The Wings bounced back from a dismal performance against one bad team and put up a really good performance against another. 5-2 Wings beat the Stars.
The reffing in this game was really weird. I’m still not entirely over a horribly blown call on a scoring chance, but at least all the penalties that were called were actually penalties. Both teams went 1/3 on the power play and Detroit outshot Dallas 29-24 (thanks to them laying it on 9-3 in the score effects third period in which Dallas should have been the one pouring on shots).
Jimmy Howard was everything Detroit needed in net. He didn’t need to be perfect, but he was pretty good. On the other end, Jussi Rynnas was everything Detroit needed in net too.
Guide to plus/minus adjustments
The Goals
1st Period 03:58 – Detroit Goal: Darren Helm (wrist shot) from Kyle Quincey and Niklas Kronwall
Helmer finds his hands and a tiny hole on a sharp angle to open the scoring. Datsyuk wins a faceoff over to Helm, who pushes it back to Kronwall at the point. Kronner goes to Quincey for a one-timer, but Q recognizes that Benn is getting on him fast so he pushes it to the corner instead. Helm separates from Daley at the net-front to go pick it up just before it reaches the trapezoid behind Rynnas on the left. As Helm carries up just before he hits the bottom of the circle, he turns and sees Rynnas cheating off his post. Helm makes him pay by snapping it short side through him.. Helm is going to earn a half-plus, as will Datsyuk and Quincey. Each player makes a smart play to keep the puck moving in the right direction as this develops.
1st Period 04:13 – Dallas Goal: Colton Sceviour (redirect) from Jordie Benn and Jason Demers
Mere seconds later the Stars even it up on a pass to the net front that finds Sceviour wide open for an easy redirect into the net. Dallas controls the faceoff and backs into their own zone. Both Franzen and Smith chase to pinch on Sceviour along the boards in his zone, but they can’t stop him from getting it out. Zetterberg breaks up the outlet before Spezza can get it at center, but it bounces back to Demers to pick up and hand off to Ben jumping up from the Dallas blue line. With Nyquist circling back from his set position and Smith/Franzen detangling, this turns the Dallas zone entry into a 3-on-2 rush. Jordie Benn takes up the left wing side with Eakin in the middle and Spezza on the far wing. Benn pulls up and a hard-charging Sceviour beats out both Smith and Franzen to make it a four-man rush. Kindl and Zetterberg stay in lanes as Benn waits for his three teammates to all crash toward the net, but Z gets caught trying to block off both Sceviour and Spezza. The hesitation here gives Benn the space to thread his pass onto Sceviour’s stick for the goal. Kindl, Franzen and Nyquist will be cleared. All three are checking appropriately. Kindl and Nyquist have no chance but to play like they do here and Franzen gets taken down. Zetterberg will keep his minus. He’s stuck with a gamble here and I think he makes the right call based on positioning. The Sceviour pass was the harder of the two; Benn just nails it. Smith will get a minus and a half for this screwup. I don’t know why he’s pinching and I definitely know he shouldn’t be taking out his teammate.
1st Period 11:14 – Detroit Goal: Stephen Weiss (wrist shot) from Riley Sheahan and Tomas Jurco
Detroit regains the lead on a turnover and a tic-tac-toe play that leads to a beauty of a goal for Weiss. The Wings dump it in with plenty of speed but get beaten to the puck. However, their positioning cuts off lanes as Jordie Benn tries to outwait the forecheck to find a lane out of the zone. This too disappears when his attempt to pass from the corner up the boards is stopped by Quincey stepping up in a pinch. This causes the puck to bounce off Garbutt’s leg to the top of the circle. Jurco is there to pick up the loose puck and face to the middle with a bit of room. Quincey immediately follows up the pinch by driving to the net, which drags two defenders lower. This makes space for Jurco to find Sheahan jumping up from his position covering the point. As Quincey battles both Fiddler and Demers in front of the net, Sheahan receives the pass approaching the slot. Seeing the pass develop panics everybody, who turns to look at him just as he immediately pushes it back across the grain to Weiss all alone down low. Rynnas can’t recover from having just slid the other way and Weiss has an easy one. Kyle Quincey will pick up a bonus plus for his smart pinch and follow-up. Jurco does the first of the forechecking work to help set this up and then makes the beauty pass. Sheahan’s jump down the zone completely overloads the defense and finishes the play. Sheahan and Jurco will each earn a half-plus. Weiss will get a half-plus as well for his forechecking work to make Joride Benn delay enough for the pinch by Quincey to set up.
