Detroit Red Wings: Jeff Blashill should consider adjusting the top line

The Detroit Red Wings could try a lot of things to find a winning recipe, but I think Blashill needs to put our three young guns together on a line.

Putting Athanasiou, Larkin, and Mantha together might just give us that boost the Red Wings need to start winning again.  In the contest with the Anaheim Ducks this past week where the Detroit Red Wings managed a 3-1 victory at Little Caesars Arena.

The first goal the Red Wings scored was a beautiful goal scored by Anthony Mantha assisted by Andreas Athanasiou and Dylan Larkin.

It truly was a nice setup, Larkin gained the line did a little side pass to Athanasiou who sent it across under one defender’s stick and off another’s onto Mantha’s stick who sent it home for the goal.

This goal made is simply just one of the reasons that I think Coach Jeff Blashill should be playing Athanasiou, Larkin, and Mantha on a line together. The simplest explanation my hockey fan eyes can give is that they produce as a line, they aren’t rookies anymore, and the analytics (even though a small sample size) says its better for the team.

All of the following numbers come from the tools available at Corsica Hockey and Natural Stat Trick. Coach Blashill has played these three players together in 11 total games this year totaling 9:23 in ice time as a line. The sample size is tiny, but the percentages still show that they have success when playing together.