Statistical Review: Red Wings 6, Penguins 3

Last night at Little Caesars Arena, the Detroit Red Wings improved to 3-1-0 on the season by beating the Pittsburgh Penguins 6-3.  Let's take a look at some of the numbers that defined the Red Wings' third straight victory.

-In contrast to Monday night's winning effort in Columbus, the win over Pittsburgh Wednesday was hardly an overwhelming performance from Detroit.  

The Red Wings were out-shot, they struggled at even strength, and they lost in the face-off circle.  However, Detroit was able to overcome all of it and secure the victory through persistence, a still-scalding power play, and depth of scoring.

-By MoneyPuck's accounting, the Red Wings bested the Penguins 3.21-2.68 by Expected Goals; however, this figure is misleading.  Before Andrew Copp and Alex DeBrincat iced the game with a pair of empty netters, Detroit was down at 2.11 xG, comfortably behind their visitors for the evening.  

Per the site's Deserve To Win O'Meter, the Penguins should have won the game 62.3% of the time.  Meanwhile, just five Red Wing skaters managed to break a 50% on-ice xG share at five-on-five (Christian Fischer, Austin Czarnik, Klim Kostin, Ben Chiarot, and Jeff Petry).

-Natural Stat Trick concluded that Pittsburgh enjoyed a 60.89% share of the five-on-five xG for the evening, and the site's heat map for the game reinforces that notion.  Detroit struggled to generate any serious volume of offense, though it was able to create some premium slot chances.

-Here's a look at the night's individual xG contributions, again courtesy of MoneyPuck.  Copp and DeBrincat's totals are both inflated by their empty netters (and Copp's also by another penalty shot), but both delivered strong performances nonetheless.

-If it felt as though Erik Karlsson was on the ice every other shift for Pittsburgh, that's because he was, or nearly was.  

He played 27:56 last night (the bulk of it beside Marcus Pettersson)—scoring once, giving two assists, and posting a preposterous 72.5% xG share.  Karlsson was the driving factor in the Penguins' push to pull even in the third.

He orchestrated from the back end and drove chance creation to premium areas.  It was a continuation of the ridiculous form that produced 101 points in San Jose a year ago and the third Norris of Karlsson's decorated career.

On Wednesday night, the former Shark and Ottawa Senator was nothing short of monstrous in his new uniform.

-Karlsson wasn't the only Penguin star to deliver an exceptional performance at LCA Wednesday night.  Sidney Crosby's line (with Crosby down the middle, and Jake Guentzel and Bryan Rust on his wings) was imperious.  They played 14:02 together at 5-on-5, accounted for two goals for, didn't concede, and posted a dizzying 92.7% xG share.

Of course, the sample size of a single game is bound to produce some crooked numbers, but even with that in mind, it's an absurd performance for Crosby and his running mates.  Shot attempts were 23-5 in the Penguins' favor with that trio on the ice.

The challenge going into the evening (or any game against Pittsburgh stretching back nearly two decades at this point) was going to be corralling the Penguins' top-of-the-line-up stars.  To be blunt, Detroit didn't manage this to much success at all yet found a way to win anyway.

-In brighter news, the defense pair of Ben Chiarot and Jeff Petry played their best games of the season Wednesday.  They ate up 14:48 of five-on-five ice time, during which the Red Wings struck twice and Penguins only once.

Chiarot himself provided the Red Wings early in the second period, at a moment in which Detroit needed something to break in its direction.

Meanwhile, as a pair, Chiarot and Petry enjoyed a stellar 59.4% xG share at five-on-five, a stark contrast to the Red Wings' other two regular pairs on the evening.  Jake Walman and Moritz Seider were all the way down at 24.4%, while Olli Maatta and Shayne Gostisbehere weren't much better at 35.0%.

-Amongst the forwards, J.T. Compher, Andrew Copp, and Michael Rasmussen constituted the Red Wings' busiest forward line at even strength.  The trio played 12:44 together, and they were badly beaten in terms of xG (posting a woeful 18.4% share).  This is in no small part due to their difficult match-up.  Despite being badly out-chanced, the trio still scored, without giving up a goal the other way.

-Finally, we'll wrap with Ville Husso.  Giving up three goals on 2.689 xG officially left the Finnish backstop with a -0.32 Goals Saved Above Expected for the evening.  However, by the eye test, that figure feels more than a little harsh to Husso—who was under heavy pressure early in the game and at its conclusion.

He could hardly be blamed for the first or third goal against—the former a wide-open back-door one-timer, the latter a deflection in tight.  Even on the second goal—a point shot from Karlsson—Husso had heavy traffic to contend with in front, though it was perhaps still a goal he'd want back.

It looked to my eye like Husso's best performance of the season to date.  He limited rebound chances and held up to some heavy pressure.  Still, the advanced numbers say that he under-performed, if only slightly.