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Detroit Red Wings

To Make Playoffs, Red Wings Must Make These Factors Pay Off

Goaltending, PK, road success all vital components

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6 days ago

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Seider. Lyon Red Wings
Goaltenders Alex Lyon and Cam Talbot are a big part of the Red Wings success story.

The Detroit Red Wings are 12-4-1 under new coach Todd McLellan. As they take the ice Saturday night in Calgary to face the Flames on Hockey Night In Canada, a win would give McLellan as many victories in charge of the team this season as his predecessor Derek Lalonde (13-17-4).

Should the Wings continue to do certain things, and rectify some others, it’s not out of the question that the club could climb into a playoff spot.

Let’s look at five factors that Detroit might make pay off in a playoff scenario for the first time since the 2015-16 season.

Red Wings Must Rage On Road

This four-game road trip is beginning in indentical fashion for the Red Wings. Last time around, they beat the reigning Stanley Cup champions Florida Panthers to launch a journey that finished 1-2-1.

This time, the Wings would edge the reigning Stanley Cup finalist Edmonton Oilers 3-2 in a shootout to get the trek underway. Theoretically, it should get easier from here, with the Flames, Vancouver Canucks and Seattle Kraken next on the docket.

That’s what everyone thought on the last trip, too.

Detroit is now breaking even on the road for the season at 10-10-3. The Wings opened 3-0 away from home under McLellan. They are 1-2-1 since.

With 18 of the remaining 31 games away from Little Caesars Arena, it’s imperative that Detroit finds a consistent formula for success on the road.

Penalty Kill Picks Up Pace

The Red Wings sit in a tie with the New York Rangers for the NHL’s worst penalty killing percentage (69.8%). They did give up power-play goal up in four opportunites against the Oilers. Still, Leon Draistaitl and Connor McDavid score power-play goals on a lot of teams.

Overall, Detroit is 10-for-11 on the PK through the past five games. That’s an astonishing 90.9% success rate.

They aren’t going to keep that pace up. Still, thanks to McLellan’s aggressive, attacking approach to the game, the Wings aren’t taking as many penalties as they did playing Lalonde’s passive system. If you don’t take penalties, you don’t have to kill them off.

Red Wings Need To Start On Time

It’s great that Detroit has been able to rally from 2-0 deficits to win each of the last two games. This shouldn’t be viewed as a pattern the Red Wings will want to be continuing.

Chasing the game wears a team down. Catch-up hockey is losing hockey in the long run. The Wings are 10-18-1 this season when the opposition opens the scoring.

Goaltending Staying Strong

The Red Wings were dealing with 99 problems under Lalonde, but goaltending wasn’t one of them. The work of Cam Talbot has proven to be a bright spot all season long. He’s 8-1 in his last nine starts. Talbot has allowed two goals or fewer in six of those eight games.

Other than injury, little has proven capble of stopping Alex Lyon. He’s 4-1-1 over his last six decisions. Lyon has allowed two goals or fewer in six of his last seven full games.

Winning The Race To Three

When he was first arriving in Detroit, McLellan was talking about NHL games being a race to three. His theory was that the first team to score three goals won the vast majority of games.

So far, he’s been proven a prophet. Under McLellan, the Wings are 11-0 when getting to three goals first in a game. They are 0-4 when the opponents is the first to net three times.

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muttsy19

Thanks Bob Duff. Starting on time was always the priority in Detroit when McLellan was here as an assistant. Agreed and hopefully, the late starts don’t become a trend.

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Steve B

Been saying (and thinking) for the last couple weeks that road game consistency is the next thing the Wings need to hook up. They’ve had some good results on the road but have lacked consistency. I have no doubt that if its possible, McLellan will provide an improvement in this area as he has improved most area’s of the teams play since coming in. I have personally stopped thinking about playoffs for the time being, just enjoying watching this team play at the moment and these guys have given me a lot of fun. I’ll maybe start thinking about the playoffs a bit later. First I want to see if these guys can hook up some consistent road trips but it’s been looking good of late.

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