Opinion: The Red Wings are Closer than You Think

The Forwards

Naturally, let’s start at the position that was arguably the most underwhelming last season. The Red Wings forwards scored 40 less goals than they had in the 2023-24 season. When looking for the culprit, it wasn’t the top of the lineup. Larkin and Raymond did their parts with 30 and 27 goals respectively, while DeBrincat and Kane both upped their totals from last season to 39 and 21. Rookie Marco Kasper scored 19. Even Andrew Copp’s total was projected to be about 15 goals without real power play time, which is decent for a fringe top six forward. The bottom six, however, was a problem. Compher, Rasmussen, Fischer, Veleno, Motte, Smith and Tarasenko combined for 43 goals. The bottom six last summer was meant to help make up for the lack of defensive talent from the d-core. Motte and Fischer were signed (and in Fischer’s case re-signed)  to be grinders who could help the blueliners out, but in practice it just led to little offensive production with marginally better defense. Compher, Rasmussen and Veleno all took leaps back. Trading for Smith and signing Tarasenko were supposed to help offset all that but they totaled just 11 goals for the Red Wings. Evolving Hockey has the whole group I just mentioned giving the Red Wings a combined total of 1.4 standing points above what the average replacements could have. James Van Reimsdyk had 2.4 standings points on his own. The truth about the bottom six this coming season is they just have to be average. Players like Fischer, Veleno, and Smith gave the team negative standings points. Berggren and Soderblom, who played limited games, already combined for 0.7. A bottom six featuring Mazur, Soderblom, Berggren, Appleton, and JVR just has to be league average to help the Wings in the points column. It’s also totally fair (if not expected) to think the bottom six will go above that. If they all have the same impact, Tyler Motte, who scored 4 goals and played decent defense, had the bottom six will give them around 6 standings points. 4.6 more than they had from the bottom six last year. They improved around the edges for forwards, but truthfully, if they can just tread water, it will be a big improvement from what they had last year. Not to mention another step from Kasper, and potentially another one from Raymond, could come to fruition too. Raymond and Larkin had some of the most difficult deployments in the NHL, Dobber Frozen Tools had their deployment in the defensive zone 54% of the time and against elite competition. If Raymond can get more even deployments, his numbers can take off. For example, Tim Stutzle has 35% of his starts in the defensive zone and it’s against average competition. If Raymond had the same deployment, it’s more than likely he could feast in the more favourable environment. Similarly, Kasper was on 55 point pace after McLellan took over. A full season in the top six with another year old development should give Detroit the second line center they’ve been clamouring for. Don’t get me wrong, even with all of that, I don’t think that makes the 28th best even strength offence get back to 8th like it was in 2023-24, but finishing towards the middle of the league will work wonders for the standings points. 

