Goaltending a Bright Spot as Detroit's Attack Flummoxed for Second Straight Game: Red Wings-Flyers Statistical Review
A dive into the underlying numbers from the Red Wings' 1-0 loss in Philadelphia
On Saturday night in Philadelphia, the Detroit Red Wings were humbled for the second game in a row, losing 1-0 to the Flyers two days after a 2-1 loss at home to the Carolina Hurricanes. With Detroit's attack sputtering, let's take a look at the underlying numbers that defined Saturday's defeat.
The Big Picture
-By all situations expected goals, Philadelphia bested the Red Wings 2.42-2.17. The Flyers scored in the first, but it was a tight, defensive frame by xG (finishing 0.823-0.704 in the home team's favor). Philadelphia put some distance between themselves and their guests in the second with a 0.799-0.459 advantage in xG but without further scoring. The Red Wings' biggest push of the night came in the the final five minutes of the third period, when they peppered Samuel Ersson with 0.554 xG's worth of opportunity but failed to find a breakthrough.
-Per Natural Stat Trick, Detroit was (narrowly) the better team at five-on-five. The Red Wings earned a 51.04% CorsiFor, a 48.94% share of scoring chances, a 50% share of high-danger chances, and a 53.21% share of xG.
I've written before about the idea that against the giants in the Atlantic Division (e.g. Boston, Tampa Bay, and Toronto), low-event hockey has favored the Red Wings—the logic being that against team's with superior offensive firepower, diminishing the total opportunities in either direction is a better formula then trading abundant chances, which only serve to give an opponent's elite talent more occasions to express that skill.
Saturday in Philadelphia (and Tuesday against the Hurricanes) offered a contradictory data point. Like Detroit, the Flyers are a team vying for an unlikely playoff berth, but they are also the rare postseason contender in the East over whom the Red Wings (even without Dylan Larkin) can credibly claim a talent advantage.
Detroit's issue yesterday night wasn't so much that it didn't get into its style of play as that Philadelphia was ready and able to absorb the kind of forechecking pressure through which Derek Lalonde wants his team to create offense. That doesn't mean that Lalonde's approach is therefore fundamentally incorrect, but it does complicate the value of low-event hockey for the Red Wings.
Would it make more sense against certain (less-talented) Eastern opponents to push the pace a bit more and allow the game to get a bit more open? Was this a game in which Detroit would've had more success if tried to play a bit more off the rush, allowing the likes of Patrick Kane and Alex DeBrincat to play a slightly more free flowing game?
I'm not sure the answer there, but what was clear on Saturday is that the Red Wings couldn't manage to sustain very much offense, and Philadelphia did great work to get the puck out of trouble swiftly. Of course, having Larkin in the lineup would help address that problem, but I'm not sure that his strengths address the crux of that problem.
Perhaps this was simply a case of continued fatigue from a relentless schedule or simply poor shooting luck. However, given the present offensive drought, it's fair to at least wonder whether there's something a bit self-defeating in Detroit's tactics, specifically when it comes to opponents against whom the Red Wings aren't giving up a talent advantage as we know they are against the East's elite.
Individual Impacts
-No Red Wing managed much by way of individual chance creation. Lucas Raymond led the team in individual xG at 0.37, with Kane and Robby Fabbri not far behind at 0.34 and 0.29, so while Detroit created enough to get on the scoreboard, it's not as though any individual shooter was snakebitten in failing to find his mark.
-The Fabbri, Andrew Copp, and Daniel Sprong trio was Detroit's best by some distance—˘both in play-driving/game control and chance creation. In 8:34 together, the line amassed 0.586 xG and a 57.1% share of on-ice xG—both team highs among regular lines.
All three of Detroit's other regular lines finished underwater by xG. Michael Rasmussen, J.T. Compher, and Patrick Kane were out-chanced 0.358-0.52 by xG and conceded the game's lone goal in 10:05 together. Lucas Raymond, Joe Veleno, and Alex DeBrincat played 9:09 together and were out-chanced 0.251-0.256. Klim Kostin, Austin Czarnik, and Christian Fischer played 5:14 together, suffering an 0.02-0.388 xG disadvantage.
That latter figure (representing a 4.9% share of on-ice xG) is of course on some level a small-sample aberration, but it also illustrates the way Philadelphia proved successful at matching and smothering the Red Wings' attempts at grinding out a result.
-On the back end, Shayne Gostisbehere and Olli Maatta played a strong game together: 15:06 together at five-on-five and a 57.7% share of on-ice xG. Neither Jake Walman-Moritz Seider (44.5% xGF) nor Ben Chiarot-Jeff Petry (47.5% xGF) finished above water in chance creation, but neither pairing was dreadful by any means.
-In goal, Detroit got sound performances from both of its goaltenders. Alex Lyon—who was forced to exit midway through the second after suffering an upper body injury—stopped 13 of the 14 shots he faced, allowing one goal on 0.989 xG for a Goals Saved Above Expected of -0.01.
Ville Husso—who replaced Lyon—stopped all 14 shots he faced for a 1.43 GSAE. Husso's success in particular is encouraging in the way he responded to an adverse situation—being thrust into a tight game with a penalty to kill straight away. You could easily imagine a scenario in which a rusty goaltender—having begun the net on the bench—would immediately allow the game to drift out of hand, but Husso had the opposite effect.
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