Originally posted on Detroit Hockey Now | By Bob Duff |
While it’s wonderful the excitement that the current season-high four-game win streak is generating for the Detroit Red Wings, let’s also take a deep breath. The Red Wings are 4-1 under new coach Todd McLellan. In all reality, they aren’t going to keep on winning at an .800 clip.
It’s wise, even essential to take a step back at this moment in time and assess. How much of this turnaround is about the so-called new coach bump and how much is being generated from the changes that McLellan is implementing?
Truth be told, the latter may have more to do with it than you might think.
Let’s look at five differences the McLellan effect is making on the club.
Penalty Kill
Under previous coach Derek Lalonde the Red Wings were on pace to make NHL penalty killing history, and not the good kind. At one point, Detroit was displaying the lowest penalty kill percentage since the league began tracking the stat.
During this four-game win streak, the Red Wings penalty kill is crushing it. They’ve killed 80% of all infactions (8-for-10).
“Coming in as a new staff, (assistant coach) Trent (Yawney) and I, joining the group that was here, the focus went on penalty killing,” McLellan said. “Certainly the penalty kill’s been a total revamp.”
Fewer Goals Against
McLellan describes NHL games as a race to three. His theory is that the first team to put three goals on the scoreboard generally wins the game.
That’s been the case in each of the five games since he took over as coach of the Red Wings. In three of their four wins, they’ve only allowed two goals against.
During the four-game win streak, Detroit’s goals-against per game is 2.5.
Decreased Zone Time
Often during the Lalonde era, the Wings would find themselves perilously trapped in their own zone for entire shifts. Ultimately, the end result would be a faceoff at center ice.
McLellan’s Red Wings are playing with much more composure in the defensive zone. And as is the case with the penalty kill, they are playing more aggressively, not simply sitting back passively and trying to keep the opposition to the perimeter of the zone.
“We’ve asked the players to check a little harder, to close quicker, block more shots,” McLellan said. “Play calm when they’re in a panic mode.”
More Balanced Scoring
For much of the first half of the season, if Dylan Larkin, Alex DeBrincat, or Lucas Raymond didn’t score, the Red Wings would rarely score. That trio was accounting more more than one-third of Detroit’s offensive output.
All three are still scoring for McLellan. DeBrincat and Larkin have four goals each and Raymond has scored three times.
What’s encouraging is that others are also putting their mark in the goals column. Jonatan Berggren has two goals. Erik Gustafsson netted his first for the Red Wings and JT Compher scored for just the second time in 30 games.
Most significantly, Patrick Kane is looking more like the Kane of old than an old Kane. He’s scored three times in the past four games. Granted more freedom to create, the future Hall of Famer seems to be playing with a renewed vigor and inspiration that wasn’t evident when Lalonde was behind the bench.
Winning On The Shot Clock
Under Lalonde, shot volume was a high volume topic of conversation. The Wings were outshot in 24 of the 34 games he coached this season. They gave up 30+ shots in 16 of those games and 40+ shots on three occasions.
Since McLellan took over, Detroit is 3-0-1 in the shot clock competition. The club has never given up more than 27 shots in a single game.
“Obviously you gotta play percentages a little bit in the league and if you look at save percentage, one out of every 10 goes in,” McLellan explained. “When you’re giving up 40 a night, you’re not giving yourselves a true opportunity to win.”