1st Period 18:52 – Detroit Goal (PP): Pavel Datsyuk (backhand) from Stephen Weiss and Tomas Tatar
The Wings move the puck very well on the power play and Datsyuk benefits from a net-front scramble where his teammates make good space for him to slam home a goal. Kronwall, Tatar, Datsyuk, and Weiss each move the puck fast and crisp to enter the Dallas zone without needing a drop pass. There is a short board battle behind the net that the Wings win and move up the boards. Kindl, Jurco, and Tatar combine to keep it away from Eakin and reset it to Kindl at the point. Kindl walks to the middle and goes back to Tatar on the strong side. Tats immediately hustles a couple steps toward the goal from the high umbrella side spot before passing it to Weiss at the side of the net wide open. Rynnas squares on Weiss as he holds it for long enough to let the play develop further. Sheahan drives the middle lane and Datsyuk pinches in from the left circle to the back door. Weiss’ centering attempt goes under Sheahan’s stick right to Datsyuk, who has to momentarily collect it from in his feet before chucking it into the open net. Pretty goal here, helped out by Tatar’s good hustle. This will earn Tatar a plus. The pinch along the boards, the good pass to reset the PP setup, and the pass to Weiss after freezing the defense makes Tats the true QB of this setup.
Goal-Saved Adjustment – 2nd Period 07:08 (Pavel Datsyuk): The Wings get a bit lax in their own end as Jamie Benn hits Erik Cole from behind the net for a blast from the top of the circles. The puck rolls through and sits behind Howard as Trevor Daley follows up. Daley digs it out from behind Howard and puts it on net. The only thing stopping this puck from going in is the timely skate of Pavel Datsyuk coming out from behind the net to help out his goaltender. Daley follows up by punching the puck into the net, but this won’t count. Datsyuk will get a plus for saving a goal. The pass from Benn to Cole wasn’t his fault, nor was the fact that Daley was open to dig it out from behind Howard.
2nd Period 14:26 – Dallas Goal (PP): Tyler Seguin (wrist shot) from Trevor Daley and Jason Spezza
On an annoying penalty and a power play extended by an annoyingly bad non-call, Seguin snaps a wrister through traffic that hits off a skate and deflects through Howard. Dallas gets in by taking an advantage of the brief second that a forward line change gives them to walk it in and set up. After passing around the perimeter to complete the setup, Daley goes to Seguin at the umbrella tip. Seguin chucks it into traffic and gets himself a fortunate bounce. No adjustment here. Sometimes you get lucky when the other team is shorthanded.
3rd Period 07:39 – Detroit Goal: Kyle Quincey (slapshot) from Riley Sheahan and Stephen Weiss
The Wings extend the lead back out to two on a good zone entry that collapses the defense enough for Quincey to get a shot through traffic that Rynnas never sees and can’t stop. The Wings get pinned in their own zone for a moment while Dallas aggressively forechecks, but good puck movement and a great outlet pass by Kronwall to spring the breakout while Detroit’s forwards are changing sets this play up. Kronwall goes from the corner in his own zone farthest from the bench to Sheahan stepping onto the ice just on the other side of center. Sheahan centers to Weiss moving with speed up the middle for a zone entry that drifts to the right side before dropping it to Sheahan and continuing his loop to the front of the net. With both Demers and Benn moving back to keep Weiss from splitting them, Sheahan has plenty of room to work as he walks to the top of the circle and fires a shot that deflects off Benn to the corner. Sheahan again picks it up and circles back up ice, walking it to the half-wall before passing to Quincey coming into the zone. Q briefly stops it before firing a slapper through traffic. With Benn and Demers both tying up with Weiss out front, Rynnas doesn’t see the puck as it deflects in off Demers’ stick. Kronwall is going to earn a plus from the bench for the outlet which made this work. Weiss will get a screener’s assist and a half-plus while Sheahan will also get a half-plus.
3rd Period 13:07 – Detroit Goal: Darren Helm (borrowed magic) from Tomas Tatar and Pavel Datsyuk
Helm salts away the game as two magical players find him wide open in front for a dangleriffic goal just as a power play expires. Datsyuk and Quincey team up for a give-and-go zone entry with just three seconds left on the power play which draws both Jordie Benn and Demers to him on the outside hash marks along the wall. Just before they get to him, Datsyuk passes out to Tatar at the dot. Tatar controls and punches it under Vern Fiddler’s stick to Helm arriving at the back post. The pass is too far behind Helm to snap in, so he controls and waits with plenty of time for Rynnas to fall for a move first. Finally, just before Fiddler gets over to make a play on him, Helm fakes a shot that makes Rynnas drop his shoulder and give up the top post angle which Helm finds. Great passing here, but this is more about how brutal Benn and Demers played this sequence. I am going to clear the pluses for Datsyuk, Helm, Tatar, Quincey, and DeKeyser. This goal was a power play goal that happened to happen between the official expiration of the man advantage and the penalized player actually getting back into the play.
