A dive into the underlying numbers from the Detroit Red Wings 4-1 win over the Minnesota Wild Sunday afternoon at Little Caesars Arena
On Sunday afternoon at Little Caesars Arena, the Detroit Red Wings earned their third straight win, knocking off the visiting Minnesota Wild by a 4-1 final score. Though it finished at a three-goal margin, this game was closely contested for all three periods. For a better sense of how it played out, let's dive into some underlying numbers.
The Big Picture
-By all situations expected goals, the Red Wings bested their guests by a 2.59-2.12 margin. Detroit was dominant for nearly the entire first period. Through 19:48 of hockey in the frame, the Red Wings had smothered Minnesota to the tune of a 0.924-0.159 lead in xG and a 1-0 lead on the scoreboard. However, Joel Eriksson Ek's power play goal with 12 seconds left in the first tied the score and brought the xG margin down to 0.924-0.637.
From there, the Wild controlled play throughout the second, only for Dylan Larkin to restore Detroit's advantage with a late four-on-four goal. Though they exited the frame with a 2-1 lead, the Red Wings trailed the period 0.497-1.025 by xG.
Finally, the third played out evenly, but it was bookended by a power play goal from David Perron and an empty-netter from Shayne Gostisbehere.
-The below map of all situations scoring chances takes on an interesting character.
On the Minnesota side of the ledger, you can see that the Wild produced a lot of offense from the high-ice portion of the offensive zone along the point but coupled those low-danger attempts with a significant number of premium chances from in tight. Meanwhile, Detroit didn't accomplish much by way of chance volume, but a fair number of those opportunities came from decent scoring areas but not excellent ones. Lots of the Red Wings offense seemed to come from the outer reaches of the slot.
-The five-on-five numbers from this game reveal the fuller extent of Minnesota's advantage in carrying play.
Per Natural Stat Trick, the Red Wings managed just a 39.13% CorsiFor, a 48.28% share of scoring chances, a dreadful 14.29% share of high-danger chances, and a 25.54% share of xG.
That high-danger chance number in particular suggests that, over the course of 60 minutes, Detroit managed to win this game despite its play at five-on-five, not because of it. Per MoneyPuck, zero Red Wings finished the game with a greater than 50% share of on-ice xG at five-on-five.
Individual Impacts
-Among skaters, Dylan Larkin led the way for Detroit on Sunday afternoon. He posted a game-high 0.79 individual xG, scored a goal on four shots, and gave an assist in 20:14 of ice time.
-Beyond Larkin and the power play, the Red Wings struggled mightily to generate offense against the Wild. At five-on-five, Detroit's most productive line was Michael Rasmussen, J.T. Compher, and Alex DeBrincat, and that trio managed only 0.18 on-ice xG in 7:11 together.
David Perron, Andrew Copp, and Robby Fabbri led Red Wing forward lines in ice time with 7:29 together at five-on-five, but they managed exactly 0.0 on-ice xG. Lucas Raymond, Larkin, and Joe Veleno played 7:12 together at five-a-side, and that line put up 0.01 on-ice xG. Meanwhile, the fourth line of Klim Kostin, Christian Fischer, and Daniel Sprong played 5:53 together, posting 0.074 xG.
-On the back end, one surprise from Sunday's game is that Moritz Seider (who leads Detroit skaters in average time on ice at 22:47 per game) was a distant fifth in ice time among Red Wing defensemen at five-on-five, playing just 10:43. Jeff Petry led the way at 16:38, while only Gostisbehere (9:16) spent less time on the ice at five-on-five.
-Of the Red Wings three regular pairings, the best by xG share was Olli Maatta and Justin Holl at just 43.7% in 13:07. Petry and Ben Chiarot managed just 27.4%, and Seider and Gostisbehere were worse at 24.3%.
-Of course, the power play was excellent for Detroit, delivering two massive goals to help propel the team to a win in which it was thoroughly outplayed at five-on-five, but the unquestioned star of yesterday's game was Alex Lyon.
Lyon faced 2.12 xG and conceded just once for a Goals Saved Above Expected of 1.12 (per MoneyPuck). In his three starts for the Red Wings, Lyon has now given up four goals on 6.56 xG, which rounds out to a 0.876 GSAE per 60 (comfortably ahead of his internal competition in James Reimer at 0.099 and Ville Husso at -0.274).
In his shutout Wednesday against the Devils, Lyon proved he could remain sharp in goal against a relatively light workload. On Sunday, he thrived in a much more difficult environment. To reiterate, Detroit had just 14.29% of this game's high-danger chances at five-on-five but won anyway in large part because of Lyon's reliability in net.
Without a doubt, Lyon has played his way into more starts in short order.
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