | 200 | 45 | 230 | 19.57 | 47 | 249 | 81.12 | 5 | 6 | 2459 | 9.1 | 2429 | .918 |
| 14 | PHI | 88 | 219 | 236 | 54 | 277 | 19.49 | 50 | 247 | 79.76 | 4 | 9 | 2585 | 8.2 | 2334 | .901 |
| 15 | LAK | 86 | 201 | 205 | 46 | 241 | 19.09 | 38 | 245 | 84.49 | 5 | 3 | 2553 | 7.8 | 2120 | .905 |
| 16 | NSH* | 94 | 240 | 224 | 49 | 259 | 18.92 | 46 | 241 | 80.91 | 12 | 6 | 2557 | 9.3 | 2472 | .911 |
| 17 | ANA* | 105 | 223 | 200 | 47 | 251 | 18.73 | 43 | 281 | 84.70 | 9 | 7 | 2425 | 9.1 | 2429 | .919 |
| 18 | WPG | 87 | 249 | 256 | 48 | 264 | 18.18 | 62 | 275 | 77.45 | 10 | 9 | 2448 | 10.0 | 2546 | .900 |
| 19 | CHI* | 109 | 244 | 213 | 42 | 233 | 18.03 | 47 | 211 | 77.73 | 1 | 7 | 2508 | 9.6 | 2574 | .918 |
| 20 | DAL | 79 | 223 | 262 | 46 | 257 | 17.90 | 65 | 249 | 73.90 | 5 | 11 | 2505 | 8.9 | 2439 | .893 |
| 21 | CAR | 87 | 215 | 236 | 41 | 231 | 17.75 | 32 | 202 | 84.16 | 10 | 6 | 2493 | 8.5 | 2320 | .901 |
| 22 | NJD | 70 | 183 | 244 | 44 | 251 | 17.53 | 53 | 261 | 79.69 | 6 | 12 | 2279 | 7.9 | 2572 | .906 |
| 23 | FLA | 81 | 210 | 237 | 45 | 265 | 16.98 | 36 | 245 | 85.31 | 8 | 8 | 2644 | 7.8 | 2595 | .911 |
| 24 | OTT* | 98 | 212 | 214 | 43 | 254 | 16.93 | 50 | 247 | 79.76 | 7 | 3 | 2463 | 8.4 | 2467 | .915 |
| 25 | SJ* | 99 | 221 | 201 | 41 | 246 | 16.67 | 41 | 212 | 80.66 | 7 | 6 | 2453 | 8.9 | 2269 | .912 |
| 26 | ARI/a> | 70 | 197 | 260 | 38 | 235 | 16.17 | 59 | 260 | 77.31 | 8 | 7 | 2281 | 8.4 | 2797 | .908 |
| 27 | DET | 79 | 207 | 244 | 38 | 252 | 15.08 | 45 | 235 | 80.85 | 3 | 9 | 2335 | 8.5 | 2507 | .903 |
| 28 | NYI | 94 | 241 | 242 | 35 | 234 | 14.96 | 40 | 227 | 82.38 | 5 | 7 | 2480 | 9.6 | 2616 | .909 |
| 29 | VAN | 69 | 182 | 243 | 32 | 227 | 14.10 | 52 | 223 | 76.68 | 2 | 6 | 2273 | 7.8 | 2605 | .907 |
| 30 | COL | 48 | 166 | 278 | 30 | 239 | 12.55 | 64 | 274 | 76.64 | 5 | 2 | 2303 | 7.2 | 2603 | .894 |
| AVG | N/A | 92 | 227 | 227 | 47 | 245 | 19.10 | 47 | 245 | 80.90 | 6 | 6 | 2478 | 9.2 | 2478 | .910 |
All that said, I feel like their issues can be traced back to their inability to exit their defensive zone and enter their offensive zone properly. This is a team in transition from young players that aren’t particularly strong and have trouble winning puck battles in the corner, can’t hold onto the puck when entering the zone unless they have lots of speed coming through the neutral zone, often caught offsides. They also regularly had troubles getting the puck out of their defensive zone, unable to win puck battles, and making costly turnovers due to opposing team pressure. The one bright side the team had was towards the end of the season when they abandoned their year long attempts to dump-and-chase in favor of making long passes along the outside of the ice to a streaking forward. This is largely why Jensen looked so good offensively while Green and DeKeyser struggled; they aren’t the best at making that pass. The other times the offense was able to get going was when Hank was on the ice and, in particular, bringing the puck into the offensive zone so the team could set up.
This is the exact strength of Henrik Zetterberg and Pavel Datsuk throughout the years that I feel needs to be brought to light. Henrik, when coming into the NHL Draft, was known to keep the puck glued to his stick despite his small size. In fact, to quote Jim Nill, “What we liked was he was always on the puck,” Nill said. “He was very tenacious. Back then he was probably about 5-9, 140 pounds soaking wet. You look at a guy that’s not very strong, he’s not a fluid skater at the best of times, so you can imagine back then when he was weaker, how he looked.” When you look at his possession ratings, you can see that Henrik was the only forward in the 16/17 season with a Corsi rating above 50% who played at least 20 games and had an offensive zone start% below 52% (Brendan Smith had this mark as a defenseman as the only defenseman, by the way).
He certainly proved his doubters wrong from the 1999 Entry Draft and I get the sense that this offseason he needs to focus on teaching young stars Dylan Larkin, Andreas Athanasiou, Anthony Mantha, and newest Red Wing Michael Rasmussen how he developed this ability. The first three mentioned here are known for their offensive skill, lacking ability defensively, and the puck battles they lost all season. I certainly appreciate them on the team and I think they will be great players, but this is their biggest flaw. If they can develop this ability, you’re looking at one of the best young cores of forwards in the NHL. Key word here is if, because if they don’t they’re looking at another long season and worse for the future.
Now all this has particular relevance because of what I mentioned way back at the start of this conversation. The youth of our defense is going to take time to develop, especially with the drafting of a young Center in Rasmussen, the team has to commit to the players on their roster. They don’t have the cap room (as of 6/24, we’re looking at $8M before re-upping Tatar, Athanasiou, and Ouellet) for much in free agency and unless you’re the Coyotes committing grand larceny to acquire Niklas Hjalmarsson, top defensemen don’t come easy in today’s NHL. They’re in a position that despite the growing pains, they’re in on a majority of the guys in their back end. Even acquiring a top guy won’t fix the fact that Jensen, Sproul, and Russo have the same games combined (96) that Xavier Ouellet has and he’s also considered very green for an NHL defenseman. Even adding XO with the others it’s still less (192) than Danny DeKeyser’s career total of 316 games. These guys can grow to be serviceable, but need to have pressure alleviated from them.
By developing proper zone entries the Red Wings can eliminate a lot of mistakes made where they were looking to make a pass through the zone to a forward at the line or making a stretch pass around the ice to someone coming up ice with speed. It protects the slower players by letting them focus on getting into position rather than being puck oriented and lets the team avoid using the dump-and-chase method that only works with more physical squads. Until the team develops the roster to accomplish that style, it would behoove the coaching staff to play to their strengths: let Zetterberg show these guys how to stick on the puck, take the pressure off your youthful defense, and let your skilled forwards do what they do best, put the puck in the net.
The Motor City Sports 