CSSI Analysis: Red Wings 3 - Avalanche 1

by J.J. from Kansas on Nov 14, 2010 5:00 AM CST in CSSI

The more experienced and better-rested Red Wings showed the upstart Avalanche how it's done with a 3-1 victory in Detroit Saturday night. Detroit gave up a 5-on-3 goal thanks to some goalie interference by Chris Stewart and Colorado put some pressure on late, but this game was hardly worrisome.

In the pregame, I wondered whether Detroit could handle the young scoring leaders on the Avalanche, mentioning Stewart, Hejduk, Stastny, and Duchene. Well, Duchene was the only of those four who wasn't a minus-2 rating on the night, earning an even rating and an Emmy nomination for embellishing horribly what really was a Franzen hold on the back of his jersey. Colorado poured it on late, outshooting Detroit 9-2 in the final frame, but ended up being outshot 25-22 by the superior team tonight. Let's get to it.

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Goalie Ratings

Jimmy Howard played strong again, especially in the third period. The goal he allowed was on a 5-on-3 where he was blocked from being able to move on the shooter and stop the puck. Other than that, he was excellent at getting rebounds to his teammates and holding onto the puck when the pressure threatened to get dangerous. He had another night with three big saves for a rating of +3.

The Goals

1st Period 12:58 - Detroit Goal (PP): Todd Bertuzzi (snap shot) from Johan Franzen and Niklas Kronwall
While on a power play caused by Daniel Winnik's questionable decision to hit Justin Abdelkader with his stick, the Wings are forced to regroup after an early Colorado clear. Kronwall collects the puck in the WIngs' end and dishes up to Franzen through center ice. Franzen drives the middle lane, drawing the PKers to him and hands off to Bertuzzi at the side boards entering the zone with Bertuzzi-esque speed (yeah, not that fast). Bert skates to the outside bottom of the faceoff circle and releases a perfectly placed shot top corner on the near side on Budaj. This is a fantastic shot, but no player on the ice did anything to earn any bonus ratings. No scoring adjustment on this play.

2nd Period 0:30 - Detroit Goal: Jiri Hudler (wrist shot) from Nicklas Lidstrom and Darren Helm
This play starts with Hudler in the penalty box on a pretty weak call, considering everything else up to that point which had been ignored. Darren Helm deflects a cross-ice pass attempt that ends up on Lidstrom's stick. Lidstrom with his Dr. Rahmani-enhanced eyes, flies a pass down ice to Hudler. Jiri has trouble handling the pass, but gets control in time to put a shot on net which is stopped by Budaj. Hudler gets the puck back behind the net with Budaj sprawled out in front of him and banks a shot from behind into the net off Budaj's skate for his first goal of the season. Lidstrom's vision is legendary here and he deserves a bonus half-plus for reacting so quickly to hit Hudler in stride.

2nd Period 5:52 - Detroit Goal: Dan Cleary (backhand) from Todd Bertuzzi
The Avalanche are putting good pressure on Detroit in their zone when a pass from J.M. Liles to Paul Stastny into the slot fails to connect. Dan Cleary slaps at the errant puck to clear the zone up the boards to Todd Bertuzzi. Bert carries in and takes up body position on the boards to shield the puck waiting for his teammates to join the play. Right on time, Cleary comes streaking into the zone (fully clothed) and collects a spinning backhanded pass from Bertuzzi (see? they do work sometimes!), goes skate-to-stick with it and forces a backhand past a stunned Peter Budaj. Both Cleary and Bertuzzi will earn half-pluses for making this play happen. Also, Datsyuk and Lidstrom were both part of the defense that kept Colorado to the outside leading to this play, but changed as the goal was scored. Both Datsyuk and Lidstrom will earn pluses instead of Filppula and Ericsson, the men who came on the ice for them.

3rd Period 5:28 - Colorado Goal (PP): John-Michael Liles (snap shot) from Paul Stastny and Matt Duchene
Detroit is down two men for this goal thanks to a pity phantom call on Patrick Eaves and a much more pitiful play at the Red Wings' bench creating a too-many-men on the ice situation. Duchene breaks his stick trying to shoot at Howard (serves him right), which makes Brad Stuart's eyes widen a bit much and causes him to chase the puck to the boards to try to get a clear. Utilizing the brain in that tiny melon of his, Duchene kicks the puck to Stastny, who finds Liles in the slot. Liles head fakes, which causes Zetterberg to drop in anticipation of blocking the shot. Instead of putting it on net, Liles carries around to Howard's right until Howard can't move any farther thanks to a pick being run by Chris Stewart. Liles shoots the puck into the open net for Colorado's only goal. While both Z and Stu made mistakes on this, I'm not giving out minuses for a 5-on-3 goal against. However, Datsyuk played the puck during a line change to put the Wings down by two men and will take a half-minus for it. I'm only giving him half for a couple reasons, one of them being that the Wings shouldn't have been shorthanded in the first place and the other being that his momentary lapse of awareness is mitigated by the mistakes of the entire bench for a bad line change.

