Statistical Review: Red Wings 1, Jets 4

The Detroit Red Wings fell 4-1 last night to the Winnipeg Jets at Little Caesars Arena.  For Detroit, the evening was something of an inversion of recent performances (in which the Red Wings' finishing and power play helped mask middling five-on-five results).  Last night, the Red Wings were the better team at five-on-five, but a stellar performance from Connor Hellebuyck and some well-worked counter-attacking saw the Jets to victory.  For a better sense of how that played out, let's dive into a few underlying numbers.

-By expected goals, the Red Wings were the better team by some distance.  Detroit bested the Jets 3.35-2.23 when it came to all situations xG (per MoneyPuck).  As you can see in the graphic below, a huge portion of that margin can be traced to the Red Wings' overwhelming effort in the third period, in which Detroit outshot their guests 19-7.

The Jets grabbed a two-goal lead late in a first period in which they'd accrued less than half of an expected goal.  Detroit answered with a goal of its own early in the second, and the Red Wings maintained a (slim) advantage by xG throughout the frame.  In the third, Detroit played one of its best offensive periods of the season by chance creation, but Hellebuyck stymied them, and the Jets got an insurance marker and then an empty netter on just three total shots in the final ten minutes of play.

-Natural Stat Trick offers a similar portion of the Red Wings' five-on-five control.  Per the site, Detroit owned a 57.94% share of the game's expected goals and a 53.33% share of the game's high danger chances.

The below heat map from NST shows that Winnipeg was able to create some high quality chances in the slot, while Detroit was slightly more dependent on volume in racking up its offensive opportunities.

-This was a game in which the Red Wings' stars led the way, and at the forefront of that charge was Lucas Raymond.  Raymond put up a game-high 1.15 individual xG and scored Detroit's lone goal.

The Red Wings' top line of Raymond, Dylan Larkin, and Alex DeBrincat led the team in five-on-five ice time at 12:11.  In that time, the trio accrued 0.87 xG, while conceding just 0.344 xG against.  They scored, and they didn't concede.  They finished the night at a ridiculous 71.7 xGF%.

As David Perron noted after the game, the Red Wings would have been well-served to follow their lead.  "We got the Larks, Razor, and Cat line that create all kinds of chances in many ways—rush, cycle, all that stuff," Perron said after the game. "I think the other lines, we can do a better job at having more mentality to work the puck behind the net and then create momentum that way, if not goals then chances."

-It was a similar story on the back-end, with Detroit's stars setting the standard.  The top pair of Jake Walman and Moritz Seider was even more dominant than the top forward line.  In 13:40 at five-on-five, they were on the ice for 1.27 xG for and just 0.13 xG against for a preposterous 90.8 xGF%.  They too were on the ice for Raymond's goal without being on the ice for a goal against.

-Perhaps the biggest differentiator (at the very least, the most obvious differentiator) on the night was goaltending.

In the Winnipeg crease, Hellebuyck conceded just 1 goal on 3.346 xG for a Goals Saved Above Expected of 2.35.  For Detroit, James Reimer yielded three goals on just 1.632 xG for a GSAE of -1.37.  (All figures from MoneyPuck.)

After the game, Derek Lalonde praised Reimer for some of the saves he made to keep the score at 2-1.  As such, it seems safe to assume that the coach was generally pleased with Reimer's performance.  However, it was an obvious step below Reimer's two previous starts, which might be just enough of a wobble to open the door for Alex Lyon to get some game action for the first time as a Red Wing.