Confirmed with Link: The Blash is Back, Bylsma is gone

[Bench]

Sadly I'm not a fly on the wall on the Wings bench. But looking at 2019-2020 there was a ludicrous amount of goals within a short timeframe. (Ken Daniels and Mickey commented on how many times Detroit gave up 2 or more goals in 5 minutes or less and it was gross.)
We saw that to a degree this year as well, but not as bad as 2020. A lot of times giving up 2 or more goals within the first 10 minutes of a game. Also giving up 2 or more goals in a 5 or 6 minute span in any period.

We scored 38 first period goals
We let in 51.
Here's the full breakdown of goals by period. I looked at our results for the year and pretty much any game we lost by 3 or more goals saw us giving up 2+ goals in a very short span. I'll try breaking that down later.
NHL Stats

This is a good start. And I'm not trying to bust your balls or anything, but when people say a thing is true, I just want to make sure it's not "Hey they commented on it and it feels true" and then we just accept it as fact.

If Blashill's teams are flat out of the gate, as you assert, there should be a way to show his team's 1st periods suck comparatively across the league year after year. He's coached over 450 games now, so we have plenty of data to work with. I'm just curious if this is because the Wings have stunk or if Blashill teams are even worse than other teams that stink.

 

[Hen Kolland]

This is a good start. And I'm not trying to bust your balls or anything, but when people say a thing is true, I just want to make sure it's not "Hey they commented on it and it feels true" and then we just accept it as fact.

If Blashill's teams are flat out of the gate, as you assert, there should be a way to show his team's 1st periods suck comparatively across the league year after year. He's coached over 450 games now, so we have plenty of data to work with. I'm just curious if this is because the Wings have stunk or if Blashill teams are even worse than other teams that stink.

So as someone that uses data, how would you even begin to find things that signify a trend? Because I use a lot of performance data to guide my focus at work, and in a lot of instances there is significant differences when I look at certain areas.

In this case, you can’t benchmark his team’s slow starts against any other coach under the Wings because nobody has had this roster. You can’t benchmark it against other bottom feeding teams in the league because they don’t deploy the same systems or motives.

Data can only open your eyes so wide. There is some eye test that can be applied, but it’s more so that it should be backed up by SOMETHING, which is why I looked at it this way, and found that the data implies that the assertion isn’t necessarily true.

We scored 42.2% of goals in the first period in a season where we scored 42.7%. I don't know if I constitute that as "starting slow" or if I consider it just being who you are.

Also last year we scored 34.9% of all goals for the year but had 41.9% of the goal share in the first period. So something doesn't line up perfectly with that narrative.

Further, I don't recall last year being outrageously bad in terms of how slow they started either. Other than the occasional game where Howard would get absolutely embarrassed or hung out to dry...which I think the attention to detail and preparedness was much more consistent this year. What I do remember was how frequently we felt like we were fighting the dam getting ready to burst. Usually in the second period after staying within arms reach through the first, it would be like 3 goals in 8 minutes. That same thing happened way, way fewer times in 2020-21. That is supported by the goal totals by the way...30.9% of goal share in period 2 in 2019-20 vs. 48.8% goal share in period 2 in 2020-21.

 

[Lil Sebastian Cossa]

Set the bar low enough, like Blashill did last year, and you can be a winner!

Dylan Larkin - team's most important player.

Stat ...- 18-19 - 19-20-20-21
Larkin- 32-41-73 v 19-34.53 v 9-14-23
Faceoffs- 54.5 - 52.5 - 49.5
5o5 p/60- 1.94 v 1.79 vs 1.2
5o5 G/60 .76 vs .63 vs. .51
CF% - 53.86 vs 50.19 vs 48.48
GF% - 48.11 vs 49.11 vs 35.42
GF/60 - 2.41 vs 2.64 vs 1.46
GA/60 - 2.6 vs 2.69 vs 2.65

If you don't see the DRAMATIC decline here...
What's so f***ing great about improving your goals/against by .04 when you upgrade from Griess to Howard?
What's so great about balancing that tiny decrease in GAA (due to a goalie change more than anything) against watching your offensive output nearly cut in half?

And this is Dylan Larkin, not Mantha or Athanasiou.
This is the captain. The kid who hustles in his sleep.
No improvements in defense.
Massive cut in offense.

How about for Zadina.
Stat 19-20 vs 2021
G/60 0.70 vs 0.27
P/60 1.41 vs 1.16 (Drew Miller type production)
CF% 45.25 vs 42.25 (substantial decline.
Zadina did see a substantial cut in goals against/60
2.64 to 2.05.
But how much of that is due to better goaltending? And given his really awful CF%, is it sustainable?

