I don’t want this to seem like a reaction to a bad loss. It’s a piece I’ve been sitting on for a while now. For a lot of this season, even at the start, it seemed like Detroit had been getting pretty favourable luck. Now, at the start of the new year, I think it’s time to really start looking into just how overrated this Red Wings team really is. Keep in mind, this is all coming from a Red Wings fan.

Detroit’s Easy Schedule:

Currently, Detroit sits 28th in strength of schedule for games played. That makes them the highest of any Eastern Conference team to this point. As a matter of fact, Detroit’s schedule has been so easy that their second half is tougher than the Islanders first half, which was the highest in the league.

But believe it or not, it goes further than that. Not only has Detroit played the easiest schedule of anyone in the East, but they’ve also done it against a bunch of injured players.

Even early in the season, two of their first five wins came against a no-Kucherov Lightning and the Panthers without their two best forwards. They just lost both legs of a home-and-home against a Penguins team without Malkin. They were able to beat the Leafs, but that team was missing William Nylander, their best forward, and both their goalies. Hell, even their loss to Carolina was against a team without Seth Jarvis or Jaccob Slavin.

You can do it for most of their games. Vancouver without Pettersson, Boston without Pastrnak, Chicago without Bédard, Utah without Cooley, Long Island without Horvat. You name it, win or loss, the easiest schedule in the NHL has gotten easier through injuries.

And I get it, you can only play whoever is in front of you, and for the most part, Detroit has been able to win. But it’s wrong to say that things are all fine and dandy in Detroit when a lot of their record has come against teams that haven’t been able to play their best players.

When the league is so close, playing the easiest mix of those teams is the small difference that has given them the small lead in the conference. If they are to get into the playoffs in spite of what I’m saying, they need to prove it in the second half, where things ramp up.

Detroit’s Best Players are Too Streaky:

It can be nice at times to have players who can dominate weeks, but the lack of consistency is killing this team. Let’s start with the captain, Dylan Larkin, and work from there because all of Detroit’s best players suffer from this.

Since December, Dylan Larkin has four points at even strength. In October, he had that number of even-strength points in a single game. Since December Larkin had nine total points in seventeen games, he had twenty-nine points in the previous twenty-six. Larkin’s once amazing 56% face-off work has fallen to 49% in that span. With both Emmitt Finnie and Alex DeBrincat on his line, Larkin used to have an over 55 CF% and over a 60 SF%. Now, Larkin is down to well below 50% in both of those stats. It’s okay to have bad games, hell, bad weeks are fine too. Your captain going from an elite player to a solid one over the course of just over a month isn’t acceptable.

Lucas Raymond hasn’t been any better. Raymond has one goal in his last fifteen games. We all know he’s a streaky shooter, but that just isn’t acceptable for a player who gets top power play and top line minutes. While his assist numbers look good, a lot of them are secondary or into empty nets. Raymond also isn’t skating nearly as well either. He’s on pace to have his worst skating splits in the past three seasons by a lot. He’s on pace to have eight fewer splits above 22MPH, about fifteen fewer above 20MPH, and break even in his 18MPH splits. He isn’t scoring, he isn’t producing at even strength, and he looks so uninterested on the ice.

I’ll give DeBrincat a pass here, barely though. He’s been solid all season, and he doesn’t get to play with the team’s top players, although he has had droughts too. It’s not like the depth has been perfect. Compher, Rasmussen, and JVR have been much improved as of late. However, the third pairing has been so dismal that there is a piece up about it now, and even Max Bultman has floated the idea of trading for help. Hell, even Marco Kasper has had a year so bad that people have lowered their ceiling for him noticeably.

Detroit’s Team Stats are Inflated:

Goal Differential: Let’s start off simple here, Detroit’s already poor goal differential is boosted a lot by their empty net numbers. Detroit has the third-most goals scored into the empty net. Detroit’s even-strength goal differential is also really poor. 96 goals for and 114 against make Detroit a -18 at even strength, which again, includes those empty net goals.

Power Play: Detroit already gets the favourable calls, giving them the fourth most power plays in the NHL. They are effective, though, standing at 6th in the NHL in power play percentage. They have 33 goals on the power play. 13 of those 33 have come against the bottom ten penalty kills. Against the top 5, they’re 1 for 7 against Buffalo, less than 15%. 0 for 8 against Chicago. Two for nine against the Maple Leafs, which is below their average at 22%. Zero for four against the Lightning, and they are yet to play the top penalty kill in Colorado. Against the best power plays, Detroit is 3 for 28, or 10%.

Wrap Up:

It’s better than it has been, no doubt. But it’s hard to say it feels sustainable. Maybe it’s just that the past two years have made it clear Detroit is never safe. Maybe I’m overreacting after a few poor losses. Either way, one thing is true no matter what. If Detroit is going to snap the drought, it’s going to have to come on the back of resolving some of these issues.

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