Detroit Red Wings on Jan. 2, 2023

[Pop Zeus]

Seems like a fair time to do an assessment.
We've seen enough.
-
First the point percentage progress
19-20 .275
20-21 .429
21-22 .451
22-23 .557


Keeping in mind, we started well last year and then tanked.
Jan. 1 2022 15-14-3 33 points/32 games
vs
Jan. 1 2023 16-12-7 39 points in 35 games.

Point percentage in regulation
Jan. 1 2022 - .422
Jan. 1 2023 - .514

Definite improvement, even factoring for the second half slump last year.

GF/Game
Jan. 1 2022 - 2.78
Jan. 1 2023 - 3.14

GA/Game
Jan. 1 2022 - 3.34
Jan. 1 2023 - 3.34

Overall goal differential.
Jan. 1 2022 - -28
Jan. 1 2023 - -7

The surprising thing here to me is where we made our improvement.
I would have sworn it was defensively. But we're at the same point this year on goals against average as we were last year - 3.34.
That is hard to believe.
Granted, Ned had a great first 6 weeks before he completely fell apart last year. There really isn't any reason to believe Husso is going to do the same. Last year, the GAA finished at a lowly 3.78 while the goal scoring stayed at Jan. 1 levels.

The difference is the goal scoring.
Kubalik and Perron are a big part of that.
Be
tween the two, they have 24 goals.
I don't have Jan. 1 numbers for the Powerplay and PK last year.
So this isn't a Jan 1 to Jan 1 comparison.

Last year - 16.3% powerplay 73.8% PK
This year - 20.5% powerplay. 77.6% PK

Strong improvements in both areas.

Overall, it's been a substantial improvement over last year - maybe even more than I thought it would be. Not sure if the credit goes to Yzerman or Lalonde, or both.
Too early to say.
Detroit is bad enough, often enough, that I'm hesitant to credit Lalonde very much.

[DocBrown]

Team will change quite a bit in the next week or two. I'll be interested to see how much ice time Vrana gets....Lalonde seemed to sour on him just before the PA program interlude. Looking at GAA, the Wings numbers are the same but scoring is up. So there is an improvement.

[winged wheel]

The January schedule looks a little more friendly than December, when they fell out of a wildcard spot as we all suspected they would.

[Machine]

The January schedule looks a little more friendly than December, when they fell out of a wildcard spot as we all suspected they would.

Nice job Pops

Yeah a little easier, but the next stretch of games are a toss up, just hoping they beat the Leafs always beat the Leafs lol

[holytoledo]

Team will change quite a bit in the next week or two. I'll be interested to see how much ice time Vrana gets....Lalonde seemed to sour on him just before the PA program interlude. Looking at GAA, the Wings numbers are the same but scoring is up. So there is an improvement.

Varna’s off-ice issues were probably negatively impacting his play.

[Pop Zeus]

Yeah, Vrana played 2 games
game 1 vs Montreal - 12:03
game 2 vs NJ - 11:09
And then boom, player assistance.
But what does it tell you that he played only 11 minutes in his last game?