Detroit Red Wings: An Early Look Into The Analytics

There is not much to investigate in the goaltending area of the Red Wings at the moment. The simple and easy to see fact is that the Red Wings goaltending is horrendous, absolutely horrendous right now.

The common theme throughout this piece, as well as many other articles about the Detroit Red Wings, start to the season is awful goaltending. The Red Wings goaltending has not been great at all, and it is hindering their ability to be competitive.

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With both Jimmy Howard and Jonathan Bernier appearing in four games apiece, the sample size is not great, but both of their numbers are not good. For this reasoning, look to the team statistics rather than individual statistics.

One of the most prominent correlations that were visible was between quality starts and wins, both totaling three. Another statistic that showed a relationship between the Red Wings record and awful goaltending is GA%-, which is a statistic that measures goal allowed percentage relative to the league goal allowed percentage, with lower numbers being better with 100 being the average.

The Detroit Red Wings goalies have combined for a 109 GA%- rating which would imply that they are doing worse than the league average. Instead of repeating the obvious with more and more goalie statistics, they are simply, not good.

All-in-all the top line is one of the things going right about this team right now. One of the biggest things to note, the middle-bottom six forwards like Abdelkader, Ehn, de La Rose, and Erne, all are showing strengths in some sort.

The fourth line has been quite productive for the Red Wings for the start of the 2019-20 season. With recent roster moves, it appears that prospect Evgeny Svechnikov will get his chance to show the Red Wings what he can do at the NHL level.

The defenseman is a toss-up, Blashill needs to keep giving Cholowski a chance to prove himself, and show that he has developed more in the defensive zone. Other defenders like Hronek and DeKeyser need to continue getting better as the season progresses.

All fans need to hope that the goalies show up and can start providing the Detroit Red Wings with better goaltending.