The Red Wings Philosophy Cornered Them

Detroit to this point has largely handled the defensive side with Mo Seider having one of the best seasons any Red Wings defenseman has had since the Lidstrom days, and the rest of the group followed suit.

Detroit has done this right at times with the forwards too. Captain Dylan Larkin, who is the all-around player that Yzerman wants with offensive talent and speed in his toolkit as well, and Lucas Raymond, who, when healthy, is one of the most dangerous playmakers in the league while shutting down the other team’s best players.

When Yzerman has been given high draft picks to get his guy, he’s been able to select Raymond to be a cornerstone of his vision. He also had no problem extending Dylan Larkin, who had been doing all the things that Yzerman had wanted long before Yzerman arrived in Detroit.

The problem is, unless Detroit has had the choice in getting exactly who they want, they’ve assessed talent wrong, and it’s led to serious roster construction issues.

Where Florida seemed to get everything right, Detroit hasn’t been so lucky. As such, it’s led to a slew of problems for the team on the ice.

Redundancy in the Roster

There is a bit of irony here. As I’ve mentioned, the goal is to create a team that has many players who fill a similar role. It might not seem like redundancy is a problem, but honestly, it might seem like redundancy is the point of these lineups. But I think I left out a pretty big distinction.

All the players on these rosters do need to have a high compete-level, a high-motor, and a good two-way game. But the players who fit on the roster need to do more than just fit that mold. Dylan Larkin is a good example of this. Larkin checks all the boxes that I mentioned, but he also has incredible speed and happens to be one of the best power play threats in the NHL.

For Florida, checking those boxes gets you considered, but you need to be exceptional at other things as well in order to make the lineup. Sasha Barkov is an elite playmaker, Sam Bennett is one of the most physical forces in the NHL, and Sam Reinhardt is an elite goal scorer.

In Detroit, though, all you need is to check those boxes to get a spot on the roster. Instead of leading to a team with shared traits but unique strengths, it’s led to Detroit having a team of not only shared traits, but also no outstanding abilities.

Let’s look at the poster boys for this, Detroit’s three bottom-nine centers: Andrew Copp, J.T. Compher, and Michael Rasmussen. All of them are above 6’0″, kill penalties, and are typically used as their line’s primary forechecker. Unfortunately, though, that’s all that they bring to the team. None of them are threats to score, none tallying above 10 goals with only 8 games left in the season. Despite the size, none of them throw the body, none of them having more than 65 hits.

While each of them does provide assurance as a steady defensive presence, it ultimately still fails the goal of these rosters in general. To create a team that works well with these players, it requires a two-way game. Copp, Compher, and Rasmussen don’t possess the offensive talent to be effective on the offensive half of the ice. Rasmussen and Compher are in the 5th and 16th percentiles for offense in the NHL, respectively, a statistic that includes the offense contributed by defensemen, making them effectively two of the worst contributors in the NHL.

It’s a similar case for the wingers, only three wingers in the bottom nine (assuming Finnie remains the top-line left wing) have scored more than ten goals. Of that group of low-scoring wingers, though, each of them is good defensively, they skate hard, and they play the game with a high motor. But yet again, not a single one of those players possesses a positive offensive rating according to Hockey Stat Cards and The Athletic.

The effect of this has been the Red Wings lineup being incapable of threatening the game offensively. Being able to hold the line against other teams best players is important, but because it’s so easy for opponents to get the puck out of their end, the brunt of the play ends up in the Red Wings zone.

The standings reflect this. Detroit, despite having a good points percentage, is a negative in the team +/- section. Each game is close, and wins and losses are decided by a few goals. Instead of trying to outscore the other team, Detroit’s game plan has been to try to buckle down and wait for a mistake from the other team.

Having too many players with the exact same skill set will almost always fail. Too many offensive players and you can’t hold your own defensively, in Detroit’s case too many defensive forwards means they can’t score enough to win games.

If you’ve noticed, though, I’ve intentionally let out an important set of names from the players I’ve mentioned. It’s because Detroit’s best players have been a subset of the roster that doesn’t fit into the mold Yzerman is trying to build.

