The preseason schedule is officially over for the Red Wings, who went 6-0-2 in their eight preseason games, outscoring their opponents by a combined 33-17 score. This doesn’t necessarily mean anything in the overall scheme of news about how prepared the Red Wings are to compete this season, but it’s always more fun to win, and it was nice seeing the Wings do more of that than not.
Here are the final stats for the skaters:
Forwards
| NO. | PLAYER | GP | Goals | Assists | Points | plus/minus | PIM | Shots | PP TOI | SH TOI | TOI |
| 72 | A. Athanasiou | 5 | 4 | 3 | 7 | 5 | 2 | 15 | 12:08:00 | 0:26:00 | 67:29:00 |
| 39 | A. Mantha | 5 | 3 | 3 | 6 | 3 | 5 | 12 | 9:41:00 | 0:00:00 | 68:16:00 |
| 56 | T. Pulkkinen | 3 | 3 | 2 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 8:03:00 | 0:00:00 | 44:22:00 |
| 59 | T. Bertuzzi | 5 | 1 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 9 | 9:38:00 | 0:00:00 | 63:33:00 |
| 8 | J. Abdelkader | 4 | 3 | 1 | 4 | 5 | 9 | 7 | 13:00:00 | 1:46:00 | 62:50:00 |
| 17 | B. Richards | 3 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 7:02:00 | 0:19:00 | 45:33:00 |
| 21 | T. Tatar | 4 | 4 | 0 | 4 | 3 | 6 | 10 | 10:05:00 | 0:00:00 | 61:00:00 |
| 71 | D. Larkin | 5 | 3 | 1 | 4 | 3 | 0 | 15 | 13:35:00 | 6:11:00 | 83:16:00 |
| 15 | R. Sheahan | 4 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 9:39:00 | 7:59:00 | 67:14:00 |
| 20 | D. Miller | 4 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 9 | 0:25:00 | 12:20:00 | 57:26:00 |
| 22 | A. Miele | 5 | 0 | 3 | 3 | -1 | 0 | 5 | 10:09:00 | 1:26:00 | 69:43:00 |
| 40 | H. Zetterberg | 3 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 8 | 10:18:00 | 0:12:00 | 52:57:00 |
| 11 | D. Cleary | 4 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 6 | 0 | 0:10:00 | 6:26:00 | 54:42:00 |
| 14 | G. Nyquist | 4 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 6 | 7 | 12:12:00 | 0:35:00 | 62:52:00 |
| 26 | T. Jurco | 5 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 7:32:00 | 8:20:00 | 70:29:00 |
| 93 | J. Franzen | 4 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 5 | 8:52:00 | 3:03:00 | 59:38:00 |
| 18 | J. Andersson | 4 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 5 | 0:54:00 | 10:16:00 | 57:12:00 |
| 29 | L. Ferraro | 4 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 7 | 1:32:00 | 11:27:00 | 59:50:00 |
| 41 | L. Glendening | 4 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 1:15:00 | 13:38:00 | 66:23:00 |
| 57 | M. Callahan | 4 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 7 | 4:51:00 | 12:49:00 | 53:31:00 |
| 83 | T. Nosek | 5 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 8 | 0:19:00 | 18:00:00 | 80:37:00 |
| 32 | L. Aubry | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0:00:00 | 3:25:00 | 27:10:00 |
| 37 | E. Svechnikov | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0:35:00 | 0:00:00 | 12:12:00 |
| 42 | M. Frk | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0:00:00 | 0:00:00 | 11:32:00 |
| 49 | E. Tangradi | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0:10:00 | 2:10:00 | 18:24:00 |
| 62 | Z. Nastasiuk | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0:00:00 | 0:00:00 | 7:36:00 |
| 81 | J. Hoggan | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0:00:00 | 0:00:00 | 11:43:00 |
Defensemen
| NO. | PLAYER | GP | Goals | Assists | Points | plus/minus | PIM | Shots | PP TOI | SH TOI | TOI |
| 3 | N. Jensen | 6 | 0 | 4 | 4 | 8 | 6 | 7 | 0:45:00 | 12:01:00 | 110:29:00 |
| 2 | B. Smith | 4 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 10:44:00 | 12:27:00 | 84:57:00 |
| 4 | J. Kindl | 2 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 7:43:00 | 2:07:00 | 43:15:00 |
| 47 | A. Marchenko | 4 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 3:08:00 | 11:28:00 | 70:57:00 |
