Detroit Red Wings Defense Still Lacks Offense

During the last off-season Detroit Red Wings General Manger Ken Holland and Coach Mike Babcock stressed that the defense had to be much better. Jump to July and the opening of free agency signings and the Red Wings were found wanting as they struck out on free agents like Matt Niskanen and Anton Stralman. Ken Holland left with little options on the table signed veteran Kyle Quincey to a two year 4.25million dollar contract per capgeek.com and the reaction was as if Holland had personally gone to every single Red Wings fans house and personally insulted their loved ones. At the same time teams like Tampa Bay, New York Islanders and the Washington Capitals found a way to either sign or trade for players that will now directly impact the Wings standings in the Atlantic Division and the Eastern Conference

More from Red Wings News

With the season fully underway the same defense that Ken Holland and Mike Babcock said had to improve to be competitive is taking to the ice this season 100% intact. Through 8 games the team has posted a record of 4-2-2 good enough for third in the Atlantic and are playing quite well overall. There is just one problem, nearly 100% of the offense in those 8 games has been driven by Henrik Zetterberg, Gustav Nyquist and Johan Franzen. While it is still early in the season many of the same problems that faced the defense last season have already reared their ugly heads.

To set the stage of the last 8 games first we have to go back to training camp and preseason where the architects of the team insisted that the best players would play. While no names were specifically mentioned the stats indicated that Xavier Ouellet and Nick Jensen had thoroughly out played several members of the current roster. According to the box scores from NHL.com, Xavier Ouellet totaled 2 goals 1 assist a +/- of+2 and racked up 18 shots in 5 games while Nick Jensen recorded 1 goal 0 assists and was +1 with 9 shots on goal in 4 games. In contrast in the 4 games Jakub Kindl and Brian Lashoff played in they recorded 0 goals 0 assists 5 and 4 shots respectively and recorded a +/- of -3 and -4 respectively. That is right, in one more game played Ouellet doubled the shot output of two whole NHL players. Ouellet would have also had to have been out for 5 more goals against to be down at Kindl’s level in +/- and 6 goals to be at Lashoff’s. While those stats should be taken with a grain of salt because it was preseason after all, the Red Wings defensemen have not bucked the trend they showed all last season.

In the early stages of this season the defense lead again by Niklas Kronwall have accounted for 2 goals and 9 assists for 11 points between the 6 defenseman that have dressed for the Red Wings. Measuring that solely against the Atlantic Division’s defenseman, using NHL.com’s stats, we find: Montreal has 19pts, Boston 15pts, Toronto 15ts, Tampa 19pts and Florida has 9 and Buffalo has…drum-roll….2…including Tyler Meyers 0. Worth noting 0 of the Red Wings points from defenseman have come on the power play, due in part to Mike Babcock employing a lack luster system that deploys 4 forwards and 1 defenseman that has only clicked twice on the power play so far this season out of 30 attempts.

To put this in perspective Kronwall has accounted for 6 of Detroit’s 11 points from the defense or 54%(3 of which came against Pittsburgh). Dekeyser is second only to Kronwall with 3(27%), Kindl and Ericsson have 1 point apiece and Smith and Quincey have 0 points. The defense is at least doing well at getting shots on net and have totaled 51 shots on goal but many more seem to end up wide of the net or into the pads of a blocking opponents.

To put this in perspective Kronwall has accounted for 6 of Detroit’s 11 points from the defense or 54%(3 of which came against Pittsburgh).

Meanwhile around the league there are over 70 defenseman who have accumulated 3 or more points and only 2 of them are Red Wings. While nobody should be expecting anyone other than Kronwall to be near a .50 point per-game player if the rest of the defense continues what we have seen so far in this early season will have only 2 members of the blue liners will break the 10 point plateau. Given last year’s numbers and a bit of intuition it is not unreasonable to think that over an 82 game season many of these defenseman will not crack the 20 point mark as only 2 did it last season(Kronwall, DeKeyser).

Going the Advanced Stats route and using stats(5v5) provided by Puckalitcs.com we are able to see an even bigger picture of the problems on defense. Kindl and Quincey possess two of the team’s best CORSI ratings and it is easy to see why. Examining the Zone starts, meaning where a player begins his shift before a face off, we find that Kindl and Quincey are afforded better opportunities then the rest of the defense to light the lamp. Kindl is given the most starts of any defenseman in the offensive zone at 48, 3 more than Kronwall’s 45, and the fewest defensive zone starts at 21. Kyle Quincey has also started only 21 times in the defensive zone and appeared 38 times on an offensive zone start. Meanwhile the youngest of the defense Danny DeKeyser and Brendan Smith start in the d-zone 34 and 33 times respectively while they have started 42 and 31 times in the offensive zone respectively. With less than 10 games played it is possible that these stats even out over the long run but it is a safe bet most of the time the coach has control over whom starts in what end of the ice and it is clear that Babcock’s lack of trust in Kindl and Quincey is forcing the best offensive players to spend more initial time in the defensive zone then they should probably have to.

This is something that must change, but how?

The first step is Mike Babcock and Assistant coach Jim Hiller have to abandon their current power play scheme, it flat out is not working. That would include going with two defenseman and giving Brendan Smith time on the power play with Danny DeKeyser. Giving the defense, especially the young defenseman like Smith and DeKeyser, a chance to contribute more is going to be key to moving forward and building confidence of the players.

Failing that that Holland has to figure out a way to either A. Add a top flight defenseman in a trade whether that be a Tyler Myers, Mike Green or whomever so they can play on the top pairing with Kronwall B. They need to get find a way to give Ouellet and Jensen a chance to play in the NHL. “The Kids” were the answer last season when most of the team sat out because of injury and there is no reason that these players should be riding the bus in Grand Rapids while Kindl, Lashoff and Quincey continue to collect paychecks while producing zeros in the offensive zone and being a liability in their own zone. If Ken Holland and Mike Babcock cannot find a way to remedy this and soon, it is going to be a long season of praying for 2-1 victories in a league, a conference and a division that every other team has done everything they can to improve their offense.

All stats provided by NHL.com, CapGeek.com and Puckalitcs.com

Home/Red Wings News