Top Six Tinkering Pays Off as Detroit Rolls at Five-on-Five: Red Wings-Blues Statistical Review
A dive into the underlying numbers from Detroit's 6-1 rout of the Blues at Little Caesars Arena yesterday afternoon
Mandatory Credit: Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports - Top Six Tinkering Pays Off as Detroit Rolls at Five-on-Five: Red Wings-Blues Statistical ReviewYesterday afternoon at Little Caesars Arena, the Detroit Red Wings steam-rolled the visiting St. Louis Blues, earning a 6-1 victory on home ice. Detroit put the game out of reach early, with three rush goals in the opening five-and-a-half minutes, before the Blues could even put a shot on net. To get a better picture of how this game played out, let's take a look at the underlying numbers.
The Big Picture
-Per MoneyPuck, the Red Wings earned a 3.66-1.66 all-situations expected goals edge yesterday. That's not quite as dominant as the actual final scoreline, but it is nonetheless a thoroughly convincing win.
Interestingly, by MoneyPuck's numbers, Detroit's best hockey didn't come as it was racing out to the lead in the first but rather during the latter two-thirds of the second. After one period, the Red Wings' xG lead was just 1.124-0.996. By the end of the second, it was 2.757-1.335.
That relatively tight first period margin is probably a reflection of public expected goals models' exclusive reliance on shot location (as opposed to also accounting for pre-shot movement). Detroit's three goals in the opening minutes of the game came from solid locations, but once you account for the cross-slot passes and odd-man rushes that led to those locations, they were more or less lay-ups for their respective finishers, having left the goalie helpless. (Admittedly, in the case of Robby Fabbri's goal, that set-up came from Kasperi Kapanen, who inadvertently banked the puck off Fabbri and in.)
-Natural Stat Trick's five-on-five numbers further reinforce the Red Wings' dominance. Detroit earned a 62.5% CorsiFor, a 67.57% share of the scoring chances, a 57.14% share of the high-danger chances, and a 64.35% share of the expected goals at five-on-five. That is unambiguously the Red Wings' best five-on-five performance since the All-Star break.
-The above five-on-five unblocked shots heat map offers a different picture of the same story. The Red Wings generated a ton of premium offense—driving play not just to the slot but to the goal mouth, and the result was five five-on-five goals, four of which came within a stone's throw of the net.
Individual Impacts
-In keeping with some in-game line juggling late in Thursday's win over the Avalanche, Detroit deviated slightly from the top six that began the Colorado game. Specifically, Derek Lalonde swapped Alex DeBrincat and Michael Rasmussen, pairing DeBrincat with Patrick Kane and Dylan Larkin on the first line and leaving Rasmussen with J.T. Compher and Lucas Raymond on the second. Both lines emerged from that tinkering to produce strong underlying numbers with commensurate results in terms of actual scoring.
The first line played 11:52 together at five-on-five, earning an 0.543-0.482 edge by xGs and a 2-1 advantage in actual goals. That was good for a 52.9% share of on-ice xG, which is a strong number until you compare it to the second line's results.
That Compher-driven unit played 10:19 at five-a-side, earning an 0.355-0.041 advantage by xG to go with a 2-0 edge on the scoreboard. That amounts to a ridiculous 89.7% share of on-ice xG.
When you put those two performances together, it looks as though Lalonde has arrived upon the right top six blend for the foreseeable future.
-On the back end, this was an excellent Jake Walman-Moritz Seider performance. Those two played 15:11 at five-on-five, earning an 0.669-0.337 edge in chance creation and a 1-0 advantage by actual goals. We've grown use to praising Walman and Seider for their ability to absorb supremely difficult minutes against elite competition but tends to mean unfortunate underlying numbers with commendable actual results. On Saturday, both went Walman and Seider's way.
The Ben Chiarot-Jeff Petry second pair enjoyed similar success. They played 14:56 together at five-on-five to the tune of an 0.978-0.716 xG advantage and 2-0 edge on the scoreboard.
-Finally, it was another strong performance by Alex Lyon in net. He wasn't quite as busy as he had to be against the Avs, but he made 22 saves on 23 shots. Those 23 shots accounted for 1.661 xG, leaving Lyon with an 0.66 Goals Saved Above Expected (per MoneyPuck).