| 55 | N. Kronwall | 4 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 13:08:00 | 15:31:00 | 87:16:00 |
| 23 | B. Lashoff | 5 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 0 | 5 | 0:40:00 | 14:45:00 | 94:54:00 |
| 24 | N. Paetsch | 1 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0:00:00 | 1:52:00 | 16:49:00 |
| 52 | J. Ericsson | 4 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 6 | 3 | 0:56:00 | 14:26:00 | 78:08:00 |
| 61 | X. Ouellet | 4 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 0 | 6 | 7:08:00 | 8:40:00 | 85:02:00 |
| 25 | M. Green | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 4:46:00 | 0:05:00 | 38:13:00 |
| 27 | K. Quincey | 3 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 0:41:00 | 10:39:00 | 59:14:00 |
| 48 | R. Sproul | 4 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 6 | 9:23:00 | 1:14:00 | 75:18:00 |
| 51 | R. Russo | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0:00:00 | 2:52:00 | 37:00:00 |
| 65 | D. DeKeyser | 3 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 7:13:00 | 13:25:00 | 61:45:00 |
Goaltending
| PLAYER | GP | W | L | OT | SA | GA | SV | SVPCT | TOI |
| Jimmy Howard | 4 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 121 | 7 | 114 | 0.942 | 52:28:00 |
| Petr Mrazek | 4 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 114 | 7 | 107 | 0.939 | 50:15:00 |
Observations
- That’s a nice stat line to see for your goaltending tandem. Might as well make it as difficult on Blashill as possible.
- The top four scoring forwards being mostly “kids” (save Pulkkinen) is fun to see and tells us that the Griffins should be really good this season. Many of those points came against players on other teams looking to make a name for themselves prior to being sent to the AHL as well. However, Athanasiou took the lead in the scoring race thanks to a two-point night in Toronto against a mostly-NHL roster, so there’s that.
- The other exciting part about the forwards is that the NHL guys generally performed well. Some of that was against easier competition, but for the most part, they played against NHL-bound players. Even a guy like Riley Sheahan and Gustav Nyquist, who didn’t look too impressive in the preseason did a pretty good job of getting onto the scoreboard at least.
- On the defensive side, Nick Jensen got into 75% of the Wings’ preseason games and played well. With the unfortunate injury to DeKeyser, the Wings will have room to keep one of the waiver-exempt D-men up through most of October (provided Lashoff isn’t the one who stays). Honestly, I think Jensen, Ouellet, and Marchenko all played well, though not perfectly. I’d be happy with any of those three getting regular minutes on the third pair right now.
- Not so fast on that third pair thing though, because the fresh start angle for both Brendan Smith and Jakub Kindl is at play and both of those players were impressive in preseason play.
- So far a lot of talk about the impressive guys. Let’s change gears and talk about the ones who didn’t shine: For starters, I know that I’m biased against Mitch Callahan, but he didn’t particularly show too much of why it should be impossible to send him down. Joakim Andersson played well early but faded. Landon Ferraro, Tomas Nosek, Ryan Sproul, and Dan Cleary didn’t do too much to improve on their position on the depth chart. Tomas Jurco started well and showed all preseason what he learned in a defensive role all last season, but he wasn’t offensively explosive save for his one goal.He doesn’t shoot enough.
- I think parsing it all out, I think the Wings and Griffins are both going to have good top line talent, but the Wings are going to be a bit weaker on the bottom of the forward depth chart in order to make the Griffins better.
- Anthony Mantha is not very very disappointing.