You have yet to say anything about how the Wings literally cut what were determined to be ES scoring chances from 588 for Bernier in 46 games to 142 in 24 games. The decline didn't come from better goaltending. It came from changing the defensive system to a turtle shell vs trying to play a more open system. Bernier was not appreciably better in 20-21 than he was in 19-20.

Also....

Thomas Greiss 2020-21 Game Log | Hockey-Reference.com
Jimmy Howard 2019-20 Game Log | Hockey-Reference.com

Through 20 games, Greiss and Howard sure looked like the same f***in goalie to me... with one guy on a team far more committed to playing defense. Greiss had a fabulous last month of the season and it recovered his stats in a huge way. Can't take that away. But my god, stop banging this drum about the goaltending being massively better. It wasn't. Bernier was great both years and Greiss sucked until the end of the season when teams were all starting to pack it in. Check the stats through 25 games there... Greiss was at .895 and Howard was at .889. Both were complete and total dogshit.

Hell, literally all these stats that you want to quote and show "regression"? They're directly linked to playing a neutral zone trap/1-2-2 or whatever kind of system. Corsi is nothing but "more shots for me good, more shots for them bad"... while ignoring that a high quantity of dogshit shots is actually not a problem. The Predators used to give up 35-40 shots a night, but they were all worthless point shots that their massive goalie in Rinne could suck in and had no chance of scoring.

For Larkin, if you want to complain about his regression in faceoffs? That's valid. That's a Dylan-only stat. But man, the rest of them, the Wings collapsed into a defensive shell every single game. Wow, Dylan Larkin isn't Jack Eichel or Connor McDavid or Leon Draisaitl. I'm glad we proved that to ourselves. He's not Datsyuk or Zetterberg either. He can't be a Selke caliber or high caliber defensive forward AND score PPG. That shouldn't be some massive strike against him, that's a ludicrously high bar for anyone to clear. It's just been made painfully clear that he's lacking the top end skill that other teams have in their 1C spot or at least that he can't do it alone.

 

[Bench]

So as someone that uses data, how would you even begin to find things that signify a trend? Because I use a lot of performance data to guide my focus at work, and in a lot of instances there is significant differences when I look at certain areas.

In this case, you can’t benchmark his team’s slow starts against any other coach under the Wings because nobody has had this roster. You can’t benchmark it against other bottom feeding teams in the league because they don’t deploy the same systems or motives.

Data can only open your eyes so wide. There is some eye test that can be applied, but it’s more so that it should be backed up by SOMETHING, which is why I looked at it this way, and found that the data implies that the assertion isn’t necessarily true.

No disagreement here. The only thing I could even think of you could so is just take teams similar in the standings and see if their first periods are any different. That way, you know you're at least (sort of) controlling for quality of roster and such. Not completely, as you said, because of the systems and rosters and... yeah. Not perfect.

I appreciate you putting some numbers to it that seem to suggest, yeah, our perceptions of things like "slow starts" tend to be heavily biased by the experience and impact of those early game blowouts.

 

[Bench]

The Predators used to give up 35-40 shots a night, but they were all worthless point shots that their massive goalie in Rinne could suck in and had no chance of scoring.

2012 playoff trigger warning.

 

[Hen Kolland]

No disagreement here. The only thing I could even think of you could so is just take teams similar in the standings and see if their first periods are any different. That way, you know you're at least (sort of) controlling for quality of roster and such. Not completely, as you said, because of the systems and rosters and... yeah. Not perfect.

I appreciate you putting some numbers to it that seem to suggest, yeah, our perceptions of things like "slow starts" tend to be heavily biased by the experience and impact of those early game blowouts.

Actually now that I think about it, and I don’t really want to do this, but I think Ogee’s best bet for finding stats that back up slow starts would be looking shots by period. I know for a fact we had numerous games where we went into intermission with like 6 shots on goal. Only to finish a game with like ~25 which would imply a pickup later in the game on that front.

That’s a real problem the team had this year, and puts a visualization of why falling into a defensive shell can be a problem when you are going up against elite possession and volume based offensive attacks like Tampa or Carolina. The problem is if you come out of the shell, do you create bigger problems.

I think of it like in a boxing or UFC fight, when a fighter gets stung with a punch and covers up trying to weather the storm...very very rarely does the guy come out of his “shell” and try to go on the offensive with positive results. I think it’s somewhat true in this situation too, but that’s neither here nor there. Ogee was talking about slow starts, and if we could see lopsided shot counts it would start to back that up.

