Quarter Mark Check Point

Last year I ended each month with a checkpoint of sorts, just a way to keep track of how the Red Wing’s were doing and what to expect going forward. As the calendar turned from October to November, I sat down to write the monthly recap. After taking the eventual Eastern Conference Champions to game 7 and upgrading at two major positions the team struggled out of the gate. Injuries combined with the adjustments to a new coaching staff left me little ability to accurately analyze the team’s play. With little to say, aside from an excessive number of worried tweets, I waited for the team’s true ability to emerge. Finally in the last month the team has started to turn things around, allowing me to mostly ignore the first month of the season and focus on the team’s bring future.

After two months of play, the team is currently 3^rd in the Atlantic Division with 28 points in 24 games. While the team’s ability to win points has been inconsistent, the team’s recent ability to control play suggests they should begin to win points more consistent in the future. Although the time is currently tied for 12^th with a 50.4 score-adjusted Corsi for %, in the last month that number has jumped up to 53.4 %, good for 4^th best in the league. These numbers are more in line with what we had expected for this team, and there is no reason that they cannot continue to have the same success.

One of the reason’s for the team’s improved play was the return of Mike Green and Pavel Datsyuk. Both moves brought skilled players into the lineup, but it also allowed coach Jeff Blashill to change the lines and put people in their proper positions. Ericsson and DeKeyser have been paired up and given the role of “shut-down” pairing. Although they have struggled in those minutes they have freed up the Kronwall Green paring and the Smith/Marchenko/Kindl combo to succeed in the easier minutes. I still think the team should be giving someone other than Ericsson should be taking the tough minutes with DeKeyser, but I’m glad Kronwall and Green have been able to focus more on generating offense.

Up front, Datsyuk ended the Blashill’s experiment of giving Glendening the most forward minutes. Now Datsyuk gets the hardest minutes, in which he continues to excel because he’s amazing. Glendening and the 4^th line continues to get shelled but at least the damage is in more limited minutes. Additionally, although the 4^th line gets shelled I really like that it allows the team to shelter Sheahan, Nyquist, Tatar, Richards and Pulkkinen. None of them are truly dominate defensive players, but the easier minutes should allow them to produce offensively while Pav and Z take on the other team’s bests.

In net both Howard and Mrazek continue to be excellent, although the young Czech is showing signs of ending the goaltending competition. At even-strength Mrazek has an impressive adjusted save percentage of 94.37, 4^th best in the league for goaltenders with at least 500 minutes played, compared to only 91.93 for Howard. The biggest problem for Howard seems to be directly in front of the net, where his save percentage is 4.3 points lower than Mrazek’s.  It is still early in the year, and I see no downside to playing both goaltenders regularly but I am in agreement with Blashill’s recent plan to give Mrazek extra starts on occasion.

The Power-Play is one aspect of the game that hasn’t really turned around in the last month. They are scoring on only 16.4% of their power play opportunities, which is ahead of only the offensive juggernauts the Winnipeg Jets, Arizona Coyotes, Calgary Flames and Carolina Hurricanes. The biggest issue right now seems to be finishing their scoring chances. Although the team is only 13^th in shot attempts per 60 minutes of power play time, they rank 5^th in scoring chances per 60 minutes. They aren’t generating a lot of pretty one-timers but the team has actually done a really good job of just getting the puck in front and generating rebounds. Unfortunately, those shots haven’t gone in, but I think they may be due for a bounce back soon.

While the Power-Play has struggled, the Penalty-Kill has killed off 85% of penalties, good for 4^th best in the league. However, this success has mainly been due to the success of the team’s two great goaltenders and the team is giving up the 14^th most shooting attempts per 60 minutes and the 16^th most scoring chances per 60 minutes. This seems to fit with what I’ve been seeing as the opposition has gained the zone pretty easily, although the Red Wings do a decent job of blocking shots once in the defensive zone. So just as the power-play may be due for a bit of an increase, we may expect the penalty kill to struggled a bit more.

So for the last few games we have watched as the Wings controlled play but were not always able to earn the win. After relying only on goal scoring and goaltenders to earn points early in the season, the goal scoring has cooled off. Thankfully, there is reason to believe the good play will continue, suggesting the goals will eventually start flowing. Despite all my skepticism and worries during the first month of the season after a quarter of the seasons I am confident that over the next 5 months the Red Wings will continue to prove that they deserve to be considered potential Stanley Cup contenders.