The Penalties
1st Period 15:27 – Jonathan Ericsson (hooking) against Vernon Fiddler: Riggy gets caught being hooksy while chasing a puck into the Detroit zone. Bad penalty. Minus for Ericsson.
1st Period 17:17 – Ryan Garbutt (slashing) against Jimmy Howard: Garbutt pops Howie in the mask after a scoring chance and takes his own team off the power play. No adjustment.
2nd Period 12:55 – Danny DeKeyser (high sticking) against Jason Spezza: DK catches Spezza in the schnozz as he bats a rebound out of mid-air and the follow-through bonks him. I’m going to split the minus between DeKeyser and Quincey, who turned it over, leading to this chance. DK isn’t protected by the “follow-through of a shot” consideration here and he should have used his glove to bat the puck.
2nd Period 16:38 – Stephen Weiss (interference) against Vernon Fiddler: Weiss helps prevent an odd-man rush by stepping in front of Fiddler to slow it down to where Kindl can retrieve the puck. This is against the rules and Weiss will get a minus. Fiddler sells it, but it’s a good call.
3rd Period 19:30 – Cody Eakin (delay of game puck over glass): Automatic penalty, no adjustment.
3rd Period 11:06 – John Klingberg (holding) against Gustav Nyquist: Goose turns the corner on Klingberg behind the Dallas net and gets hugged for being so beautiful at hockey. Sadly for Klingberg, this is a penalty. Nyquist will get a plus.
Total Adjustments
| Player | GP | Official +/- | Adjusted +/- | G+ | Cov- | Turn- | Plty- | Plty+ | Chg+ | Chg- | PP+Lost | PK-Clear | GA-Clear | GSaved+ | Adj Diff |
| Joakim Andersson | 1 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||||
| Henrik Zetterberg | 1 | -1 | -1 | 0 | |||||||||||
| Stephen Weiss | 1 | 2 | 1.5 | 1 | -1 | -0.5 | |||||||||
| Johan Franzen | 1 | -1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | ||||||||||
| Tomas Tatar | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 | -1 | 0 | |||||||||
| Riley Sheahan | 1 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 1 | ||||||||||
| Tomas Jurco | 1 | 2 | 2.5 | 0.5 | 0.5 | ||||||||||
| Gustav Nyquist | 1 | -1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | |||||||||
| Darren Helm | 1 | 2 | 1.5 | 0.5 | -1 | -0.5 | |||||||||
| Pavel Datsyuk | 1 | 2 | 1.5 | 0.5 | -1 | 1 | -0.5 | ||||||||
| Luke Glendening | 1 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||||
| Drew Miller | 1 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||||||
| Niklas Kronwall | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | ||||||||||
| Jonathan Ericsson | 1 | -1 | -1 | -1 | |||||||||||
| Brendan Smith | 1 | -1 | -2.5 | -1.5 | -1.5 | ||||||||||
| Danny DeKeyser | 1 | 3 | 1.5 | -0.5 | -1 | -1.5 | |||||||||
| Kyle Quincey | 1 | 4 | 4 | 1.5 | -0.5 | -1 | 0 | ||||||||
| Jakub Kindl | 1 | -1 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Player | Screener’s Assists |
| Justin Abdelkader | 5 |
| Luke Glendening | 2.5 |
| Johan Franzen | 2 |
| Darren Helm | 1.5 |
| Drew Miller | 1.5 |
| Riley Sheahan | 1 |
| Tomas Jurco | 1 |
| Stephen Weiss | 1 |
| Joakim Andersson | 0.5 |
Possession Metrics
Even-strength Corsi numbers provided thanks to NHL.com via War-On-Ice.com.
