How can Detroit win games with defense while giving up a high volume of chances? By not giving up high quality looks

Depending on your chosen metric, it's not hard to paint the 2023-24 Detroit Red Wings as a poor defensive team.

To use the simplest, goals against per game, the Red Wings rank 22nd in the NHL at 3.22.  To get a bit fancier, by five-on-five goals against per 60 minutes, Detroit ranks 25th in the league at 2.70.  By expected goals against per 60 at five-on-five, the Red Wings are closer to the middle of the pack at 2.53, good for 16th in the NHL.  Detroit has given up 1804 unblocked five-on-five shot attempts, the sixth highest total in the league.

However, with the exception of a woeful month of December, the Red Wings have generally been an effective defensive team, and throughout the new year, Detroit has won games in large part on the strength of its defensive efforts.

In December, the Red Wings gave up 4.27 goals against a game; for context, the San Jose Sharks presently rank last in the NHL by that stat at 3.82.  In October, November, and January, Detroit combined to give up 97 goals in 35 games—2.77 against a night, which would rank ninth in the NHL if it were the team's season total.

So, with December excepted, how have the Red Wings been able to succeed defensively while yielding a considerable volume of offense to the opposition?

Alex Lyon's sterling form has to be mentioned in that conversation, but there is another key factor as well.  Despite giving up a lot of shots, Detroit does not give up many premium chances.

The Red Wings have given up the third most low-danger chances in the NHL at 1416, and the eighth most medium-danger chances at 304.  However, when it comes to high-danger chances, Detroit has yielded just 82, the fifth lowest total around the NHL.

In broad strokes, the benefit of using shot metrics (meant as a proxy for possession) is that the data provides a picture of which team is controlling play by driving a higher portion of offense than its opposition.  However, the discrepancy between the Red Wings' high danger chances against and their overall defensive metrics offer one insight into a limitation of this logic and these stats.

What works well about expected goals as a metric is that it is an intuitive way to interpret a game.  Fans have walked out of hockey games their team lost for decades, turning to one another and saying something to the effect of "yeah we lost, but we had the better chances."  Expected goals offer a path to quantifying that conversation.

However, it also would seem to follow that not all expected goals are created equal.  For the sake of argument, let's say that one team takes five low-danger point shots and another creates one high-danger look from the inner slot.  Continuing our hypothetical, let's say those chances grade out to roughly equivalent xG totals.  

Personally, I would still expect the team who created just the one chance but a quality chance to be more likely to score.  Sure, they're giving up a greater volume of opportunities, but if you trust your goaltender to stop low-danger looks and maximize your offensive efficiency with shot quality, then it stands to reason that high quality offense will out-perform high volume offense.

For this year's Red Wings, that's been the path to defensive success.

(All advanced stats from this piece courtesy of MoneyPuck)

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