2017-18 Detroit Red Wings Grades

[Syckle78]

I don't think many people think of Green as a #1. If we are talking Karlsson, different story and you're likely right.

Obviously karlsson is another stratosphere. But any defenseman that's capable of playing first pair has excellent value. Even if he's not going to play first pair on the team he's traded to having that quality of a defenseman anchoring your second pairing is huge. There's no way to prove either way but nobody can convince me green didn't have real value from the end of last season until the start of this season. Holland simply wasn't ready to sell yet. Imo,of course.

 

[kliq]

Obviously karlsson is another stratosphere. But any defenseman that's capable of playing first pair has excellent value. Even if he's not going to play first pair on the team he's traded to having that quality of a defenseman anchoring your second pairing is huge. There's no way to prove either way but nobody can convince me green didn't have real value from the end of last season until the start of this season. Holland simply wasn't ready to sell yet. Imo,of course.

Oh I'm sure he had some value, I'm sure that Holland didnt want to sell, and I'd bet that Green didn't want to move, but I dont think his value would have been higher then what it would have been come TDL. But in reality we are both just guessing, nobody knows for sure as the market is always changing.

 

[GMR]

Witkowski did more than just take dumb penalties. He provided the only fun moments of the entire season.

 

[Elvs]

Editing the Red Wings on NHL 18 right now, and this thread has been helpful.

Did Luke Witkowski remain a forward the whole season? From his icetime I imagine that's the case, but he's listed as a defenseman in the game originally.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Hatter of the Beach]

Based off pre season expectations, Salary, and overall play. Due to this, players I don’t think are that good may be rated a bit favorbly, but that’s an issue with roster creation rather than their play.

A: outperformed
B: “good” relative to pre season expectations
C: performed in the range as expected. Not good, but not horrible
D: should not be in the NHL after this season

A: Larkin, Witkowski (one of the sole points of entertainment and wasn’t as nearly as bad as I thought he’d be.

A-: Zetterberg


B+: Tyler Bettuzzi: had a slump, but overall had a great debut season. For refwrwnce he had better es/60 scoring numbers than Drouin. Obviously QoC matters, but I don’t see how anyone can be disappointed.

B: Mike Green: up until he got hurt, he was playing great and in most instances bave netted us a good package. Relative to my goal of him creating trade value, pre injury Green Solidly did his duties.

B-: Mantha: started out hot, but struggeled mightly as the season wore on. He had 24-24 in 82, which is actually lower than his first 82 in the league (where he had 25-25). I really hope we don’t ruin him.

B-: Glenndinng : did his role

B-: Ericsson: quietly our second best d man.
He’s not good but he at least is still a servicible NHLer

C+ Helm: his contract sucks, but relative to my expectations he had an “ok” season relative to his standards. Can’t wait to unload him though.


C+: Abdelkader. Exact same sentiments as Helm. Relative to how they’re getting paid, they probably were mediocre, but relative to expectations going into the season, he played ok.

C+ Nyquist; hit 20 goals. Performed pretty much exactly middle of the pack in terms of salary comparables.

C: Athanasiou: So much talent, yet his production is pedestrian. Don’t think he wants to be here

C-: Frk, out performed expectations, but they were never high to begin with. Don’t think he’s a long term NHLer in 2018.

C-: Frans Nielsen: a good player getting paid like an excellent one

C-:Trevor Daley: was better than most our defenseman, but is still being used a slot too high for his skillset.

D+:Kronwall. Much better than last year, still should have LTIRed though

D: Jensen, XO, DDK

Prospects
Hronek: A (continues to impress)
Rasmussen: A (made me a believer)
Cholowski: b+. Had a good season, improving but still has untapped potential he hopefully can reach
Svechnikov: D-. He looked serviceable in his call up, but not good enough to alleviate his concerning AHL production. Salvagable, but entering potential bust territory

 

[Ulysses31]

Nyquist seemed better than 16-17 thats for sure. Seemed to be more keen/clever than the year or 2 prior.

 

[turkleton85]

Nyquist seemed better than 16-17 thats for sure. Seemed to be more keen/clever than the year or 2 prior.

he also played with less fear and used his body along the boards, sometimes even winning a battle. Still, i question his usefulness on the wings. Seems to be, like tatar, irrelevant if he is on or off the roster

 

[Henkka]

Dellow: The NHL's 12 biggest black hole lines of the 2017-18...

Interesting article from The Athletic about worst lines in hockey at 2017-18 season.

Red Wings ultimate black hole was the 4th line, 5th worst from this article.

Our TOP9 was pretty decent with their numbers.

