You can ask people what the biggest need for improvement on the Red Wings is and you will get different answers from every source. If you asked Ken Holland and the management group they will likely tell you that the thing the Wings are lacking most is size and toughness (as evidenced by the towering prospects they selected during this year’s entry draft). If you asked fans what the biggest need for the team is I believe they would likely split the vote 50/50 between it being either a #1 Center or a #1 Defensemen (I will have a hard time arguing either side).

I cannot disagree with any of these ideals; they are all definitely things that would help improve this hockey club. I do however have an opinion that there is 1 single biggest thing required for this team that would immediately have a significant impact regardless of what size or position this player was at. The biggest need for this team is an Elite Playmaker.

When you look at playmakers around the league you need to think about players who are consistently, shift after shift, making everyone they are on the ice with more dangerous offensively. Most of the elite players in the league classify as this category with people like Sidney Crosby, Connor McDavid and Nicklas Backstrom leading the pack as players who consistently will top 60 assists every season. Guys like this are the ones who can give Chris Kunitz a 35 goal season and roster spot on the Olympic Team Canada squad solely based on the fact that they know how to find a player and put them in the best position to score.

Puck control and Vision are the biggest attributes for a playmaker and that’s exactly what this team has been lacking without Pavel Datsyuk during the 2016/17 season. You can point to Zetterberg’s 51 assists and for sure classify that as elite but if you really watch his playing style, it is going to be tougher and tougher for him to do these things repeatedly. Zetterberg’s strengths as a puck carrier are using his body to shield the puck and cycle around the net until something opens up out front. It is extremely effective and something that younger players should learn from and try to mimic but I would say that Hank’s chances created are not as much coming from talent or puck control but more from hard work and intelligence. If the Red Wings can find a player with a high amount of puck skills and passing vision and play them with Anthony Mantha I have no doubt that he can become one of the top scorers in the entire NHL.

While most of the top playmakers in the league are currently centers, it does not mean they necessarily need to be. Just ask Erik Karlsson if he thinks he can continue to lead his team in points annually while averaging 60 Assists per 82 GP like he has for the past 4 seasons. There could be many different combinations of player types who would increase the Red Wings offensive chances created whether it be a small, speedy and shifty winger like Patrick Kane or Johnny Gaudreau or a big, grizzly center like Joe Thornton in his prime or Ryan Getzlaf. The answer for Detroit could be had in the projected #1/2 overall draft pick for 2018 named Rasmus Dahlin. If he follows the path of Swedish countryman Erik Karlsson, it would be a monstrous addition to the Red Wings roster as a playmaking defensemen and powerplay quarterback.

The reason I believe that this is the biggest need for the team is a combination of 3 glaring issues that were apparent on a nightly basis during the 2016/17 season. The first reason is quite simply the powerplay being absolutely terrible. The stagnant offensive strategies were so frustrating to watch with telegraphed passes to the point that were easy to read and rarely led to any dangerous shots getting through. There are many offensively gifted players on this team and a lot of players who know how to put the puck in the net, the main issue I see on the powerplay is that nobody’s willing to take control of the situation and quarterback the ice during 5-on-4. Normally on an effective powerplay there is somebody who all the other 4 players on the ice are looking to get the puck to, sometimes this can be the point man but often it is a forward along the half boards. Take a look at this example of Pavel Datsyuk quarterbacking the powerplay for the Red Wings in 2011:

The second major issue that the Red Wings had last season was getting shots on net whether it be 5-on-5 or on the powerplay. There were a lot of attempts to get things set up in the offensive zone and sometimes there would be a solid amount of possession that would literally lead to zero shots on goal. An effective playmaker knows that there are times to slow things down and wait for an opening but other times they are able to force passes through and create openings for shots early on in the rush. They can create high danger scoring opportunities while playing around the perimeter of the offensive zone and are able to find other players in those high danger scoring areas. The Wings last season ranked 25^th in the NHL with 28.5 shots per game which is something that needs to be improved for sure but they also need to focus on creating dangerous scoring chances. The shot creation problem proved to be especially important when the game was on the line with evidence provided below on Detroit’s Shot Attempt % while in the 3^rd period of a 1 goal game from NHL.com:

 

The last problem that could be helped with the addition of a puck control playmaker would be to increase possession time. The Red Wings finished the season last year with a 24^th ranked 48.23 CF% (Via Puckalytics.com) and I believe it was influenced by the fact that we have too many high risk/high reward players in the lineup. Andreas Athanasiou, Dylan Larkin and Tomas Tatar are all dangerous players and can create chances by themselves using speed or creativity individually. The problem is that they often take chances that don’t always work out and may cost the team possession with turnovers. The Red Wings attempt to counter these problems has been to give more playing time to defensive minded players who take less risks and make the “safe” plays. I believe that the best remedy to fix the possession problem is to find a player who can maintain puck control instead of dumping it in deep and working the corners so that they can still be a threat to create an offensive chance at any time. Someone I would love to target because of his incredible puck management skills early in his career is Toronto’s William Nylander.

The addition of a top playmaker, regardless of which position they play, would help solve many of the ongoing issues that Detroit is likely to face again in the upcoming season. It would improve the powerplay immediately as well as 5-on-5 shot attempts in dangerous areas and due to a playmaker’s ability to read situations and sometimes slow things down we would see an increase in puck possession creating less pressure on our defensive responsibilities. Unfortunately I don’t really see anything coming in the pipeline in terms of elite passing and puck possession skills as both Michael Rasmussen and Evgeny Svechnikov appear to be shot first type of players who will definitely help create goals but maybe not increase our poor possession numbers. It may take some type of creative trade from Ken Holland to try and find a young player with this type of skill combination or else it will need to happen in a future draft. I don’t expect the Red Wings to be bad enough to have the opportunity in the draft but the prospect Rasmus Dahlin could be the exact type of playmaker we are looking for from the defensive position.

Going into the 2017/18 season it will need to be Zetterberg and Nielsen to be the main playmakers with hopefully some assistance on the powerplay coming from new acquisition Trevor Daley. As all of these players get older though it will become more and more important for the Red Wings to find a player for the future with strong passing vision and the ability to hold possession while snipers and speedsters find open ice and get in scoring position.