Detroit Red Wings Roundtable
Petry, Rasmussen, an Ugly Loss, and the Challenge of Creating Order out of Chaos
On the futility of assigning individual blame for team outcomes and a frustrating Red Wing performance in Carolina
© James Guillory-USA TODAY Sports - Petry, Rasmussen, an Ugly Loss, and the Challenge of Creating Order out of ChaosLast night at PNC Arena, the Carolina Hurricanes dominated the Detroit Red Wings for the third time this season, earning a 4-0 shutout victory. After controlling play in the first but proving unable to find a goal, Carolina ignited its offense with a counter-attacking goal from Sebastian Aho not quite five minutes into the second period.
Many Red Wing fans—whether because of the general frustration of the fast-slipping playoff hopes or a pre-existing predilection for ascribing blame to him—were quick to pin the goal on defenseman Jeff Petry. However, in his post-game remarks, coach Derek Lalonde revealed that the goal in fact stemmed from a missed read from Michael Rasmussen.
"We duplicated on it," explained Lalonde. "The D slid; Ras should've took the backdoor guy. So if you can see it in a split second, and it happens quick, that's why you middle lane drive [as a forward away from the puck with your team in possession], but you had Ras and [Petry] basically covering the driver and leaving the most dangerous guy on the weak side. It happens. We're usually pretty good with tracks. It's a missed play. Unfortunately, that's the goal that got them going."
Many Detroit fans responded to this revelation—first reported by The Athletic's Max Bultman (who had asked Lalonde about the play in his post-game scrum)—by insisting that Petry was to blame anyway.
In fact, we can trace this particular error further up ice than just Rasmussen's duplication in coverage. While the Red Wings were still in the offensive zone, Rasmussen, serving as F3 on Detroit's forecheck (i.e. the forward in the least advanced position, who by design is intended to stay above the play) unsuccessfully attempted to intercept a breakout pass. He wound up below the puck instead of above it, allowing Seth Jarvis to lead a three-on-two counter-attack with Rasmussen in hot pursuit.
For more context on the nature of this issue, let's return to an explanation of the Red Wings' forecheck from Andrew Copp earlier in the season:
"Our F3 gets way too aggressive and sees puck, and then there's turnovers and odd-man rushes the other way," Copp told The Hockey News in late November. "So for us, it's about F1 and F2 getting skating, forcing bad plays from their defensemen, and then when our F3 comes across he's really disciplined, and our F1 and F2 are reloading, it's tough to play against. When we're not doing it, it's obvious, and when we are doing it, it's also obvious."
"You can't dive down, especially if the play's coming at you," Copp continued, in further explanation of F3's role. "You can't be skating forward as the play's coming at you. That's probably the biggest thing. So you want to be swinging with the puck a little bit, and you're not chasing from behind. Three-on-threes are fine. We can gap that out. Three-on-twos, two-on-ones are not good. It's usually not one mistake; it's kinda two and three, but our F3 has been pretty good lately."
In failing to successfully cut out the pass to Jarvis, Rasmussen allowed an odd-man rush to develop, and his mis-read of his subsequent defensive zone assignment compounded that problem, leading to a goal.
However, even to the extent that we can assign blame or identify missed assignments on an individual goal, Detroit's loss to the Hurricanes wasn't about a single play or player. Instead, Carolina thoroughly controlled last night's game at even strength, and, even if Aho's goal was the one that "got them going" to use Lalonde's phrasing, it alone wasn't enough to cost the Red Wings the result.
Beyond that, some of the ensuing frustration that emerged from Lalonde's explanation from Detroit fans seems to misunderstand the purpose of having a system in the first place—which has nothing to do with the particulars of the Red Wings' assignments.
Here's an explanation from University of Michigan coach Brandon Naurato—a former Red Wings player development consultant—as to the purpose of systems in a sport as fluid as hockey, one he read to his team aloud last season before a critical match-up with Michigan State:
“The nature of the game is inherent chaos, two opposing teams trying to achieve the same objective all while preventing each other from completing that objective," offered Naurato. "Tactics help make this chaos more manageable and predictable. This means that for a team to successfully achieve the game objective, they must create some order within that chaos with the use of tactics."
As chaotic as hockey can look at times, that doesn't mean that players are constantly improvising—merely reacting to the circumstances that confront them. Instead, because of that "inherent chaos" as Naurato termed it, teams need to have plans in place to optimize their opportunity at success.
That's not to say that Lalonde's system is infallible or to minimize Detroit fans' feelings of frustration at the final stages of what's been a largely successful season. The point is rather to recognize that the games we watch, enjoy, and attempt to parse aren't determined by freelancing and improvisation.
Instead, teams have plans in place (which we often aren't privy to) to best position themselves for success; all of which is to say that ascribing blame to individuals for team-related outcomes may be cathartic, but it's seldom all that productive. Last night's failure in Carolina wasn't about one player; it was a collective one.
And, in the interest of understanding the nature of that collective failure last night against the Hurricanes, a factor that shouldn't be ignored is the illness that's been circulating the Detroit locker room for more than a week now. Last night, it forced Patrick Kane and Austin Czarnik out of the lineup at the 11th hour. Last week, it saw Rasmussen play in a game after being too ill to participate in morning skate or the following day's practice.
"We knew we were gonna be up against it tonight," observed Lalonde after the game. "Not only where our lineup was, but to have it happen to ya right before the game, it's a bit of a stinger. That's a tough team to play 11 forwards with, because of the pace they play at. Probably could've done more to give ourselves a chance."
Professional sports represent a uniquely outcome-driven business, and extenuating circumstances like officiating, adverse conditions, or illness aren't relevant as excuses. To borrow a phrase from Bill Parcells, in sports, "you are what your record says you are," and at the end of the season, there are no accommodations for whatever inequities may have arisen over the course of 82 games.
An illness like the one afflicting the Red Wings at the moment isn't an excuse, and it doesn't (and shouldn't) change the results. However, if you're starving for something or someone to blame for the disappointment that was last night's game, a more explanatory but less satisfying target is the simple fact of an illness leaving Detroit at reduced capacity at the worst possible moment in the season.
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