 

[Retire91]

Don't get me wrong I am a numbers guy, I love numbers and advanced stats. And if its fun doing it by all means keep telling the story thorough numbers because it is something to discuss

I just feel like this is a situation where you can pretty much do a simple gut check and get the full picture. The wings are a team that has only a handful of legit players. Any top half team can key those wings players into submission and they don't have to worry about the entire rest of the roster. How many of those first period goals were when the wings iced an entire AHL line?

Pure and simple this team needs talent before it needs a coach or a system. When we get to 9th vs 8th seed then let's crunch numbers. Right now let's just get excited about how high our draft pick is.

 

[golffuul]

Don't get me wrong I am a numbers guy, I love numbers and advanced stats. And if its fun doing it by all means keep telling the story thorough numbers because it is something to discuss

I just feel like this is a situation where you can pretty much do a simple gut check and get the full picture. The wings are a team that has only a handful of legit players. Any top half team can key those wings players into submission and they don't have to worry about the entire rest of the roster. How many of those first period goals were when the wings iced an entire AHL line?

Pure and simple this team needs talent before it needs a coach or a system. When we get to 9th vs 8th seed then let's crunch numbers. Right now let's just get excited about how high our draft pick is.

To go along with this, I would say that when the fan base is cheering for more players who aren't on the roster than who are on the roster, then you have to figure that the team really isn't quite ready to be winning. We all hope that the "non on the roster" players will make it on the roster so we can be more enthusiastic, and so that we can get back to complaining about how badly the refs screwed us on calls and other more meaningful discussions

 

[Bench]

I just feel like this is a situation where you can pretty much do a simple gut check and get the full picture.

The issue is when people use their gut feelings as a fact.

Doing the gut check is fine for casual discussion and if you're just shooting the breeze talking hockey. Like when I BS with friends or at the bar, I'm not exactly pulling out the stats. It's all in good fun. But if people are going to make concrete assertions from it, well, I think we should have a higher standard for the burden of proof.

The Wings could absolutely be slow starters. Or development sucks. And maybe it's Blashill's fault. But if that's one of your central arguments, I'd like to see something to it other than anecdotal recollection of events. That's all.

Overall, I absolutely agree with you that we're splitting hairs and that the primary focus needs to be improving the quality of the roster.

 

[odin1981]

Didn't I say like 3 days ago in the closed Blashill thread he was signing for 2 years?

 

[The Zetterberg Era]

pretty funny how many people think they know more than Steve Yzerman when it comes to evaluating hockey knowledge/talent and managing an NHL organization

Not all that surprising really, a ton of this board spent the better part of the last decade going after a top 10, maybe top 5 (certainly if he wins in Edmonton) GM of all-time...

Blash isn't being back isn't a surprising argument, Yzerman enjoys working with him. It isn't like Stevie says anything else when asked. I know he doesn't talk a lot and likes to keep his cards close, but most people should have wrapped their mind around this kind of outcome a little bit ago.

 

[The Zetterberg Era]

Didn't I say like 3 days ago in the closed Blashill thread he was signing for 2 years?

There were some general discussions about him moving within the organization. While I think most pointed to that with a feeling of excited demotion, I think it is actually a respect of his hockey acumen. Like Yzerman thinking maybe this is a guy he could develop at a different level, but it is clear they stuck with coaching. Outside of the hints Yzerman keeps dropping, it's pretty clear despite one of our poster pointing to a few guys that have left there are a lot of nice (surprisingly so to most this board) opinions of Blashill around the league and with USA Hockey. Rival broadcasts, Alec Martinez, Torey Krug, Patrick Kane (yeah that guy) among others have spoken to how impressed they are with his coaching style and manner.

He has been dealt a very tough hand, I really absent winning the Shane Wright lotto don't see how he survives into a longer tenure. But it is clear he communicates the game well, Yzerman highlighted that a lot in terms of they have a very open relationship with a ton of communication. He has the full backing of this GM, I am not sure he has more than a 1+1, somebody probably will eventually dig that out. But I am in no way surprised he continues within the organization. A lot of people in particular the powerful people that hold his fate clearly think a lot of him.

 

[OgeeOgelthorpe]

This is a good start. And I'm not trying to bust your balls or anything, but when people say a thing is true, I just want to make sure it's not "Hey they commented on it and it feels true" and then we just accept it as fact.

If Blashill's teams are flat out of the gate, as you assert, there should be a way to show his team's 1st periods suck comparatively across the league year after year. He's coached over 450 games now, so we have plenty of data to work with. I'm just curious if this is because the Wings have stunk or if Blashill teams are even worse than other teams that stink.

I'm looking specifically at 2019-20 and 2020-21. Looking at the numbers and saying, "Oh! But they scored 42.2% of first period goals!" doesn't mean much because of the context.

