A dive into the underlying numbers from the Red Wings' 4-1 defeat in Vancouver
A dive into the underlying numbers from the Red Wings' 4-1 defeat in Vancouver
Last night in Vancouver, the Red Wings lost their second consecutive game to begin a western road swing, falling 4-1 to the Canucks at Rogers Arena. For a clearer sense of where this game slipped away, let's take a look at the underlying numbers.
The Big Picture
-By all situations expected goals (as measured by MoneyPuck), Detroit actually out-performed the Canucks 4.11-1.94. However, the Red Wings' total is a bit misleading, as a significant portion of it came after Vancouver took a 4-1 lead.
Elias Lindholm's third-period goal that put the Canucks up 4-1 left the xG battle at 1.869-1.559 in the hosts' favor. From there, two A+ chances for J.T. Compher and great looks from Shayne Gostisbehere and Michael Rasmussen inflated the Red Wings' xG output at a moment in the game when the outcome was no longer in serious doubt.
-When you zoom in a bit tighter, it feels as though Detroit lost this game in the first period.
The Red Wings' led 0.261-0.241 in xG after the first, and that defensive effort in particular is quite commendable as a way to open a game on the road. However, Detroit conceded two goals in the first in what was not Alex Lyon's finest hour (the second especially was one on which the Red Wings would have liked a save), and the power play went 0-for-3 without creating any kind of meaningful danger.
It's not as though Detroit was hopeless from that point forward. After all, the Red Wings had turned around a two-goal deficit in one period instead of two against Vancouver less than a week earlier. However, it turned what could have been a stout defensive period into an early deficit from which Detroit never found a way out.
-At five-on-five, the Canucks were the better team, but not by a dramatic margin. The Red Wings put up a 46.54 CorsiFor%, a 46.15% share of scoring chances, a 46.15% share of high-danger chances as well, and a 48.7% share of expected goals according to Natural Stat Trick. Those numbers could be perfectly fine if they didn't coincide with an 0-for-5 effort on the power play.
Individual Impacts
-Given the early deficit, it should come as no surprise that Derek Lalonde did a fair bit of line juggling last night.
The Red Wings began the evening with a second line of David Perron, Compher, and Patrick Kane (with Alex DeBrincat on the top line with Dylan Larkin and Lucas Raymond). That Perron-Compher-Kane unit ended up playing just 2:13 together before Perron was replaced with DeBrincat.
DeBrincat, Compher, and Kane played 7:31 together. They didn't exactly tilt the ice in their favor (xGs were 0.242-0.269), but I would argue they looked more dangerous than those numbers suggest. DeBrincat's movement away from the puck seems to draw the most out of Kane in his offensive zone orchestration, while Compher can help that pair get set up in the O zone and extend their time there.
Interestingly, Perron did not just swap spots with DeBrincat and join Larkin and Raymond. Instead, Detroit's second most common five-on-five forward line featured Daniel Sprong beside Larkin and Raymond. Perhaps that's just a product of needing to chase a game and not something the Red Wings would turn to regularly, but it's at least noteworthy. With Sprong in tow, the line played 5:13 together to good underlying numbers but poor results (out-chancing Vancouver 0.53-0.214 by xG, but getting outscored 0-2).
-This was a difficult night for Moritz Seider and Jake Walman. They played 10:59 and were out-chanced 0.153-0.406 by xG. While we've seen Seider and Walman absorb that kind of pressure in the past while escaping no worse for the wear, last night the pair was outscored 0-3.
-Finally, it was not a banner night for Alex Lyon, who seems to have hit his first real rough patch as a Red Wing. He made 17 saves on 21 shots, giving up four goals on 1.93 xG for what amounts to a Goals Saved Above Expected of -2.06.
For the time being, that's nothing to panic over, but this does feel like a moment in which Lyon could benefit from a night or two off, yet Detroit doesn't have a very convincing alternative at the moment with Ville Husso once again injured and James Reimer having given up five or more goals in four of his last eight starts.
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