News Article: The Red Wings’ Empire Is Crumbling

[SOMFTW]

Not that this is a surprise, but I've always liked the content on this site - sports or otherwise.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-red-wings-empire-is-crumbling/

No NHL team averaged a better Corsi than the Wings from 1991 to 2016, and the team even ranked fifth in the statistic as recently as two seasons ago. But the next generation has fumbled the torch on the handoff, and Detroit’s fabled possession machine has eroded badly in recent seasons as its stars have aged and departed.

Simply put, the talent coming in hasn’t been able to keep pace with the talent going out — and nowhere is Detroit’s drain more evident than on the blue line.
This year’s Wings, though, have the worst power play in the NHL and the league’s fourth-worst group of offensive defensemen, according to GVT. (Where have you gone, Paul Coffey?)

TLDR; corsi, corsi, corsi, other advanced statistics, Red Wings are done.

Click to read more...

 

[Winger98]

yep, our blueline is lousy and we don't control the puck like we used to. Kinda don't mind the streak continuing just to thumb our nose at all of the articles written about our streak ending, though.

 

[Claypool]

Nice click-baity headline on that website. That site must need traffic.

 

[Flowah]

Finally 538 writes about the Wings.

Oh it's all bad.

****

Only three players who have regularly skated for the Red Wings this season — forwards Anthony Mantha and Tomas Tatar, and recently waived defenseman Alexey Marchenko — have been on the ice for a Corsi greater than 50 percent

Sigh.

 

[ScoresFromCentre]

Nice click-baity headline on that website. That site must need traffic.

Their headlines can tend towards click-bait at times, but you'd do well to avoid the casual derision and judge the website by more than a single headline--their sports coverage really is fantastic: data-based, unbiased, and frequently insightful.

 

[Flowah]

Their headlines can tend towards click-bait at times, but you'd do well to avoid the casual derision and judge the website by more than a single headline--their sports coverage really is fantastic: data-based, unbiased, and frequently insightful.

538 is a fantastic source for data driven coverage in all areas. Anyone scoffing at it needs to have some damn good data and arguments to justify themselves.

 

[Claypool]

Their headlines can tend towards click-bait at times, but you'd do well to avoid the casual derision and judge the website by more than a single headline--their sports coverage really is fantastic: data-based, unbiased, and frequently insightful.

It's a garbage article. I don't need to look at data to try and figure out where things went wrong for this team. I watch the games and look at the roster on the ice. This article could have been written at any point in the last three years, but now that the team will probably miss for real this time I guess it's time to publish it.

"After 25 years of greatness, Detroit suddenly stinks."

The writer clearly doesn't watch hockey or this team very often. This team hasn't been "great" since 2010. And they've been on the verge of missing the playoffs the last three years.

 

[Marky9er]

Where have you gone.... Paul Coffey? Hard to disagree with stating the obvious, but that Paul Coffey line threw me off. Isn't that trade widely regarded as a big reason why the Wings finally won since 1955? Seems to be an odd thing to bring up.

 

[Number1RedWingsFan52]

Well 25 year playoff streak with 4 cups and 2 cup finals i will take that any time, All good things must eventually come to an end.

 

[Flowah]

I watch the games and look at the roster on the ice.

I think you put too much faith in your eyes without realizing how biased you can be. Stats are an objective way of making a case and that's important.

This article could have been written at any point in the last three years, but now that the team will probably miss for real this time I guess it's time to publish it.

The Wings are just far worse this year. Last in the division? Awful. The Wings have been bad for years, but they're godawful this season.

 

[Lil Sebastian Cossa]

Where have you gone.... Paul Coffey? Hard to disagree with stating the obvious, but that Paul Coffey line threw me off. Isn't that trade widely regarded as a big reason why the Wings finally won since 1955? Seems to be an odd thing to bring up.

PP sucks and Coffey was a power play dynamo. Basically, he's like a millionaire's Mike Green. The good and the bad.

And the trade made us win because we needed an elite power forward more than an elite offensive defenseman who didn't play a lick of defense on that mid 90s team.

 

[Lil Sebastian Cossa]

Wow... an advanced stats article that I don't immediately despise. What a world when you actually take statistical analysis and do something with it and not just spit out "so and so's Fenwick is such and such."

I will definitely have to read some more from this site.

 

[Retire91]

25 years of making the playoffs yes but 25 years of greatness, no.

 

[jaster]

Random stat, but I find it's another way to measure the Wings overall dominance the past 25 years. Aside from making the playoffs each of those 25 years, which is impressive enough on it's own, the Wings record in each round is:

1st: 15-10
2nd: 8-7
3rd: 6-2
Final: 4-2

I mean.... damn.

Chop off the first 4 years of the run, and the last 7 years, and you get a 14-year period of:

1st: 11-3
2nd: 8-3
3rd: 6-2
Final: 4-2



It's all over though, see you guys in 30 years

 

[Bench]

This article could have been written at any point in the last three years, but now that the team will probably miss for real this time I guess it's time to publish it.