| Name | Pos | Corsi Rel% | Corsi% | Corsi+/- | CorsiFor | CorsiAgn | CorsiFor60 | CorsiAgn60 |
| Jimmy.Howard | G | 62.69 | 17 | 42 | 25 | 51.39 | 30.59 | |
| Riley.Sheahan | C | 30.9 | 86.67 | 11 | 13 | 2 | 84.32 | 12.97 |
| Pavel.Datsyuk | CL | 19.67 | 76.19 | 11 | 16 | 5 | 68.33 | 21.35 |
| Tomas.Jurco | RL | 20.63 | 77.78 | 10 | 14 | 4 | 88.11 | 25.17 |
| Tomas.Tatar | L | 12.73 | 71.43 | 9 | 15 | 6 | 64.83 | 25.93 |
| Jakub.Kindl | D | 15.35 | 73.68 | 9 | 14 | 5 | 69.66 | 24.88 |
| Niklas.Kronwall | D | 12.73 | 71.43 | 9 | 15 | 6 | 55.7 | 22.28 |
| Stephen.Weiss | C | 18.47 | 76.47 | 9 | 13 | 4 | 79.46 | 24.45 |
| Darren.Helm | CL | 8.18 | 68.18 | 8 | 15 | 7 | 59.7 | 27.86 |
| Brendan.Smith | D | 1.41 | 63.64 | 6 | 14 | 8 | 60.29 | 34.45 |
| Jonathan.Ericsson | D | -1.14 | 61.9 | 5 | 13 | 8 | 45.06 | 27.73 |
| Joakim.Andersson | CL | -1.42 | 61.54 | 3 | 8 | 5 | 50.22 | 31.39 |
| Kyle.Quincey | D | -11.94 | 55.56 | 3 | 15 | 12 | 46.65 | 37.32 |
| Danny.Dekeyser | D | -13.28 | 54.17 | 2 | 13 | 11 | 40.38 | 34.17 |
| Drew.Miller | LR | -7.01 | 57.14 | 2 | 8 | 6 | 45.93 | 34.45 |
| Luke.Glendening | C | -20.64 | 46.67 | -1 | 7 | 8 | 39.25 | 44.86 |
| Gustav.Nyquist | RL | -29.23 | 40 | -3 | 6 | 9 | 23.5 | 35.26 |
| Johan.Franzen | L | -34.1 | 35.71 | -4 | 5 | 9 | 20.25 | 36.45 |
| Henrik.Zetterberg | CL | -33.09 | 37.5 | -4 | 6 | 10 | 24.57 | 40.96 |
Babcock put Zetterberg on Spezza, Datsyuk on Seguin, Sheahan on Fiddler, and Glendening on Horcoff. Hank is the only one who saw his line lose their head-to-head matchup. Riggy-Kronwall also saw Seguin the most. DK-Quincey saw the most of Spezza, and Smith-Kindl got the Fiddler line to handle. It’s interesting that even though a forward line lost a matchup, DK and Quincey found other opportunities to find themselves at positive possession.
| Name | Pos | Off ZS % | OffZoneStart | NeuZoneStart | DefZoneStart |
| Tomas.Jurco | RL | 83.33 | 5 | 3 | 1 |
| Stephen.Weiss | C | 83.33 | 5 | 3 | 1 |
| Kyle.Quincey | D | 80 | 8 | 12 | 2 |
| Danny.Dekeyser | D | 77.78 | 7 | 12 | 2 |
| Riley.Sheahan | C | 71.43 | 5 | 3 | 2 |
| Jakub.Kindl | D | 62.5 | 5 | 4 | 3 |
| Brendan.Smith | D | 62.5 | 5 | 4 | 3 |
| Drew.Miller | LR | 60 | 3 | 3 | 2 |
| Henrik.Zetterberg | CL | 60 | 6 | 9 | 4 |
| Jimmy.Howard | G | 56.67 | 17 | 23 | 13 |
| Gustav.Nyquist | RL | 54.55 | 6 | 9 | 5 |
| Johan.Franzen | L | 54.55 | 6 | 9 | 5 |
| Joakim.Andersson | CL | 50 | 3 | 2 | 3 |
| Luke.Glendening | C | 50 | 3 | 3 | 3 |
| Pavel.Datsyuk | CL | 42.86 | 3 | 8 | 4 |
| Tomas.Tatar | L | 42.86 | 3 | 8 | 4 |
| Niklas.Kronwall | D | 38.46 | 5 | 7 | 8 |
| Darren.Helm | CL | 37.5 | 3 | 9 | 5 |
| Jonathan.Ericsson | D | 33.33 | 4 | 7 | 8 |
The zone starts chart makes the Datsyuk/Tatar/Helm domination all that much sweeter. What a night for them.
Check out more from war-on-ice.com, including the visualized shift chart here.
Final Say
Tomas Jurco is really incredibly unfairly good. Weiss continues to impress not only with his production, but his hustle and the level of improvements he’s still showing. Hank had a few scoring opportunities but couldn’t find the net. I’m not worried about that line as they’re just a bit snakebitten right now.
Corsi Timeline from Hockeystats.ca