Drilling down some of the data we can see that when the Wings don't score first they more often than not lose.

What their record looks like when they're leading/trailing.

2021
When leading after the 1 Detroit won 9 games. When leading after 2 they won 15.
When trailing after 1 Detroit lost 14 times. 23 times when trailing after 2.
GF: 38p1 41p2 45p3
GA: 52p1 43p2 66p3

66 goals against in the third is...well...not good.

Also of note when looking at the stats:
Regulation Losses by 1 goal: 7
Losses by 2 goals: 5
Losses by 3 goals or more: 15

That's a lot of blowouts. 26.8% of our games we were blown out. And to me, a blowouts are usually caused by undisciplined play, poor strategy, lack of motivation/preparation with the odd game of a goalie just sucking moreso than a lack of talent.

When they score first they usually do well.
Wins when scoring first: 13
Losses when scoring first: 6
OTL when scoring first: 6

Games scored first: 25
Games scored on first: 31

We clearly do better when scoring first.

Number of games they gave up goals within 6 minutes of each other (Including ENG): 19
That's just the number of games it happened. Not the number of times total. We only won 2 games where we let an opponent score multiple goals within a 6 minute timeframe.

2019-2020's numbers are...hideous. Breaking those down makes me want to drink. I'll do them another day.

 

[Hen Kolland]

I'm looking specifically at 2019-20 and 2020-21. Looking at the numbers and saying, "Oh! But they scored 42.2% of first period goals!" doesn't mean much because of the context.

Drilling down some of the data we can see that when the Wings don't score first they more often than not lose.

What their record looks like when they're leading/trailing.

2021
When leading after the 1 Detroit won 9 games. When leading after 2 they won 15.
When trailing after 1 Detroit lost 14 times. 23 times when trailing after 2.
GF: 38p1 41p2 45p3
GA: 52p1 43p2 66p3

66 goals against in the third is...well...not good.

Also of note when looking at the stats:
Regulation Losses by 1 goal: 7
Losses by 2 goals: 5
Losses by 3 goals or more: 15

That's a lot of blowouts. 26.8% of our games we were blown out. And to me, a blowouts are usually caused by undisciplined play, poor strategy, lack of motivation/preparation with the odd game of a goalie just sucking moreso than a lack of talent.

When they score first they usually do well.
Wins when scoring first: 13
Losses when scoring first: 6
OTL when scoring first: 6

Games scored first: 25
Games scored on first: 31

We clearly do better when scoring first.

Number of games they gave up goals within 6 minutes of each other (Including ENG): 19
That's just the number of games it happened. Not the number of times total. We only won 2 games where we let an opponent score multiple goals within a 6 minute timeframe.

2019-2020's numbers are...hideous. Breaking those down makes me want to drink. I'll do them another day.

So how do you propose a coach control scoring first? Because it’s one thing to avoid slow starts, it’s completely different in forcing your team to score first.

Not to mention that your favorable stats likely regress with more games scoring first. Just due to talent gaps and the likelihood that your opponent scores more than you is much higher over the course of the game.

 

[StargateSG1]

So how do you propose a coach control scoring first? Because it’s one thing to avoid slow starts, it’s completely different in forcing your team to score first.

Not to mention that your favorable stats likely regress with more games scoring first. Just due to talent gaps and the likelihood that your opponent scores more than you is much higher over the course of the game.

Do people really not getting that Blashill's been playing "Not to lose by more than 2" instead of trying to win games for years?
That's not "competitive" playing LGD over the scorers when trailing by 1 or 2

 

[Hen Kolland]

Do people really not getting that Blashill's been playing "Not to lose by more than 2" instead of trying to win games for years?
That's not "competitive" playing LGD over the scorers when trailing by 1 or 2

This person really do getting it.

And you are finding individual moments to be angry about rather than looking at the entire picture. If you look at the aggregate, I’m sure you’d find that Glendening doesn’t play as much in those moments as you think he does. And further, he’s out there in key moments because he’s like a top 5 face off guy in the league and does really well at winning battles along the boards when all the opponent wants to do is try to pin up against the boards and burn clock.

I mean there quite literally is an answer that can be provided for 99% of the nitpicks you care to come up with.

 

[StargateSG1]

This person really do getting it.

And you are finding individual moments to be angry about rather than looking at the entire picture. If you look at the aggregate, I’m sure you’d find that Glendening doesn’t play as much in those moments as you think he does. And further, he’s out there in key moments because he’s like a top 5 face off guy in the league and does really well at winning battles along the boards when all the opponent wants to do is try to pin up against the boards and burn clock.

