Late November Red Wings Evaluation

Coming off three consecutive losses on a California road trip in November is a good time for evaluation.

I put that off for a day because coming off three consecutive losses on a California road trip in November with two days off before a home game at which you’re going to celebrate a team legend who was recently inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame is a great time to fire your coach, so I wanted to see if that would happen. It doesn’t appear to have, so evaluation it is.

The Red Wings have been hard to watch this season. They have seven wins but you could argue pretty easily that they’ve only played particularly well in two – maybe three – games. And one of those saw them outshoot the New York Rangers 37-24 only to still lose 4-0.

How did they get here?

Over the summer, I suggested that the Red Wings’ offseason moves might have made them better at forward, worse on defense, and better in goal. I think two of those three hold up.

In goal, after 18 games the Wings are rocking the exact same goals against per game (3.33) and save percentage (.897) as they wrapped last season with but those are team stats that include empty net goals. Combined, Cam Talbot, Alex Lyon, and Ville Husso have a 3.02 GAA and a .907 save percentage. Last year, Husso, Lyon, James Reimer, and Michael Hutchinson combined for a 3.17 GAA and .902 save percentage. So it would appear that goaltending has, indeed, been upgraded, even if it’s not having an impactful result.

Unless it is having an impactful result because, to the eye test, Detroit’s defense hasn’t just been worse but relatively terrible. The stats seem to back that up. Last season’s team allowed 1906 scoring chances against while this season’s projects to allow 2074. That’s an extra two scoring chances allowed per game. The fact that the Wings’ goalies have a lower GAA while facing more scoring chances seems to back up the “worse on defense, better in goal” projection.

Scoring is another story. And since I used “better at forward” as shorthand for “better at scoring,” that’s where we’ll take a look at the forwards.

Over the summer, the Red Wings effectively swapped out David Perron, Robby Fabbri, and Daniel Sprong for Vladimir Tarasenko, Jonatan Berggren, and Tyler Motte. They’ve since added Marco Kasper, while Motte has been limited to six games. With this group, Detroit has generated 350 scoring chances, which projects to 1688 on the season. That would be up from the 1570 they generated last year. But the team’s goals for per game this season is still 2.56, down from 3.35.

One explanation I’ve seen is that they’re not getting the high-danger net front chances that they got last year, with the further reminder that the Wings have a bunch of small forwards not suited for that work. But the Wings were small last year, too. I don’t think swapping out Perron for Tarasenko is the reason the Wings aren’t going to the net.

In The Athletic today, Sean Gentille suggests that the Wings are simply seeing a regression in scoring. Last year they had a shooting percentage of 11.6%, near the top of the league. This year, their 10.3% shooting is in the bottom half of the league. Can coaching fix that?

Someone might look at the Red Wings this season and say “Yep, looking at that lineup, this all makes sense.” In fact, I think I’m in that boat. I had higher hopes for the offense but, as disappointing as it is, regression makes sense.

But is it acceptable as an organization to come off a playoff chase that lasted until the final minutes of the season and look this bad? If not, what do you do about it?

Firing the coach is the easy answer. This week would have been a great time to do it. It didn’t happen. That doesn’t mean it won’t, though. I’m keeping an eye on December 14. If the Wings are still not clicking by then and also have a bad game at home on a Saturday night against the Maple Leafs with three days off afterwards, it might be a good time for a change. There’s also early February to watch, with three days off after a road trip through Western Canada and Seattle. Any later than that and why bother?

Are there lineup moves to be made? It sure seems like calling up Kasper was the only option available to the team. Nobody else in the organization – especially with Carter Mazur having spent most of the year injured in Grand Rapids – seems to be knocking down the door.

Which brings us to the GM. I’m not calling for the firing of Steve Yzerman no matter how much I’ve questioned the moves that got the Wings here. Anyway, GMs usually have a bit of a longer leash to work with, he’ll get the chance to make at least one coaching change before his time is up. That said, Yzerman has been given a lot of leeway in his time in Detroit. He had a lot of work to do rebuilding from what Ken Holland left him. But this is his roster. This is his coach. He’s kind of out of excuses.

There’s always the line blender. It’s seen a lot of use this season and apparently the Red Wings practiced with new lines again this morning. Hoping that a different combination of the same parts makes all the difference.

That’s worth a shot because the only option left is just riding it out. I think the fanbase is clamoring for the organization to do something and riding it out won’t cut it anymore.