The Black Sheep

Detroit’s roster isn’t exclusively filled with the type of player that I’ve been talking about though. Despite Yzerman’s vision behind team building, certain talents have fallen into his lap that he couldn’t deny, and it’s created the biggest dichotomy on the Red Wings roster currently.

There are three wingers on the Red Wings roster currently who go against what this team wants to be. When Detroit acquired them, they were not defensively responsible, they did not go into the dirty areas or skate harder than anyone else. All three of Patrick Kane, James Van Riemsdyk (JVR), and Alex DeBrincat were brought in because of the sheer offense that they can produce.

It seems like this is exactly what this team needs to win, given all the things I’ve stated about the offensive inability of the most of this roster. But talent doesn’t exist in a vacuum in the NHL; it needs to be complemented, and due to the limitations of this roster, it largely has been.

Patrick Kane, even at age 37, is still one of the best offensive forces in the NHL. But due to the age, his lack of speed and physicality means he can’t create on his own anymore and he needs help on his line to do so. As I’ve mentioned, there aren’t many options to do so. Larkin and Raymond fit the mold of two-way players, so they take on serious defensive roles that Patrick Kane can’t handle, so playing with them isn’t an option. Instead, he’s been the running mate of Alex DeBrincat for practically his entire time in Detroit.

Pairing two of your best offensive players (and two of your worst defensive players) together leads to two conclusions. First, your offense is heavily dependent on one line, meaning teams can match up their best defenders against them. Second, they need to be deployed against the other team’s worst players so they can’t get exposed defensively. This is a problem because sheltering one line means the other three need to pick up the slack.

Patrick Kane has 53% of his deployments in the offensive zone; the only two Red Wings forwards who are close to that total are his linemates, Alex DeBrincat and Andrew Copp. The other three Red Wings forward lines take 43% (Larkin and line 1), 44% (Compher and line 3), and 46% (Rasmussen and line 4) offensive zone starts, meaning the vast majority in their own end.

Van Riemsdyk is a similar case. He has the same struggles that Patrick Kane has, but unfortunately, he doesn’t have the luxury of playing with talented offensive players. It’s led to JVR really having the shoulder the offense on his own line, so the totals haven’t been massive, but they’re still good enough for 4th on the team in goals and 7th in points.

Though JVR is consistently one of the players in the NHL who struggles the most on a per-game basis, despite this. His shot attempts share percentage (Corsi For) and on ice goals for percentage are both negative with him on the ice. He also suffers from one of the worst defensive percentiles on the team, falling into the 18th.

JVR is largely a victim of circumstance because Kane needs to play offensive minutes to hide his flaws. JVR is forced to play with defensive-minded players who don’t cater to his offense. Not to mention, he has to do this in a defensive role because if you aren’t on the Kane line, you need to play defensive minutes to compensate for them.

The black sheep of the black sheep is Alex DeBrincat. Since getting to Detroit, DeBrincat has sort of changed his game to mirror what Yzerman wants. He’s taken extreme leaps as a defender and competitor despite being one of the shortest players in the NHL. It also hasn’t hindered his offense; he’s currently 12th in the NHL for goals and 19th in points.

DeBrincat would be the perfect player to put on the top line beside Dylan Larkin and Lucas Raymond as a forward who forced himself to learn a two-way game and still produces like one of the best in the NHL. When that line is together, they dominate at an unreal clip. They produce over 6 even-strength goals per/60 as well as only letting the opponent get 30% of the shots while they’re on the ice.

Unfortunately, though, if DeBrincat wasn’t with Kane, Kane would become really similar to JVR. Instead of one struggling offensive player, you would have two struggling offensive players who are bad defensively. Making DeBrincat play on the second line is more of a necessity than anything.

So with all that being said, you might think that it would be better to remove the black sheep and stick to the redundant archetype I slandered before. But weirdly enough, you need them.

The main reason is obviously that you do need to score at some point in the game, and despite their glaring weaknesses, they’re the only guys putting the puck in the net. But having them also brings out the best in some of the team’s most redundant bodies.