5. Detroit Red Wings, Line 4 (-20.4 goal difference). Key members: Luke Glendening, Martin Frk, Frans Nielsen, Darren Helm, Andreas Athanasiou, Justin Abdelkader, David Booth

It’s hard for a team to bury itself with a fourth line but Detroit managed to do it. Detroit’s -20.4 goal difference from the fourth line was nearly double the league’s next worst fourth line, Pittsburgh at -10.5. It got outshot by more than 10 shots an hour. Unsurprisingly, there are some percentages at play here – Detroit had an .881 save percentage with the fourth line on the ice and the shooting percentage was bad to boot – but they were just overwhelmed in terms of possession too.

A curious thing about this group is that they all tended to do much better when not playing on the fourth line. To pick one crazy example, Justin Abdelkader got outscored 12-2 while playing on the fourth line with a 38.7 per cent Corsi%. That’s bad. In the top nine, the Wings outscored the opposition 32-30 with him on the ice with a 50.8 per cent Corsi%. There’s maybe something for the Red Wings to look into here, in terms of whether they can squeeze more out of their roster by organizing it differently or whether there’s one player who sinks everything. (If there is, he isn’t immediately obvious.)

Imo, 4th line should be the easiest to fix in hockey. You just need three better players overall (bring in Svechnikov, Rasmussen, one UFA ?) and crop the 3 worst ones. Like Booth and Frk, I think they were biggest factors for line's ineffectiveness. Glendening could be also, but he was also injured on the season, and the depth players replacing him were bad. Article doesn't mention Witkowski as a line member, but he definitely was there decent amount of minutes.

 

[Frk It]

Imo, 4th line should be the easiest to fix in hockey. You just need three better players overall (bring in Svechnikov, Rasmussen, one UFA ?) and crop the 3 worst ones. Like Booth and Frk, I think they were biggest factors for line's ineffectiveness. Glendening could be also, but he was also injured on the season, and the depth players replacing him were bad. Article doesn't mention Witkowski as a line member, but he definitely was there decent amount of minutes.

Frk - 50.7 CF%
Glendening - 43.1 CF%
Witkowski - 41.7 CF%
Booth - 40.3 CF%

Bottom 2 are a black hole in every metric there is.

 

[ShelbyZ]

Dellow: The NHL's 12 biggest black hole lines of the 2017-18...

Interesting article from The Athletic about worst lines in hockey at 2017-18 season.

Red Wings ultimate black hole was the 4th line, 5th worst from this article.

Our TOP9 was pretty decent with their numbers.





Imo, 4th line should be the easiest to fix in hockey. You just need three better players overall (bring in Svechnikov, Rasmussen, one UFA ?) and crop the 3 worst ones. Like Booth and Frk, I think they were biggest factors for line's ineffectiveness. Glendening could be also, but he was also injured on the season, and the depth players replacing him were bad. Article doesn't mention Witkowski as a line member, but he definitely was there decent amount of minutes.

Given the players listed, to me, it seems like the article speaks more to the whole bottom 6 than just the 4th line. I mean I don't remember Nielsen dropping lower than 3C for any lengthy stretch, if at all...

And as far as Witkowski playing "decent" minutes on the 4th line, he's most likely the lowest contributor of all forwards that were with the team the whole year. He played more games and minutes than Booth overall, but it would be less minutes and games on the 4th line. In most of the games where Witkowski took more than a single digit number of shifts and/or crossed 10 minutes of ice time, he was either dressed to play D or spent the game rotating between F and D. I would bet that Scott Wilson possibly played just as many 4th line minutes as Witkowski did, and Sheahan isn't far behind with his 8 games on the 4th line.

 

[Henkka]

Given the players listed, to me, it seems like the article speaks more to the whole bottom 6 than just the 4th line. I mean I don't remember Nielsen dropping lower than 3C for any lengthy stretch, if at all...

Noticed the same. It was a bit of confusing.

And as far as Witkowski playing "decent" minutes on the 4th line, he's most likely the lowest contributor of all forwards that were with the team the whole year. He played more games and minutes than Booth overall, but it would be less minutes and games on the 4th line. In most of the games where Witkowski took more than a single digit number of shifts and/or crossed 10 minutes of ice time, he was either dressed to play D or spent the game rotating between F and D. I would bet that Scott Wilson possibly played just as many 4th line minutes as Witkowski did, and Sheahan isn't far behind with his 8 games on the 4th line.

Witkowski wasn't listed, but like Sheahan, both guys could have drag those numbers down from other players with their small sample sizes.

All in all, any team would get better, if you get one extra line of better players.

Like this:

Mantha - Larkin - Better player
Nyquist - Zetterberg - Better player
Athanasiou - Rasmussen - Better player
Abdelkader - Nielsen - Bertuzzi
(Svechnikov, Helm, Glendening, Pope)

We just have to draft them.