Riley Sheahan: the man of many shots! So many shots that he has his very own NHL record! He’s the first player to have over 100 shots without scoring a goal. Sheahan did eventually get two goals in the last game of the season exactly 1 year after his last goal and was the last Red Wings player to score a goal in Joe Louis Arena.  Sheahan rotated between the wing and center, playing mostly with Larkin and Tatar, who themselves didn’t have a great first half of the season. Throughout the season it was getting harder to watch Sheahan with his attempted breakaways and clear shots completely miss the net, just hoping for the sake of his confidence that he would score. Sheahan has never been advertised as a major goal scorer but 2 goals in one season are not enough especially when his cap hit is $2.075 million making the two he scored expensive goals.

Sheahan ended with 13 points making it his worst season to date.

The 4th line is calling Sheahan’s name! Numbers are the name of the game and Sheahan’s numbers are sub par this season, he couldn’t catch a break offensively and wasn’t overall an asset defensively either.  This chart puts Sheahan’s production at a third or fourth line level and if that is how he will continue to play that’s where he should stay.

This whole season saw an all-time career decline in numbers for Sheahan – lowest goals, high minus rating and a lack of production on the power play. The only stat that he improved on was his face off win percentage coming in over 50% which being on the third or fourth line he isn’t going to face the toughest of opponents.

Surprisingly Sheahan didn’t have the worst CF% amongst the Red Wings forwards coming in at 10th. Sheahan averaged over 13.58 minutes a game which is typical for the third and fourth line, he was also in the middle of the pack for the power play and penalty kill minutes.  His CA is still higher than his CF but that’s to be expected if overall he was lacking offensively.

Even though this was a dismal year in regards to offense Coach Blashill has been quoted as saying “I actually think Riley does a lot of good things” and that “Riley defends well against some of the best forwards the Red Wings face”. I don’t agree with Blashill on his last statement (though what do I know?), but looking at the numbers, Sheahan wasn’t overly effective in either offense or defense being that he was on the ice for more goals against than he was for.

I think that Sheahan will improve next year as (hopefully) this year was a bit of an anomaly and he has a beast of a shot that just wasn’t going in for love nor money. I would like to assume that he will reflect back over this year and work on his play over the offseason and try to improve what was lacking. He is unlikely to get a 30 goal season but more than 2 would be nice.

In conclusion, Riley Sheahan had a horrible season and it wasn’t from a lack of trying. All his stats were impacted and this season saw the worst of his career. The thing he can be excited about this season is he was the last Red Wing to score a goal in Joe Louis Arena and got his very own NHL record.