Remember how above I mentioned Compher and Rasmussen having abysmal offensive percentiles. Well, the man I didn’t mention was Andrew Copp who fits into the 66th percentile offensively, which isn’t too bad at all. The reason for this is because he plays with two offensively minded players in DeBrincat and Kane.

It goes beyond just Andrew Copp though. When Compher was given a chance between DeBrincat and Kane, he had his best stretch of the season. When between the two, it was the only time he had a +/- rating as a positive and a positive shots for percentage.

The same can be said for Mason Appleton, who was really strong next to Dylan Larkin amidst Lucas Raymond’s early-season injury.

How could Yzerman look a gift horse in the mouth when it came to these guys? Kane, JVR and DeBrincat were already proven NHL talents that most teams would love to have. The problem is building a team like this needs an elite core of forwards already. You need to build around your best players and when these guys come along and become some of your top talent, it means you have to supplement them. The mentality Yzerman has around building this team has made that impossible though.

The outliers on this team have only backed Detroit further into the corner. Either get rid of them to ease the defensive usage of everyone else and allow for a truly special top line, but nuke any chance of depth scoring. Or, keep them and watch the goal of building a team based on consistency falter because key pieces of the roster simply can’t do what is needed of them.

How it Backed Detroit into a Corner

Here’s the TLDR: the players Detroit obtained to fulfill Yzerman’s vision have the right foundation, but lack the specialties on top of that to make them valuable. The players Yzerman brought in who have the specialties lack the foundation and don’t fit the mold on this team.

The problem with the Red Wings roster isn’t as simple as a lack of talent. It’s been shown that when surrounded by the right players, even the struggling depth options can still be effective. The problem is that Yzerman has committed so much money and term to these two-way depth options that surrounding them with legitimate offensive talent who can play the right way simply isn’t feasible.

The term that Compher, Rasmussen, Copp, Appleton, and anyone else who falls into that mold has handcuffed what this team can be. They align with the ideal structure but lack the specialist abilities that would make them valuable to the team. They also take roster spots away from the players who might fit the true objective of structured but specialized, but come with greater risk, like Carter Mazur or Eddie Genborg in Grand Rapids. Or even taking away roster spots from some more offensive options like John Leonard or Amadeus Lombardi down there too.

The years of top ten draft picks used on Marco Kasper, Nate Danielson, and Michael Brandsegg-Nygard, all players who fit that same mold, are supposed to be the pieces that help get this roster over the top. Instead, they seem like more of the same players that got Detroit stuck in this mess in the first place.

Now, Detroit can’t fully lean in to Yzerman’s initial plan of a team that plays the style of hockey he wants because it would be awful management to ignore bringing DeBrincat, Kane, and even JVR onto this team. Without them, the offense would collapse due to a lack of talent, but with them, the defensive structure on which the idea depends can’t function.

It’s led to Detroit’s forward core being cornered every game in the same way. The top players are isolated and easily matched up against; the rest of the team is forced into rigid defensive deployment, and an injury to a key player can bring the whole thing down instantly due to the structure.

The future of the Red Wings roster is now officially trapped though. Detroit isn’t bad enough to get the high-end draft picks needed to add another Raymond or Larkin, and the lack of diversity of talent prevents it from being able to compete.

Bringing in the high-end offensive talent that the Red Wings need to make this work also seems unlikely to happen. Star winger Nic Ehlers famously denied even hearing out the Red Wings when they tried to make him a pitch this summer. With Detroit continuing to fall into the mushy middle, they can’t attract talent.

As Detroit stumbles into April once again, the forward group and their shortcomings continue to be the reason the Red Wings aren’t likely to play playoff hockey for the tenth year in a row.

Unless Alex DeBrincat wants to go nuclear, of course.

More to Read:

• Can Alex DeBrincat Secure His Spot on Team USA?
• The Red Wings Simply Aren’t Good Enough
• The Red Wings Desperately Need a Trade
• How Larkin, DeBrincat, and Raymond Are Changing the Game for Detroit
• Player Profile: Alex DeBrincat