A statistical review of the Detroit Red Wings’ 4-2 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning, featuring a look at the high-danger scoring chances that Detroit surrendered and the effects of a shortened bench
The Red Wings’ playoff hopes are alive and well after a 4-2 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning on Monday night. It wasn’t a pretty win, and it might’ve been one that Detroit didn’t deserve as far as the stats read. But at this point in the season, with their backs against the wall of a tight playoff race, the Red Wings aren’t turning their noses up at anything.
To see what went right and what went wrong, let’s check out the stats:
The Big Picture
If you look hard enough around Tampa Bay, you might find wanted posters for Alex Lyon for the win he and his Red Wings stole. They trailed the Lightning 3.11-2.42 in all situations expected goals, and 1.91-1.64 at 5-on-5 where they scored three of their four goals. For almost the entirety of 60 minutes, the Lightning controlled the run of play and led in generated offense. In 1,000 simulations by Moneypuck, Detroit wins this game just 27.4% of the time.
If we look at the heat map of shot locations, we can see a big red blotch right in front of Lyon where Tampa Bay earned 15 (!) high danger chances as tracked by Natural Stat Trick. Lyon only let in one of them.
Detroit earned its chances too, including its own scrambles at the net and just outside of it. That’s where David Perron scored the game-winner, after all, and where Robby Fabbri scored his team’s first goal on the power play.
Overall, this is a game that Tampa Bay should have won, and the stats are a little generous to what the game itself showed. The Lightning hemmed the Red Wings in their own zone, taking 73 shot attempts in the process compared to Detroit’s 56.
So how in the hell did the Red Wings win this game?
*ahem*
Individual Impacts
Yeah, this has to start with Alex Lyon. The Red Wings’ netminder ended a 10-game losing streak with this performance, and he earned that slump-snapper to boot. He saved 34 of the 36 shots he faced, his third game in the past four where he eclipsed a .940 save percentage. He saved 1.11 goals above expected per Moneypuck’s expected goals rating. A lot of that comes from the previously mentioned 15 (again, !) high-danger chances he faced. Moneypuck is a little stricter on their danger ratings, and they peg 13 of those as medium-danger threats. Either way you slice the cake, Lyon had his work cut out for him, and he stood tall with just one goal allowed of those chances on a Steven Stamkos power play goal.
Lyon wasn’t alone though. The Red Wings significantly dampened the shots Lyon had to save by blocking 21 shots. Eight of those came from Seider, followed by Jeff Petry at two and a whole host of players at one apiece. Twelve of these came from defensemen as the Red Wings prevented easy shots from becoming more dangerous chances through traffic. Perron called this “winning hockey” postgame, and it’s hard to argue with his assessment.
But simply weathering the storm didn’t win the game outright — that took offensive contributions, too. In this respect, the second line of Lucas Raymond, J.T. Compher and David Perron dealt the most damage with 0.629 expected goals and an 84.3% control of expected goals while on the ice. However, this line let up more shot attempts than it took itself, with a 47.6% Corsi. That’s probably a symptom of usage against Tampa Bay’s first line of Anthony Duclair, Brayden Point and Nikita Kucherov, a matchup that the Lightning wanted all night but never saw results from.
Such a fact shows why neither expected goals nor Corsi can explain a whole lot in a vacuum — shot quality and shot quantity offer two different views of game control, and while Tampa Bay had a lot more control over this game in terms of possession and shot attempts, Detroit found some decisive contributions from its second line to win this game.
The Red Wings needed this, because Derek Lalonde shortened the bench. The fourth line took 2:49 of ice time across five shifts together, while individual members took the ice with different units at points. Fabbri proved a power play specialist, scoring the first goal, while Austin Czarnik centered Alex DeBrincat and Patrick Kane for a few shifts throughout the game.
In a do-or-die game with major playoff impacts, a short bench makes sense, but it also puts a high burden on the rest of the forward corps. The top three lines each played between nine and 10 minutes each, rolling out in sequence as the Red Wings played the Lightning. Whether this is a long-term solution or just something to take on Tampa Bay, the results worked enough to steal a win.
Also from THN Detroit
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Perron Plays Hero as Red Wings Persevere for 4-2 Win in Tampa and Two Vital Points
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