A deep dive on what Madison Bowey can bring to the Wings

At first glance, the acquisition of Madison Bowey along with the second-round pick in the deal for Nick Jensen seems like a small addition. But what the 23-year-old defenceman can bring to the Wings might be more important than the initial opinion.

The initial reaction is that he is approaching the age where he can no longer be considered a true prospect. Which might be true, but within his 84 games played in the NHL he has not been good.

There might be a slew of factors to consider (time on ice, quality of teammates, etc.), but Bowey has not been what he was hoped to be in his early NHL career. The most important thing is that there are signs of hope for him on Detroit and that is what will be explored.

Everything requires context and that is why one can be handed a little bit of hope for the 23-year-old defenceman.

Bowey had been absolutely dreadful defensively his entire career, but so has the Washington Capitals.

It’s shocking to call the reigning champion bad, but that is what the Capitals have been this year while in their own zone. According to EvolvingWild’s expected goals model, the Capitals have an expected goals against per hour (xGA/60) of 2.73. The Detroit Red Wings this year is doing better than the Capitals with an xGA/60 of 2.63.

Not much of a difference, but the Capitals system allows the opposition to get right up close and personal. The two teams rank 29th and 27th in the entire league, but there is still enough of a difference to notice.

While Bowey is on the ice this season, the Capials have actually been slightly better at facing their opponent’s attack, according to Micah Blake McCurdy‘s unblocked shot attempt heatmaps.

Both of these are for even-strength unblocked shot attempts against the Capitals, with and without Bowey on the ice. The “threat level” is a percentage comparing what the average is league-wide. The red means more than average, and the blue means less than average. So the Capitals are still bad defensively with Bowey on the ice, but not as bad according to the threat level.

It might not show up this year while the Wings are generally still just as bad defensively as the Capitals, but Bowey might (heavily stressing might) flourish under a defensively-responsible system with defensively-responsible teammates.

He ranks fifth among eight Capitals defenceman this season in on-ice xGoals difference. Meaning that he averages out to be not the worst defenceman on his team this season when it comes to creating offense while being defensively-minded.

For a more general sense, Bowey has an on-ice 5v5 CF% of 45.26, the fourth-worst on the Capitals, and a -2.99 CF%rel. Judging by those numbers compared to the xGoals metric, Bowey is generally lucky when it comes the opposing team not getting shots directly in front of the net, but still allows way too many shot attempts against.

Besides shot attempt numbers, one area that Bowey struggles in as well is penalties – he takes so damn many of them. Already this season, in just 33 games played, Bowey has 38 penalty minutes.

To be fair, 16 of those 38 penalty minutes have come in just two games this season. One of those games was against the Ottawa Senators on December 29th. Bowey was called for interference and then also had a fight after he illegally checked a Senators player in the head – acquiring nine PIMs in just 25 minutes of play.

That kind of play lowers the value of what he brings to his team. He’s not skilled enough to take reckless penalties like that and force his team to kill a penalty.

A lot of things have to go right for the Wings to get a valued player out of Bowey, but there is some hope within the 23-year-old skater.

He has not had any powerplay time for the Capitals and has never been paired with more than a bottom-pairing defenceman in his career. Generally skating just 13 minutes a night, Bowey should look to seize this opportunity with a desolate Red Wings blueline and up his game.

Acquiring him is interesting in the long-run. No one should go as far to say that he has potential, but he is at least an interesting piece and someone to look for within the Wings’ young group of surging defenceman. Along with Cholowski and Hronek, Bowey can bring some skill to this old and slow defenceman group.

If everything breaks the right way – a massive if – Bowey can turn out to be an alright contributor for the future Red Wings blueline.