The Defense

Despite being the heaviest concern by a lot of fans, the even strength defense wasn’t that bad for the Red Wings this season. Detroit was 18th in even-strength goals against, slightly below average. While goaltending does play a role in that, the puck stayed out of the net an average amount at even strength. The penalty kill is a topic for later. So with the Red Wings being pretty solid, I think it’s worth taking a look at who was helping and hurting the cause on the back end. Moritz Seider was obviously a beast and Evolving Hockey had him alone giving the Red Wings 4.6 standings points above replacement. Edvinsson followed with 2.6. However, their partners both had negative results. Johansson was a -0.4 and Chiarot a -2.1. The problem with both is they are over-deployed. Similar to how I mentioned Raymond faced elite competition from his own end, Chiarot and Johansson had to do the same thing; however, they aren’t good enough at this point in their careers to do so. Johansson was in the negatives, but he was also a rookie playing minutes far above what he should have, he also got much better as the season went on. I think it’s fair to expect he will take another small step to becoming a solid defenseman in his second season, so I won’t focus too much on him. Chiarot however got pretty badly beaten. This isn’t meant to bash Chiarot, it’s not his fault he is one of Detroit’s four best defensemen. Simply put, at this point in his career, he needs some shifts that aren’t going to be so difficult. This is where Gustafsson and Holl who each were good for 1.6 standing points came in. They both had fewer than 45% defensive zone starts against league-worst competition. Their analytics look good because they were playing the worst players each night. Because Gustafsson and Holl can’t be trusted with harder minutes, Chiarot and Seider are forced to play the inverse; most of their time in the defensive zone against the league’s absolute best every shift. Here’s where Bernard-Docker comes in. His deployments alone don’t look much bette,r according to Dobber. However, context matters. In Buffalo his underlying numbers were much better, he was good for plus 0.8 standings points from Evolving Hockey. His most common partner in Buffalo was Owen Power, playing in Buffalo’s top four. Given Bernard-Docker is the only real addition to this blueline, there are a few paths for optimism here. The first being, he may be able to play top four minutes on the right side given a legitimate teammate. I don’t think that’s super likely as much as I would like it to happen. More likely however, Bernard-Docker can handle decent competition on the third pair. This will mean the third pair is sheltered less and can take on some bigger minutes, hopefully letting Seider and Chiarot breathe a little more. Bernard-Docker’s defensive competence in bigger minutes should help ease Chiarot’s negative effect and even greater boost Seider’s positive one. Bernard-Docker won’t become a superstar, but if he can be a true third-pairing defenseman, he will help. While it is kind of depressing to talk about how far an average third-pair defenseman would go for this team in terms of standing points, it’s kinda the thesis of the article, a little move might be enough, and Bernard-Docker embodies that. Instead of focusing on a depth defenseman for a second, let me give some credit where it’s due. Trent Yawney has a great track record with young defensemen. Max Bultman of The Athletic wrote a fantastic article about it and I’ll link it down below, but he outlines how from Chicago, San Jose, Anaheim, Edmonton and Los Angeles, Yawney has produced great defensemen. I already mentioned Johansson was likely to take a natural step, but under Yawney it might be a bigger one than expected. Bernard Docker is still 25, so there is some room for late growth. Maybe Seider and Edvinsson can take superstar leaps under Yawney’s guidance. On paper, the defense looks about the same, all this talk is mostly sugar coating on a blueline with the same bodies. However, there might be more in a lot of those bodies than we’ve seen yet. If the blue line can take a small step forward to 16th and be average, as well as the forwards getting back some goals, a pathway to the post season is already starting to seem more possible.

Detroit Red Wings Sign Two Defenseman and a Forward

The Goaltending

Not quite a blockbuster move in acquiring John Gibson, but to call a spade a spade, the Red Wings got the best goalie on the market. In 2019 a Gibson and Talbot tandem might have won the Jennings but we’re far removed from that. Being said that, it is a clear upgrade from what the Red Wings have had. John Gibson’s numbers were fantastic as a backup, but it’s less about Gibson and more who he is replacing. First of all, Husso had 1 win in 9 starts with the Red Wings with Dobber Frozen Tools gave 5 of his 13 starts this season the “Really Bad Start” title of less than a 0.850 save percentage in the game. Alex Lyon had 8 “Really Bad Starts” in 30 of his games. Cam Talbot had 10 in 49 games. The RBS are essentially games lost by goaltending. There may be exceptions to that rule, but the purpose of the stat is to outline a game where goaltending just didn’t help. John Gibson only had 3 RBS in 29 games. It’s not a perfect projection, but with 10.3% of Gibson’s starts being “really bad”, if he played Talbot’s 49 games, he’d have roughly half the RBS. Not to rip on Talbot, he was great this season Evolving Hockey had him give 5.3 standing points above replacement and Money Puck had him at 20th in goals saved above expected at 12.8. Talbot can be a great 1B if he’s rested, and at times Talbot stole games for the Red Wings, especially at the start of the season after having a summer of rest. Staying healthy is certainly a question, but Cossa, as the call-up, is still likely better than the 1 for 9 season Husso had. Gibson has proved he can be solid with a (somehow) worse blueline than Detroit’s in front of him and Talbot has shown he can hold down the fort. The goaltending, even being slightly above average, should propel the team forward to a handful more standings points across a season.

