The Red Wings lean on Jake Walman and Moritz Seider to handle opponents’ elite lines, but against Colorado they fell flat. The resulting blowout loss shows how much they're needed to help Detroit win.
The Red Wings lean on Jake Walman and Moritz Seider to handle opponents’ elite lines, but against Colorado they fell flat. The resulting blowout loss shows how much they're needed to help Detroit win.
It wasn't a mistake you'd expect from a player as cerebral as Moritz Seider.
As Colorado winger Mikko Rantanen held the puck behind Detroit’s net, the Red Wings’ defensive stalwart reached around the net and attempted to poke it free. What he neglected to realize was that Avalanche winger Artturi Lehkonen was wide open in front, as Seider’s defense partner Jake Walman played near post. With a bang-bang pass from Rantanen, he cashed in for the 3-2 lead and what became the game-winning goal in a 7-2 blowout.
Such an error proved costly, but it wasn’t the only error Walman and Seider made. On a minus-two night in which they faced wave after wave of Avalanche scoring threats, the Red Wings’ usually sound defensive pair had an off performance. And in the process, they showed just how integral they are to Detroit’s success.
“It’s hard, but honestly, that’s what we want to do,” Seider said postgame of the potential to handle Colorado’s top line. “That’s what I want to do, and that’s why I want to be out there.”
Make no mistake, Detroit wanted Seider and Walman out there, too.
While expected goals and zone entry stats might not favor Walman and Seider in particular, the pairing has gone up against elite lines more than anyone in the NHL, let alone Detroit’s roster. About a month ago, The Athletic’s Dom Luszczyszyn put together an intriguing portrait of Seider’s usage, showing that no one faces harder competition than Seider while he is simultaneously held back by low defensive contributions from his teammates.
To absolutely no one’s surprise, Seider and Walman were the main pairing to go up against one of the NHL’s best trios in Lehkonen, Nathan MacKinnon and Rantanen. Being the road team led to some difficult line matching for Detroit coach Derek Lalonde, but Seider and Walman found themselves up against MacKinnon’s line quite often. And when out there, they made mistakes.
On the Avalanche’s first goal, MacKinnon raced down the ice with speed and drew Walman out of position as Rantanen entered the zone. After taking a backhander, Rantanen picked the puck up below the goal line and passed it to MacKinnon at the half wall where he reversed ice with a cross-ice pass. All the while, Rantanen and Lehkonen set up camp in front of Detroit’s goal, and Walman and Seider failed to clear them. All they could do was watch as the 1-1 goal sailed past them off the stick of Cale Makar.
The problems with this goal are twofold. First, Walman can’t get beat so cleanly by MacKinnon up ice. Walman couldn’t maintain his gap through the neutral zone because MacKinnon’s fleet feet made sure it didn’t exist. Walman was on his back foot recovering the entire sequence. That’s not an indictment of his abilities, but more so an ugly badge of honor for a defenseman facing MacKinnon’s line. Nevertheless, that was the first area where this play went wrong.
“I think we just gave a little too much space in the neutral zone,” Seider said. “If you’re tight, and if you’re right in their face, obviously they can’t (pick up) that much speed up the ice. And we just sat in our system a little too much I think, and they just curled back, picked up a lot of speed, weaseled their way through. And then obviously you’re looking at MacKinnon running down the wing and obviously it’s pretty hard to stop.”
The second issue with this goal: Seider and Walman both have to clear the net better for Lyon. While the screens didn’t lead to a deflection, and Lyon seemed able to see Makar at the point, clearing the screens faster would open up the ability for Seider and Walman to lay down and block the shot. A low percentage shot like that can’t get through to the net. Yet by getting caught in a net-front impasse, they couldn't prevent it from getting there.
Later on in the game with Lehkonen’s 3-2 goal, Seider’s positioning blunder also cost an easy goal. Seider needed to muscle his way between Lehkonen and the puck, while trusting Walman to defend the near post and prevent a Rantanen wraparound. He didn’t, and the Avalanche took advantage. After the game, Lalonde said it wasn’t so much MacKinnon’s line scoring a lot that he minded, but rather the errors that bothered him.
"They’re gonna get their looks, I just don't like the missed coverage, net front," Lalonde said postgame. "You could tell they had it going tonight. This is tough to find a matchup on the road, they just keep putting them out there. So I think we got overmatched and overwhelmed a little bit tonight."
To be clear, these were momentary lapses from a pairing that has played admirably against the NHL’s top talent all season. They’ve been difference-makers in many of Detroit’s wins, and they don’t make these mistakes often.
But the difference between the highs and lows shows how much the Red Wings lean on Seider and Walman to get it right. Just two weeks ago, they largely contained MacKinnon and his crew in a 2-1 home win while avoiding these sorts of blunders. They absorbed 1.531 expected goals out of the Avs’ 2.89 total as tracked by Moneypuck, allowing zero actual goals to be scored during that span. This time around, they let in two goals on 1.202 expected goals, playing a hand in a 7-2 blowout loss.
“We just gave them too many easy chances,” Seider said of his team’s performance. “(We) weren’t connected enough through the neutral zone. They just skated up the ice and overwhelmed us with a lot of speed, I think.”
When Seider and Walman are playing on point, they can weather much of their opponents’ attack. When they’re off, though, the results can be catastrophic. As the playoffs near and the matchups get tougher, Detroit will need the duo to play to its peak form and avoid the sort of costly errors that plagued it Wednesday.
Mistakes aren’t expected from Seider and Walman for a reason, but wins can’t be expected when they make them.
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