Detroit Red Wings Filip Zadina’s PDO rating might help explain struggles

The Detroit Red Wings are hoping for more from Filip Zadina, and in 2021-22, he has not taken the leap the team was hoping he would. It’s been a tough go for the former first-round pick, and he’s still not quite cutting it in terms of performance level.

For the Detroit Red Wings, something has to give. Looking at Zadina’s stats, the lack of goals and assists stands out, but his PDO rating should also be noted. His 94.9 PDO rating is the lowest on the team (among those qualified) and is horrendous.

Some of you may be wondering, “what is a PDO?” or “what does PDO even calculate?” so before going any further, let’s talk PDO.

PDO is an “advanced metric” that is shown on Hockey-Reference that relates to a player’s performance when he is on the ice. In its simplest form, it’s shooting percentage, plus save-percentage, which is then scaled to 100 with numbers over 100 being the high end of the spectrum and numbers below 100 being the low end.

The distribution of this data is usually between the 90-110 mark, with 100 being the midpoint, as previously mentioned. I’ve written about PDO before and its effects on Red Wings players, like Robby Fabbri, who was getting quite lucky.

After all, PDO is a “lucky stat” since it takes into account shooting percentage, which is determined by the player getting the puck to the back of the net. Similarly, on the flip-side, save percentage is another luck-driven stat.

This article talks through an example and utilizes some programming to talk through actual NHL data for those who want to know more about PDO. But, the bottom line is players have to be good at finishing plays off for goals or preventing goals for this to fluctuate; the “luck” factor is also based on skill to an extent.

That being said, let’s look at this in relation to Zadina.

Detroit Red Wings forward Filip Zadina’s PDO rating says a lot.

In 2021-22, Zadina has logged 49 games where he has six goals and nine assists for 15 total points. It’s not the start that many Red Wings fans were likely hoping for, especially when this was supposed to be a breakout year for the supposed sniper.

As was mentioned above, his PDO rating is just 94.9, which is the lowest on the team. This has to correlate with his poor performance. While his PDO rating being low does not provide an instant fix or way around this, it’s something that provides more explanation for his struggles.

While it’s easy to see in other areas, his PDO just really puts it in perspective that Zadina is really struggling to find the back of the net. For someone who was ranted and raved about as a future scorer, he struggles to get the job done and create offense.

He’s in his fourth season in the league and has yet to eclipse the 20-point mark and will be looking to do so this year. He has not been the player the Red Wings have hoped for, and looking at his PDO, it makes it easy to see why.

The lack of ability to find the back of the net and maybe even lack of luck have ruined his PDO rating, not to mention his poor statistics this season. There’s still time to get things going, but he’s going to have to flip the season on its head and do a 360-degree turn to get red-hot, and quick.