Special Teams and Coaching

The special teams will likely regress to the mean to some extent this season. That is both great news and awful news at the same time. On the one hand, the 27% power play was amazing for Detroit and scored 57 goals. The power play has been in the top 10 both years in the DeBrincat and Kane era, but for argument’s sake, let’s say the Red Wings regress all the way down to the mean at 22.1%, they would have scored 47 goals. Again, I don’t think it will be that extreme, but let’s look at the goal differential if the penalty kill also regressed to the mean. The historically bad penalty kill gave up 54 goals against and had a 70.1% penalty kill. If Detroit gets to the mean of 78.2% penalty kill, they will have given up 39 goals, 15 less than they did. That would give the team 5 more goals for in the goal differential category. There is going to be both positive and negative regression on the special teams and in the end, it might be for the better. I also want to touch on coaching quickly, it’s not a surprise to anyone that McLellan really jolted this team. While I don’t think anything I said is unreasonable, or even unlikely, it’s still a lot to go right all at one time. However, I think if anyone can make all these things, and maybe even some more, happen, it’s McLellan and his coaching staff. I don’t subscribe to the idea that the Red Wings would have kept up their torrid pace through an entire season of McLellan. Last year’s roster was simply bad; two separate 7-game win streaks were the team getting hot, not who they are. However, McLellan’s systems and coaching style seemed to resonate with the team. In the post season press conferences the players constantly referenced Todd and his work, something that was seldom done for Lalonde. McLellan is the right coach for this current group, and he proved that. I do believe that the way he coaches will allow a lot of the maybes in this article to be staples of the roster. If McLellan could squeeze blood from the stone that was the 2024-25 Red Wings, it makes you wonder what he can do with a better group in front of him.

But…

I do genuinely believe that all of this might happen. I do think the infusion of youth into the bottom six will make it a solid unit that can score and drive play at a decent clip. I do think Yawney and his systems will help the young blueline take a step, even a small one. I do believe Gibson and Talbot will give the Red Wings consistent goaltending and a fair chance to win most nights. I also believe the special teams will both regress to the mean and the team on the whole will be better for it. But that all might not be enough. Montreal has made some savvy moves, getting Bolduc and Dobson while barely gave up roster talent was great management work. The young Canadiens team is also poised to take a step forward with internal growth. The Senators really outpaced the Red Wings, they finished with 12 more points and have also improved in the margins by getting Spence. While I don’t think the Senators are at an age where development is likely and they’re out of young talent to call up, they’re really good right now and Detroit has a mountain to climb if they want to match them. The New York Rangers are also going to be looking to get back in and definitely have the talent to do it so that’s just one more foe for Detroit. The competition in the East is brutal and this coming season really does feel like anyone can beat anyone, however the Red Wings were 0-3-0 against the Rangers, 1-3-0 against the Canadiens and 1-3-0 against the Senators, Detroit clearly needs to flip the script in some way if they do want to make the playoffs.

All in All

As someone who has been hypercritical of Yzerman and this team in the past, I do believe that the Red Wings are better than they were a year ago. Everything I’ve read still suggests Yzerman is working the phones pretty hard, so maybe there is more to come, and hopefully it’s a splash. As it stands, I think they’re right there, but slightly leaning towards them missing the playoffs. But nowhere in this piece did I mention a big step. I talked about how the bottom six, Kasper, Raymond, Johansson, Edvinsson, and Gibson, can all improve the team, but hopefully one of them really kicks the doors down and can do more than minor improvements. I think a lot of people, including Red Wings fans, have ruled out this team taking a step and putting this together. I found myself feeling a little more optimistic than I should be. There’s still plenty of time for the league to shakeup but the excitement for the Red Wings this season should certainly be there.