Detroit Red Wings Game Analysis, After-Action Report for Sunday Dec 7th: Detroit Red Wings – Carolina Hurricanes

The Red Wings have won seven of their last eight games now that they’ve swept a weekend, beating Carolina 3-1 on Sunday night.

Box Score Here

The refs were pretty unnoticeable in this game, which makes me feel better after Saturday night’s game. Neither team scored on a power play (three for Detroit and four for Carolina). The Canes outshot Detroit 35-22. Yikes.

Petr Mrazek will probably always make me nervous with the Hasekian way he plays hockey, but he gets good results and made a bunch of good simple saves in the third to make this game a good boring win.

Guide to plus/minus adjustments

The Goals

1st Period 16:36 – Detroit Goal: Pavel Datsyuk (snap shot) from Jonathan Ericsson and Darren Helm
The Wings get on the board first because Pavel Datsyuk is really good. After Quincey and Smith do good work in their own zone to get the puck away from the Canes, Smith feeds it up ice to Datsyuk for a zone entry that leads to a backhand shot from a sharp angle for Pavs on a give-and-go with Helm. Helm regains possession and makes space to cycle to Datsyuk in the corner. Pavel feints to the inside, but has his lane cut off, so he slowly coasts up toward the point with Faulk in tow trying to get it away from him. As Pavel approaches the blue line, Ericsson swings around to the outside of him and receives a pass. Riggy chucks it on net from the wall as Tatar battles in front. The biscuit gets blocked off behind the net before it gets to ward, but Ericsson keeps skating and picks it back up behind the cage, carrying it out to the corner thanks to a bit of room made by a Tomas Tatar pick. As Riggy gets to the half-wall on the far side from where he started, he throws a backhand pass to his original point where Datysuk gets it. All five Carolina defenders are watching the wrong side of the ice here as Pavel gets it and has space to walk into the top of the circle. Sekera goes out to meet him, but just as he gets there, Pavel snaps a wrister on net that Ward doesn’t pick up on immediately thanks to Tatar skating through his vision just prior. This one is weird from a D-Man’s standppoint because Q and Smith do good work to make this play happen to where it can develop, but so does Ericsson. I’m going to go ahead and give DeKeyser’s plus back to Quincey and I’m going to give Smith a bonus plus (Quincey’s contribution is slightly more passive, so he gets the more-passive plus). Tatar will get a screener’s assist on this play for blocking Ward’s sight-line. Datsyuk, Ericsson, and Helm will all get bonus pluses as well for excellent fast movement to keep the Carolina defense at bay.

1st Period 18:36 – Detroit Goal: Tomas Tatar (wrist shot) from Pavel Datsyuk and Kyle Quincey
The Wings get on the board second because Tomas Tatar is really good. After two good shifts following the Datsyuk goal, his line comes back out for a neutral zone faceoff outside the Carolina zone. Pavs wins it back to DK, who passes across the ice to Quincey, who dumps it into the Carolina zone. As the puck rings around up to the half-wall, Justin Faulk misplays it on the backhand and digs it out just below the faceoff dot where both Datsyuk and Tatar get to it. Pavs is neck-and-neck with Nash when the misplay happens, but he puts himself in good position and eliminates the only stick in the area which poses a threat before collecting the puck. Before he gets a chance to fully take control of the puck, Tatar swipes it off Datsyuk’s stick with a shot that goes off Ward’s pad and then bounces back in off Sekera’s skate right in front. It’s a lucky bounce, but Datsyuk will earn a plus on the combination good faceoff win and good work to eliminate Nash from being able to make a play.

Goal-Saved Adjustment – 2nd Period 00:53: Early in the 2nd, Henrik Zetterberg loses the puck along the boards on the far side of the ice which creates a 2-on-1 for the Canes, who catch the Wings in a change on this play. Elias Lindholm takes in with Kronwall watching the passing lane to Victor Rask driving the front of the net. Lindholm dekes out Mrazek on the short side and is able to throw a pass directly through the crease as Rask get there, but the Carolina forward isn’t able to plop it into the open net because of a combo defensive play by Ericsson racing off the bench to tie him up and an aggressive stick by Kronwall to freeze his stick as well. Kronwall and Ericsson will split a goal-saved plus between them, getting half each.

2nd Period 12:14 – Detroit Goal: Tomas Tatar (snap shot) from Pavel Datsyuk and Johan Franzen
The Wings get on the board third because Tomas Tatar and Pavel Datsyuk are really good. After the Lashoff penalty expires, the Canes dump it in and forecheck aggressively before Detroit can finish an entire change. Eventually, thanks to work by Glendening, Datsyuk has time to come in and steal the puck away and then beat two forecheckers to find Franzen in stride heading up ice. Mule builds speed through center ice and dumps it to himself off the boards to get around Sekera. McClement and Faulk combine to keep Franzen from driving the net-front and then putting in the wrap-around as he cycles up to the wall before dropping it off for Datsyuk who goes to Lashoff at the point for a shot that misses high. Tatar chases up to get it from his net-front position and wins the race against Sekera, pushing it toward the corner where Franzen follows up and gets the puck. Mule takes Tatar’s wake back up to the half-wall before throwing it to Datsyuk at the faceoff dot. Faulk keeps Pavel to the outside as he gains control of the puck, but he can’t do anything about Datsyuk throwing a backhand saucer pass from the bottom of the circle that meets Tatar going to the front of the net splitting between Dwyer and Sekera. Tatar one-times it to the far side before Ward knows what’s going on. Datsyuk and Franzen will each get a bonus plus on this play for excellent puck movement to get it up ice with speed. Luke Glendening will pick up a half-plus for helping make sure the puck got out of the Detroit zone after the PK shift.

