Welcome to another edition of Wings Weekly, a week-by-week look at how the Red Wings are doing through the 2017-18 season! This was a light week for the Wings as they only played two games. First, coming off of a win in Florida against the Panthers, the Wings hosted the last place Arizona Coyotes, coming off of their own win in Philly, at LCA. Then, they made their way up the highway to Canada’s Capital to play the Ottawa Senators, kicking off a four-game Canadian road trip at the Canadian Tire Centre.

As October flips to November, the Red Wings hoped to stay hot amidst the settling cold. Snow had already fallen in Michigan when the puck dropped on Hallowe’en night.

Being the last place team in the league, losing to the Coyotes would have sucked. The Wings had built enough momentum in Florida to carry it through to Tuesday’s Hallowe’en game against the Coyotes. Nyquist, coming off of a goal and the shootout winner in Sunrise, got the scoring started in the first minute of the game as he walked into the high slot and fired a shot past Arizona goaltender Scott Wedgewood. Just over a minute later, Luke Glendening sniped one over Wedgewood’s right shoulder. The Coyotes were on the back half of a back-to-back and Detroit was all over them in the first period. Unfortunately, they backed off in the second and third and the Coyotes got a total of 33 shots off on Jimmy Howard. It was too little too late, though. In one of Detroit’s most offensive games of the season, they closed out the Coyotes with a 5-3 win.

Then, the Wings strolled into Ottawa hoping to take advantage of a Senators team that was down from an 8-3 beating from the Montreal Canadiens. Unfortunately for Detroit, they had no such luck. They played an okay first period, but the Sens took over completely in the second and held onto a 2-0 lead until late in the third when Anthony Mantha tipped in a power play goal. Detroit had a tough time getting through the neutral zone, getting stuck in Ottawa’s 1-3-1 formation. When they did get into the Sens zone, they couldn’t get shots on net as the Sens had a whopping 19 shot blocks.

Shooting has been a real problem for Detroit this year. Not necessarily volume of shots (they’re middle of the pack at 5v5 SF/60), but quality of shots. 

This heat map shows where Detroit’s shots are coming from relative to the rest of the league. The blue means they are shooting much less than league average in those areas on the ice. If Detroit wants to be converting their shots into goals, they need to be shooting more from those blue circles in the middle of that image. This was particularly bad in Ottawa Thursday night, where the Wings only had a handful of shots from the slot area.

Dylan Larkin had points in both games this week, putting up a goal and an assist against Arizona and an assist on Detroit’s only goal in Ottawa. It was a bit of a fluky goal, but he needed one badly as he hadn’t scored since the season opener against the Minnesota Wild. Mantha scored a goal in both games this week, extending his point streak to three games, and Andreas Athanasiou logged an assist against Arizona. Combined, the Kid Line had six points over two games this week.

Other players who had a notable week are Gustav Nyquist, who opened the scoring against the Coyotes and disappeared to the periphery against the Senators, and Mike Green, who was the shooter on Mantha’s deflection goal against Ottawa, snapping his four game pointless streak.

Green’s offensive surge this season continues to keep him on top of the team leaderboard, despite his poor defensive showing (more on that below). With his three point week, Larkin took over as the team leader in points. It’s an important step for the young centreman to take. Larkin is playing at a 2.89 5v5 point-per-60 pace, which is best on the team and 28th in the league (over 100 mins played), ahead of players like Jack Eichel, Connor McDavid, and Anze Kopitar. Through his first 14 games, it seems he is having the bounce-back season that he needed.

It’s also nice to see Mantha at the top of the point rankings. Along with Larkin, Mantha is looking like he’s almost ready to take the reigns of this team going forward. He’s on pace for 35 goals this season.

Detroit managed to bounce back after a terrible outing in Tampa Bay. Against Arizona, they were back to early season levels of puck possession, pushing a Corsi-For percentage of nearly 55%. Then, they plummeted back down to below 50% against Ottawa. Consistency is key and Detroit’s inability to play at a high level consistently is ultimately going to be their downfall. Look at their games against Ottawa and Tampa earlier in the season. They were well above the 50% line in CF%. In their second games against both teams, they were below it. It’s all about consistency.

The biggest difference in the chart from last week is that Athanasiou has come down from a massive +10.28 Relative Corsi-For to a modest +2.16. Regression to the mean. Henrik Zetterberg also had a slow week, dropping from a -4.48 to -5.75, while Nick Jensen finds himself comfortably near the top. He was probably Detroit’s best player against Ottawa.

One of the more concerning numbers on this chart is Mike Green’s. Despite having a strong offensive season so far, Green has been abysmal in his own zone. His 48.78% 5v5 on-ice CF% is bottom-5 on the team and he leads the team by a wide margin in giveaways with 24 of them. All of this is despite starting 43.11% of his shifts in the offensive zone. This won’t hinder Detroit’s ability to trade him at the deadline at all – an offensive force on the blueline will be very desireable come playoff times – but he needs to be better in this regard if Detroit wants any shot at all at the playoffs.

Tampa Bay’s play has continued to keep them on top of the Atlantic Division, while Ottawa’s victory over Detroit has launched them over the struggling Maple Leafs into second place. Detroit is just on the periphery with Boston, as expected, maybe good enough to sneak into a wild card spot, but more likely to finish just outside of the playoffs. The Montreal Canadiens are beginning their long climb up the standings after a horrid start to the season and Florida and Buffalo aren’t far behind either. Another stretch of bad games and Detroit could easily find themselves at the bottom of the division.

This week’s Wings Nation player of the week is none other than “D-Boss” Dylan Larkin!

I take every possible opportunity to use that gif. I love it. Please let me know if you made it so that I can give you the credit you deserve. It’s top notch work.

On top of leading the team in points this week, Larkin has been stellar in the faceoff circle and on the penalty kill. Blashill has been relying on him in more crucial situations and, so far, it’s paying off. He’s been one of Detroit’s better players all season and was certainly their best this week.

Detroit went .500 this week, but they need to play more consistently at a higher level if they want to collect more W‘s. Keeping the lines consistent has helped, especially when it comes to the Kid Line as they’ve been the best part of this team since they’ve been playing together. Blashill has kept his promise to give them more minutes at important times of the game and it’s payed off in the form of points for them and penalties killed. If they can keep that line together going forward, I will be happy.

That being said, the top line of Nyquist, Zetterberg, and Tatar needs to be much better, as do the defense lines. The less shots they allow on their goaltenders, the better. Jimmy Howard has been keeping them in way too many games for it to be comfortable.

The schedule isn’t getting any easier for the Wings as they make their way across Western Canada. They’ll play their first back-to-back of the season against Edmonton (today) and Vancouver (tomorrow) before coming back East to hit Calgary and finish the week at home against the Columbus Blue Jackets. Here’s how it’s going to shake out:

Sunday, November 5 – @ Edmonton Oilers, 4:00 P.M. ET

Monday, November 6 – @ Vancouver Canucks, 10:00 P.M. ET

Thursday, November 9 – @ Calgary Flames, 9:00 P.M. ET

Saturday, November 11 – vs. Columbus Blue Jackets, 7:00 P.M. ET