I mean there quite literally is an answer that can be provided for 99% of the nitpicks you care to come up with.

"Protecting the deficit" phrase, in regards to Blashill, among more savvy and observant fans, didn't just come out of nothing.
Perhaps you should "read around" a bit.

 

[jkutswings]

To specifically address slow starts, I'd think something like these metrics would be a good start, each on a yearly basis for the last 5 years, and each being Detroit vs the average of the bottom 5 teams:

1st period shots for
1st period shots for, minus 1st period shots against
1st period scoring chances for
1st period scoring chances for, minus 1st period scoring chances against

Those should give at least an approximation of initial offense and initial competition level.

 

[Hen Kolland]

To specifically address slow starts, I'd think something like these metrics would be a good start, each on a yearly basis for the last 5 years, and each being Detroit vs the average of the bottom 5 teams:

1st period shots for
1st period shots for, minus 1st period shots against
1st period scoring chances for
1st period scoring chances for, minus 1st period scoring chances against

Those should give at least an approximation of initial offense and initial competition level.

As most corporate managers in America would say “this sounds like a great and useful project. I’m going to let you take the lead on this one.” (Because damn that’s a lot of work)

I don’t know if we can get scoring chances or shot data by period without manually combing through games. But you’re right it would be cool to look at this data if it were available. Definitely informative.

 

[Lil Sebastian Cossa]

He doesn’t want his players to lose by 4 goals a night... what an asshole.

 

[Oddbob]

So making the counter argument to your added context is that modern hockey isn't the same as it was 100 years ago. Modern hockey today isn't the same as 10 years ago. There is more self-awareness and acceptance of true strip down, gut everything rebuilds from teams that never used to exist. When people had consecutive losing seasons, it was viewed as a failing by the team or the coach, but today it isn't viewed the same way...depending on the state of the franchise. Like if Mike Sullivan pitched two losing seasons with the Penguins at the tail end of Crosby's career, he would be removed because that team is still looking to win. But contrast that with where the Red Wings are. Holland kicked off the rebuild behaviors his last year or two, and Yzerman came in and said it was pretty much a wholesale rebuild.

Yzerman has stated multiple times that he isn't looking at wins and losses when assessing the performance of the team or the coaching staff because wins and losses in 2021 don't really matter when the goal is to compete in 2025. He's got a very honest understanding of where the team is and his decisions are guided as such. A team that many people expected would lose a lot, had management with an understanding that they would lose a lot, and ultimately went on to lose a lot. That's the gist of why I push back so hard when people talk about tenure and win loss records like they matter. Was the franchise trying to win? No. So why do I put stock in the win loss record of a coach whose management is passively (and sometimes actively) trying to prevent the team from winning?

Teams rebuilt back in the day too, this isn't new!

 

[Hen Kolland]

Teams rebuilt back in the day too, this isn't new!

No but you do have to admit that the receptiveness of a rebuild is entirely different. Teams intentionally rebuild. Not even getting into the discussion of tanking, which is definitely a component to consider, but rebuilding in general is understood to be a more organic grassroots effort. It takes patience and time, like in the Wings case Yzerman didn’t say it but implied it would be 3, 4, 5 years to get where we want to be. 10-15 years ago if a GM publicly stated that the year was rebuilding and would take 5 years to turn it around, they would be shot out of a cannon.

 

[Bench]

As most corporate managers in America would say “this sounds like a great and useful project. I’m going to let you take the lead on this one.” (Because damn that’s a lot of work)

I don’t know if we can get scoring chances or shot data by period without manually combing through games. But you’re right it would be cool to look at this data if it were available. Definitely informative.

If we actually started doing these kinds of projects, we might as well try to turn it into the NHL's version of Pro Football Focus and make some serious cash consulting for pro teams.

 

[OgeeOgelthorpe]

To specifically address slow starts, I'd think something like these metrics would be a good start, each on a yearly basis for the last 5 years, and each being Detroit vs the average of the bottom 5 teams:

1st period shots for
1st period shots for, minus 1st period shots against
1st period scoring chances for
1st period scoring chances for, minus 1st period scoring chances against

Those should give at least an approximation of initial offense and initial competition level.

This isn't exactly what you're looking for but it should help.

 

[Sadekuuro]

Right now the Wings just need a babysitter. They can look for a coach when their roster isn’t a complete dumpster fire.

If I hadn't already witnessed years of it, I'd be shocked by how many people care passionately about this. Nearly all NHL coaches are interchangeable (Blash most likely being no exception) and the team hasn't even found most of its core yet, so I find it really hard to care who the current coach is.