2nd Period 17:11: Carolina Goal: Jay McClement (tip in) from Tim Gleason
The Canes get on the board fourth because we just can’t have a shutout in a game like this. The Wings kill off a penalty and then get a defensive zone faceoff, but that goes poorly for them. McClement beats Datsyuk cleanly on the faceoff, getting it back to Gleason at the point while he heads to the front of the net. Gleason holds for a few beats before slapping it to the net-front area. McClement gets his stick on it in the slot and redirects it past Mrazek. Kind of shit luck here, but it counts as a goal. Tatar, DeKeyser, and Quincey all get cleared for having exactly no involvement in the play due to other responsibilities. Franzen will also be cleared. His job is to be in Gleason’s shooting lane and he is. The shot that Gleason takes to get it around Franzen is not aimed anywhere near on-net. Datsyuk will get an extra minus for losing the faceoff plus a half minus for the coverage on McClement. Shit luck, but Datsyuk messed up here.

The Penalties

1st Period 02:31 – Tim Gleason (high sticking) against Luke Glendening: Detroit gets a four minute power play to start the game as Gleason pops Glendening in the face as the Wings harmlessly enter the Carolina zone. Both players are stickfighting here and Gleason gets his lumber way too high. High sticking is always about carelessness with the stick, but Glendending is doing good work to keep control and fend off Gleason’s stick. I’m going to award Glendening a half-plus.

1st Period 11:07 – Johan Franzen (interference) against Jiri Tlusty: Franzen takes the first Wings’ penalty off a defensive zone faceoff. Sheahan wins it back cleanly, but Franzen dedicates himself solely to slowing down Tlusty from a bad position. Tlusty falls and Franzen gets a minus for an obvious interference.

2nd Period 04:31 – Alexander Semin (holding) against Gustav Nyquist: Detroit gets another power play as Nyquist turns to exit his own zone and gets held by Alex Semin. This is more a dumb play by Semin, but Nyquist will get a half-plus for good body positioning.

2nd Period 09:27 – Brian Lashoff (slashoff) against Justin Faulk: After a Justin Faulk chance against Mrazek, Lashoff chops down on Faulk’s stick to prevent an immediate rebound chance. This is a perfect example of a good penalty to take for Lashoff, as Faulk does have room on the short side to score here if not for the chop. Since it’s not Lashoff’s fault that Faulk gets this chance, I’m not going to give him a minus. The rush here is on Riley Sheahan, who is a little slow to cover a pinch by Smith. Sheahan will get a half-minus.

2nd Period 14:54 – Luke Glendening (holding) against Michal Jordan: Glendening is forechecking in on Jordan, who takes body position and then the puck as he tries to escape around the boards. Glendening starts by trying to hold his stick back, but has his own stick ride up to the hands of Jordan right in front of the refs. Glendening will get a minus. He’s got to control his stick better.

3rd Period 05:42 – Johan Franzen (interference) against Andrej Nestrasil: Franzen gets tripped up a bit on a forecheck and gets up to try and skate back into position, skating directly into Nestrasil ahead, taking a penalty for interference on a moving pick. I’m going to give Franzen a half-minus. I honestly don’t think that this is anything more than incidental contact, especially after the non-called trip. However, Franzen needs to be more careful.

Total Adjustments

Full Season Chart Here

Possession Metrics

Even-strength Corsi numbers provided thanks to NHL.com via War-On-Ice.com.

This was a weird game for the eyeball versus the stats, but it also shows pretty well the effects of a game that had lots of score effects time which makes getting severely outpossessed much less worrisome. The other thing is that at least through two periods when the game was still in question, the Canes put a lot of garbage on net that wasn’t particularly dangerous.

The Wings didn’t have a ton of offensive zone faceoffs to choose from, so you have to consider 50% starts to be pretty heavy sheltering. Babcock really seems to be trying hard to get that Zetterberg line going.

Check out more from war-on-ice.com, including the visualized shift chart here.

Final Say

Despite all the scoring coming from the Datsyuk unit, I think the Sheahan line was very good. The Z line is still mostly snakebitten, but I’m getting worried about them. I really liked the defense in this game, espeically how well they cleared out the net-front for Mrazek. Lashoff played simple and mean hockey, as did Quincey. Did Eric Staal play in this game?

Corsi Timeline from Hockeystats.ca