Detroit Solid at Five-on-Five, Undone by Breakdowns and Goaltending, DeBrincat-Larkin-Kane Shows Promise: Red Wings-Jets Statistical Review
A deep dive into the underlying numbers from the Red Wings' 5-2 loss to the Winnipeg Jets Wednesday night
The Detroit Red Wings suffered another humbling loss Wednesday night, this time a 5-2 decision to the Jets in Winnipeg. For a sense of where this game slipped through the Red Wings' fingers, let's take a dive into the underlying numbers.
The Big Picture
By all situations expected goals (per MoneyPuck), the Red Wings were actually the better team last night—earning a 2.48-2.2 advantage. The site's Deserve-to-Win O'Meter had the Red Wings at 54.9%, which is to say it was a tight game but one in which the numbers said Detroit was narrowly superior.
That dynamic cannot be separated from the sense that the Red Wings gifted their hosts a number of premium opportunities with their porous defensive zone coverage. Moritz Seider said last night, "I think we're making it pretty easy for them to score. If you look at the goals they scored today, they didn't really have to work very hard for them. We're just kind of giving Grade A chances to them, and that will hurt you."
In the first, Detroit was comfortably the better team by xG (1.42-0.659) but fell behind 1-0 on the scoreboard. In the second, the Red Wings got an early goal, only to flatline as Winnipeg surged and created a three-goal cushion. Detroit made another push in the third, but the deficit was too much to overcome.
-Per Natural Stat Trick, this was a close game at five-on-five. The Red Wings earned a 46.77% CorsiFor, a 49.09% share of scoring chances, a 47.83% share of high-danger chances, and a 50.28% share of expected goals. The Jets are an excellent five-on-five team, but this wasn't a night where Detroit was overwhelmed.
Instead, it's hard to separate last night's outcome from a combination of questionable goaltending and disastrous D zone coverage. It should also be said that the Red Wings were bound to experience some amount of shooting percentage regression, so it can't come as too big of a surprise to see a game in which Detroit can't find finishing luck despite generating a solid share of chances.
Individual Impact
-A number of Red Wings played significant five-on-five minutes Wednesday and emerged with great shares of on-ice xG. Those include Dylan Larkin (55.1% in 15:55), Alex DeBrincat (57.2% in 15:25), J.T. Compher (60.2% in 14:28), Patrick Kane (60.3% in 15:14), and Ben Chiarot (69.0% in 18:50). However, no individual Red Wing managed to generate all that much offense to speak of (as shown by the chart below).
-The line of Compher, Joe Veleno, and Michael Rasmussen was excellent for Derek Lalonde, but they couldn't find a goal. In 10:17 together at five-on-five, they earned a 0.606-0.271 advantage in on-ice xG (a 69.1% share). Another line that showed potential was DeBrincat, Larkin, and Kane. They played just 2:42 together but posted a 0.342-0.057 xG advantage while scoring without giving up a goal.
Of course that's a small sample size, but with the Red Wings desperate for a jolt of some kind, it has to be an option Lalonde considers moving forward.
-On the back end, Ben Chiarot and Jeff Petry encapsulated Detroit's dilemma. They put up good underlying numbers but breakdowns meant they gave up a 2-0 advantage in their 14:40 together despite a 57.2% share of on-ice xG. This was also another difficult night for Seider and Jake Walman. In 12:35 together, they earned just a 32.3% share of on-ice xG and were outscored 2-0 as well. It's been a difficult stretch from Seider and Walman of late, and of course, some of that must have to do with the team's general malaise, but putting them on their own pairings has to become a consideration at this point.
-The underlying numbers suggest that the biggest issue for the Red Wings last night was goaltending. James Reimer made 36 saves on 41 shots—allowing five goals in 2.202 xG (for a -2.8 GSAE).
To some extent, I see those numbers as unfairly pinning some of Detroit's defensive miscues on Reimer (which allowed for wide-open, close range chances on several Jets' goals). However, it's also hard to argue that Reimer looked good or comfortable Wednesday night, and his season numbers are now far from inspiring.
Reimer is 2-5-2 on the season with a .903 save percentage (solid but uninspiring, narrowly below league average), a 2.87 goals against average (about the same), and a -0.387 GSAE/60 (a disaster).
-At the end of the day, this wasn't an impressive Red Wings effort on any front: not in attack, not on defense, and not in net. Detroit's season may be hanging in the balance as the team heads into a back-to-back this weekend, and there is a desperate need to reverse some of those trends quickly.
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