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Red Wings Lyon King Just Keeps Winning

Detroit goalie is 4-1 in his last five starts

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4 months ago

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Alex Lyon, Red Wings
In the Red Wings dressing room, goaltender Alex Lyon is known as Kinger.

The respect and admiration in which Alex Lyon is held by his Detroit Red Wings teammates is evident in the nickname they’ve given him.

“I call him Kinger,” Detroit captain Dylan Larkin told Bally Sports Detroit.

Yes, it’s a play on words. The Lyon King. At the same time, it emphasizes the status he’s quickly gained inside the confines of the dressing room.

Sunday’s 3-2 win over the Anaheim Ducks was Lyon’s fifth straight start in the Detroit net. The Red Wings are 4-1 in those five games. They are 7-3 over his past 10 starts.

By comparison, James Reimer is 1-6-2 over his last nine starts. Prior to suffering a serious leg injury, Ville Husso wqs showing one win over his previous five appearances.

It’s simple. If the Red Wings want to win, they need Kinger ruling over their net.

“He’s been great,” Detroit forward Michael Rasmussen said of Lyon.

Lyon Gives Red Wings Chance To Win

The qualities a team seeks in a netminder aren’t complicated. They want him to make the saves he should make. Most of all, they want him to keep them in the game, give them a chance to win.

In virtually every game he’s played, Lyon has done just that.

“I think his game just speaks for itself,” Rasmussen said. “I don’t know how many shots (Lyon stopped against Anaheim) but he kept a lot out and he’s kept a lot out for awhile now.”

It isn’t pretty or poetic watching Lyon stop the puck. At times, he seems to be flailing while making saves. He stabs at pucks with his glove hand.

That being the case, no one can debate that his style of puckstopping is working. As colleague Kevin Allen recently was pointing out, Lyon has given up three or fewer goals in 10 (83.3%) of his 12 appearances. By contrast, Husso was giving up three or fewer goals in nine (52.9%) of 17 appearances before sufferig his injury.

Red Wings coach Derek Lalonde raves about Lyon’s compete level. His players speak of the infectious confidence that he exudes.

Lyon passes the eye test. He also will win you over if you look at the underlying numbers.

According to analytics computed by MoneyPuck.com, entering the 2024 portion of the NHL season, Lyon was the league’s 18th-best goalie. His goals saved above expected per 60 minutes is +0.822. Meanwhile, Reimer (-0.683) is sixth-worst in the league and Husso (-0.293) is 13th worst.

“It’s nice having Alex in there,” Larkin said.

It’s good to be king. And it’s proving to be even better to have Kinger between the pipes.

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