Bonus Ratings

+1 to Nicklas Lidstrom: Another fantastic showing from the league's best defenseman. It can't be overstated how good his defensive play is night in and night out.
+1 to Jonathan Ericsson: Again he had a night where he was more than surprisingly good, he was downright excellent breaking up plays and even using his body on the boards.
+1 to Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg: Despite the Wings getting badly outshot 9-2 in the third period, these two ran the clock and set the tempo. They deserve more credit than the even rating they each got on the official scoreboard.
+0.5 to Valtteri Filppula and Jiri Hudler: As good as Datsyuk and Zetterberg were at setting the pace, these guys were good at keeping things going. I thought they both had several very good defensive plays on the night and did their jobs superbly.
-0.5 to Johan Franzen: Mule played pretty well, but he took the dumbest penalty on the night when he pulled Matt Duchene down by his jersey in the 2nd period. Duchene jumped backwards like a cowboy being punched through a plate-glass window, but again, Mule shouldn't be tugging on Superman's cape here. He only gets a half minus though because he avoided spitting into the wind and pulling the mask off the old Lone Ranger. He definitely didn't mess around with Jim either, so that's good.

I'd like to give honorable mentions to Ruslan Salei and Dan Cleary. Both of these guys did exactly what was asked of them, I just didn't think either of them went above and beyond enough to earn bonus ratings.

Up next, a big test for Detroit, as they face their most dangerous division foe to date with St. Louis visiting town. Jaroslav Halak makes it ok that the Blues don't have anybody healthy who can score goals because the damn high-Scrabble score himself makes it hard as hell to score.

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Comments

That pass from Nick to Happy was amazing

If he can keep this up, I’m thinking Norris #7

Go for it

by DetroitSports on Nov 14, 2010 11:24 AM CST reply actions

Hudler and Ericsson

It’s nice to see the two most maligned players in the lineup really stepping up and playing well. Ericsson has been extremely solid since his return, and Hudler’s banishment to the press box seems to have woken him up and instilled in him the work ethic to go with his talent.

I’m hesitant to say it, but if these two keep up their strong play, it’s really hard to find a glaring weakness or hole in the Wings team. Let’s hope that these last few games are the sign of something to come and not just an aberration.

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by Amerinadian on Nov 14, 2010 11:28 AM CST reply actions

Agreed

Even scarier when you think that Niklas Kronwall has been pretty silent for a few games, but has been solid defensively and has been creating chances well. If he gets hot too, this team is going to scare everybody.

by J.J. from Kansas on Nov 14, 2010 11:33 AM CST up reply actions

I would have given Pav -1

The injury-riddled Avalanche had little trouble containing Datsyuk most of the night (I think it’s safe to say it was an off night for him). Mentioned in bold letters, he gave the referees one of the easiest calls they can make to put a team down two players, which resulted in a PP goal against. I didn’t see anything to justify the automatic reputation +1 he gets most games.

Speaking of that goal against, what was Howard doing that far out of the net? So Chris Stewart was picking on him (ten feet out of the goal crease!); JML could have casually skated for an easy wrap-around before Howard would have had any chance. When a goalie comes way out in traffic like that, he has to leap on the puck or it will be behind where he should be.

by bleep bloop on Nov 14, 2010 12:50 PM CST reply actions

Howard came out of the net to cut off the angle of the shooter. Most players when given the puck that deep in the slot will shoot. He had the lateral movement to get around on Liles and likely would have forced him to try the “easy wrap-around”, which would have been harder than the open net he was given when Howard had to deal with the interference. I’d ask my goalie to force an attempted wrap-around rather than give a shooter eight square feet of net to shoot at caused by playing too deep in his crease. Stuart was out of position from the chase to the boards, but he had time to meet Liles on the far side of the net of that “easy wrap-around”. Once again, this is exactly what a goaltender is supposed to do. He has to rely heavily on the three guys out there to help him cover.