Let's be real. If this article came out any other year you'd be bashing it for promoting the downfall of a franchise still on a quarter decade playoff streak.

When things fail, people like to ask, "What happened?" Political elections, plane crashes, and exploding phones. What the hell happened?

A franchise that was the gem of the league for far longer than most is finally falling to irrelevancy and it's perfectly reasonable to start the autopsy on how that came to be. You might already have all the answers locked away in your mind, but the rest of us, and particularly people that don't watch 80 Wings games a year, are interested to see the analysis.

The team sucks and it's time to stop making excuses and hiding behind facade a critique from a respected outlet is clickbait.

 

[Pavels Dog]

Starting to realize how eager sports writers have been to finally write about the end of the Wings run. Good for them, now it's a battle of who can come up with the most explosive headline and who can say "the Wings suck" the loudest.

Our Corsi fell off a cliff when Blashill took over? Our blueline is bad? No way.

 

[Bench]

Starting to realize how eager sports writers have been to finally write about the end of the Wings run.

I think you should be more concerned when nobody wants to write about the Wings at all.

Wings have been treated with kid gloves for so long. The Canadian teams face this kind of criticism every year, win or lose. Because people care.

 

[Heaton]

I think you should be more concerned when nobody wants to write about the Wings at all.

Wings have been treated with kid gloves for so long. The Canadian teams face this kind of criticism every year, win or lose. Because people care.

Agreed. About time the Wings got some bad press, if people kept writing fluff pieces about how good this teams is at drafting, or how awesome it was they drafted Datsyuk and Z while this team is trending down, down, down, Holland would never be on the hot seat.

 

[Claypool]

Let's be real. If this article came out any other year you'd be bashing it for promoting the downfall of a franchise still on a quarter decade playoff streak.

When things fail, people like to ask, "What happened?" Political elections, plane crashes, and exploding phones. What the hell happened?

A franchise that was the gem of the league for far longer than most is finally falling to irrelevancy and it's perfectly reasonable to start the autopsy on how that came to be. You might already have all the answers locked away in your mind, but the rest of us, and particularly people that don't watch 80 Wings games a year, are interested to see the analysis.

The team sucks and it's time to stop making excuses and hiding behind facade a critique from a respected outlet is clickbait.

You don't need to do an autopsy. It's sports. Good teams eventually become bad, some sooner than others. This isn't unexpected; it's not a plane crash or an exploding phone.

 

[Retire91]

Its good to see more an more national and more reputable sources reporting on the team's decline. The wings are a cash cow organization. So much so they fill seats in other team's stadiums. If the casual fan starts realizing the team is no longer a perennial contender then that could hurt the Illich bottom line which will lead to some action to break the country club atmosphere. Things like invites to the winter classic might be impacted by league wide realization how bad of a job Holland has done in the last 5 years.

 

[Heaton]

You don't need to do an autopsy. It's sports. Good teams eventually become bad, some sooner than others. This isn't unexpected; it's not a plane crash or an exploding phone.

But a lot of people don't think this team should be this bad, some think the team needs to go in a different direction. There's tons to talk about and it's always good to back things up with facts. And considering how much people have talked about this on this very forum, I'd argue there's a ton to discuss and an 'autopsy' has been performed all year (or the past few years). It's a very important discussion.

 

[Squirrel in the Hole]

Not to be too much of an optimist, but:


We have finally weeded through the young glut of defensemen in Grand Rapids and the keepers have emerged (Oulette, Jensen, Sproul). We also have Green and DeKeyser as a pretty good anchor pair.


Mantha and AA have emerged, to compliment Larkin last year and Tatar and Nyquist before that. Vanek, Neilsen and Ott have all been solid free-agent acquisitions (been a while since we've had that). We finally saw Sheahan's true colors and are slowly trusting the kids and weeding out the vets (Miller).


Howard returned to something resembling form before he was injured and while Petr's been disappointing, he's probably learning more this year than he would of if things had gone swimmingly for him. Also, he's young... even Hasek went through a youth where he was just an ordinary goalie.


I don't think the baton has been dropped, I think this is what we needed: a sort it out year. My only real concern is do we have the right coach to take us forward?

 

[Marky9er]

PP sucks and Coffey was a power play dynamo. Basically, he's like a millionaire's Mike Green. The good and the bad.

And the trade made us win because we needed an elite power forward more than an elite offensive defenseman who didn't play a lick of defense on that mid 90s team.

yeah obviously I don't mean Coffey wasn't an amazing player, but where have you gone Nicklas Lidstrom seems more on topic. We don't miss Paul Coffey, we miss Nick Lidstrom.

 

[Flowah]

You don't need to do an autopsy. It's sports. Good teams eventually become bad, some sooner than others. This isn't unexpected; it's not a plane crash or an exploding phone.

Is your point here "it's just a game, who cares?"

That seems to be your "point."

If you don't care you can certainly refrain from discussing it. I don't see where you come off telling others to not care though.

 

[Winger98]

another takeaway from this article, though, is just how dominant those wings teams were at controlling the game. To consistently be that high in those stats is just a scary amount of dominance.