4 awful advanced team stats the Red Wings must improve for 2024-25

The Detroit Red Wings are just a few adjustments from earning their first playoff berth of the 2020s, and we’re going to talk about four of those (statistical) adjustments today. Say what you will about “team analytics,” in this case, at 5-on-5, but you can’t deny that, if the Wings fix all four of those listed below, they will be a much better team in 2024-25. 

Detroit was excellent offensively last year, but they finished nowhere near the output they could have had. Defensively, nothing seemed to go right, and two of the four team analytics we’re about to discuss were major reasons behind their struggles.  

Corsi For at 5-on-5

What’s interesting is this: The Red Wings could score in 2023-24, and they are probably more than capable of scoring in 2024-25, so imagine what they’ll be capable of if they improve their Corsi For at 5-on-5. 

Last season, it was a measly 46.5, and for a team that put up 177 goals at 5-on-5 compared to a league average of just 166, imagine what kind of damage they’ll do if that number neared 50 percent. It wouldn’t be reckless to project Detroit to transform from a top-10 scoring team to one in the top five, and such an improvement will help them cruise into the playoffs. 

High-Danger Goals Against

Okay, let’s get to what still made the Red Wings one of the Eastern Conference’s weaker links last season: Defense. One reason for that was their tendency to allow one too many high-danger chances against, 668 to be exact, while the rest of the NHL sat at an average of 627. 

This led to 74 high-danger chance goals at 5-on-5 and a 10 percent conversion rate, eight more goals, and 0.5 percent more than the rest of the league, respectively. That can’t happen in 2024-25, even if the Wings went out of their way to improve their goaltending. 

Expected Goals For

For a team that scored as well as the Red Wings last season, their expected goals for (xGF) at 5-on-5 was atrocious. It sat at just 150.6 for the year, while the league boasted an average of 167.7, a whopping 17 above what the Wings carved out. 

Imagine what kind of damage this team would have done had they just taken more favorable shots at the net. Still, they were among the better scoring teams in hockey, but this bad statistic shows us they didn’t come close to maximizing the number of goals scored. 

actual Goals Against

This one was a toss-up between expected goals against (xGA) and actual goals against (aGA), but the latter was, unfortunately, a far worse stat. While the Wings xGA sat at 177.0, over nine points above the 167.7 league average, Detroit allowed 189 goals at 5-on-5. 

If they do the same again this season despite the better goaltending, the Wings are risking disappointment for the second year in a row. This team is more than ready to break back into the playoffs after a long drought, but trying to do so with such poor defensive play that can lead to goals could prove to be an insurmountable task. 

(Statistics powered by Hockey-Reference)