Datsyuk shot the puck well and moved the puck well. He was contained on the scoresheet, but the plus/minus adjustments are largely for great defensive play, which I generally credit for people who help the Wings hold onto the puck for 1:15 shifts in the offensive zone (since the absolute best defense you can play is with the puck 200 feet from your own net). He gets these “automatic reputation pluses” because it seems as though he always takes more crap when he gets held off the scoresheet, despite when it happens in games in which the Red Wings dominate their opposition and he’s a large part of making that happen. To say that the Avalanche had little trouble containing him is flat out wrong.

As for the mitigating his minus on playing the puck to put the Wings down 5-on-3, you and I will have to disagree as to whether the factors listed above are sufficient.

by J.J. from Kansas on Nov 14, 2010 2:07 PM CST up reply actions

Regarding Howard

He cannot be at fault for that goal. He was just plain beat, the skater froze the goalie by being patient. You might be able to give him a -0.5, but I dont think so. However, by that same token I wouldnt say Howard was interfered with on the play either. He came out of his crease to play the shot, but the shot never came and instead was caught having to flounder as the Av made a move (would have liked to see one of teh Wings come out to challenge him, but it’s a difficult situation…5-on-3s are never easy). The one Av was behind him, but was out of the crease still and never touched Howard. He has every right to be at that part of the ice, much as Homer would.

Datsyuk I agree deserves all the extra pluses you give him. We’re constantly (especially at playoff time) hearing about how “bad” he’s playing only because he doesn’t show up on the score sheet, when reality dictates he’s doing so much more but just not always getting rewarded for it.

by tehGOALIE on Nov 14, 2010 11:24 PM CST up reply actions

While I agree that Stewart had a right to that ice outside the crease, the way the rule has been implemented is that interfering with a goaltender’s ability to make a save pretty much anywhere on the ice is not allowed. We’ve all seen Holmstrom have goals waived off for worse reasons than that.

With the play developing so quickly, everybody had to make quick decisions. Zetterberg went down to block the shot and left Howard out to deal with whatever would happen.

by J.J. from Kansas on Nov 15, 2010 7:14 AM CST up reply actions

“I didn’t see anything to justify the automatic reputation +1 he gets most games.” I suppose I should have said “I didn’t see anything this game” since generally he does deserve more recognition than the score sheet gives. Nevertheless, the stats are sometimes illustrative:
TOI es: 13:53, pp: 3:20, sh: 1:14, total: 18:27
FO wins: 5, losses: 7
Takeaways: 1, giveaways: 1
Hits: 1
Blocked shots: 1
SOG: 1
Missed shots: 1

When a goaltender comes out to challenge the shooter, he still has the responsibility not to overcommit. If the shooter is in too far or coming too fast, he can’t go out as far, and when there are players nearby for the rebound, it’s that much harder to justify the aggressive play—but don’t confuse being less aggressive with “playing too deep in his crease”.
Especially on a 5-on-3 when the goalie has to be the best penalty killer.

by bleep bloop on Nov 15, 2010 5:55 AM CST up reply actions

dude

these CSSIs are amazing. do you think the NHL will ever use such an in-depth formula for truly tracking how well players are doing?

Maybe each of the 30 teams can have a group of 3 or 5 people do the same thing you do, and then they average out their scores with the others who are analyzingg the same team. I think this would do wonders for players who get screwed by skewed +/- numbers and the like.

Nice work!!

by MannyK on Nov 14, 2010 1:26 PM CST via mobile reply actions

Thank you.

I’m not sure the NHL would officially sign off on a system that brings so much subjectivity into their stats, but I think it would be awesome to see the kind of system you mention adopted, just to see what really happens.

I really like the committee angle of what you said to minimize the impact of individual biases as well as competitional tendencies among scorekeepers (I would worry that a system with only one adjusted-scorekeeper per team would lead to point inflation where the scorekeepers would be more willing to give extra undeserved points to their own guys to “prove” that their team’s players are superior).

by J.J. from Kansas on Nov 14, 2010 2:12 PM CST up reply actions

The NHL wouldn't do that

Or at least, if they did, they would face lots of controversey for lots of different things. For example, giving a +1 to Crosby, giving a -1 to Ovechkin, etc. Unless those 4 or 5 people had no biases at all, we’d be facing hell. As the Red Wings, we would keep getting unfair calls and our team would be a -2123 at the end of the season….

/takes off tin foil hat

But seriously, this would take a lot of time and effort, not to mention good men. Kurt’s doing an amazing job, but thats only with one team. Imagine 5 guys doing 30 teams, 82 games. Sounds pretty impossible. The NHL could probably invest in something else with a better result….

Go for it

by DetroitSports on Nov 14, 2010 2:59 PM CST up reply actions