In the Red Wings performance without him Saturday night, Simon Edvinsson provided one more reminder of his blossoming value to the Detroit defense corps
In the Red Wings performance without him Saturday night, Simon Edvinsson provided one more reminder of his blossoming value to the Detroit defense corps
21-year-old defenseman Simon Edvinsson missed Saturday night's 4-1 defeat in Los Angeles, and while it might be over-stating it to say his absence explained the result, that absence was certainly conspicuous.
Heading into the season, Red Wing fans yearned for a top defense pair of Edvinsson beside Moritz Seider. That's not how coach Derek Lalonde opted to align his defense corps to begin the season, instead pairing Seider with Ben Chiarot to start the season, but Lalonde quickly promoted Edvinsson to that role, and the young Swede hasn't looked back.
In 2023-24, Detroit fans agonized over some of Seider's underlying metrics and the difficulty of his workload in terms of match-ups and defensive zone starts. That came largely with Chiarot and Jake Walman. This year with Edvinsson, Seider has a five-on-five expected goals share of 56.91%, without Edvinsson that number falls to 35.31% (both stats courtesy of Natural Stat Trick). Edvinsson, meanwhile, ranks second on the Red Wings by the same metric and first among the team's D-men at 51.32 xGF%. That's not to say that Edvinsson has made Seider what he is but rather to make clear that the pairing has found immediate success for both players.
On Wednesday night, Edvinsson lifted Detroit to victory with an overtime goal that prompted fellow Swede Jonatan Berggren to quip, "I was shocked. I’ve never seen him do that move before. Lucky for him." While Berggren said that facetiously, achieving unprecedented levels of success has been something of a pattern for Edvinsson this year.
Then, Friday night in Anaheim, Edvinsson picked up an injury blocking a shot. He tried to warm up for Saturday's game in Los Angeles but couldn't go. Without Edvinsson, the flaws of Detroit's D corps (evident, even with him in the lineup, but accentuated in his absence) were conspicuous from the game's opening shift. The Red Wings struggled to get defensive stops and exit the zone, for another troubling night with entirely too much time in their own end of the rink. Again, it's not as though Edvinsson's absence explains the loss on the whole, but it's one more reminder of just how important he has become.
The good news is that Lalonde said after the loss Saturday that he was "hopeful" to have Edvinsson and Michael Rasmussen (who also missed the game) for tonight's game in San Jose against the Sharks.
For more on Edvinsson's start to, check out the featured video above.
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