Why did the Wings' GAA skyrocket?

[MBH]

Why did the Wings's goals against average skyrocket?
The Wings' GAA last year was 3.00.
This year, with one game remaining, it's 3.79.

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[Oddbob]

I voted other, because it was multiple things. The goaltending first and foremost was not even AHL good, for a 15-20 game stretch right after the All Star break, and I also think that regardless our view point, the teams with major games at hand had caught up and now it showed truly where we were in the standings, which wasn't even a dream of making the post season. That I do think kills a lot of oomph in players compete level. It is easy for us as fans to sit here and say, well they are pros and need to play hard every night, but they are competitors and winning is a massive motivator. Team was also getting banged up, as I mean we don't even know how long Dylan was playing hurt, and the super rookies slowed down due to more games than they had ever played at this level and in Moritz's case having to babysit this blueline all year.

There is of course the severe lack of depth, which was already among league worst, and any games where we lost even one player meant already over extended talent was stretched even thinner.

 

[ricky0034]

youth and goaltending were factors too i'm sure but mostly just reversion to the mean

the Wings gaa would have been higher last year too if the season was more than 56 games

 

[14ari13]

Last season we were 2nd worst in goals for and the season before last one we were dead last almost 30 goals behind 2nd worst. So Yzerman wanted to change it and he replaced defensive minded defenders with an offensive minded one Leddy.
Our offense improved a lot, but inevitably our defence suffered.

 

[Pavels Dog]

All of the above?

Nedeljkovic covered up some of the defensive shortcomings in the first half of the season, but as a rookie goalie with no experience of playing a full NHL season it wasn't surprising that his play vastly dropped off in the second half, revealing the true nature of how bad our defensive lineup is.

The lack of veterans with defensive ability like Nemeth, Glendening & Helm can't be forgotten either. The team suffered on faceoffs and on the PK; areas where those guys would certainly help.

 

[The Zermanator]

More than one of those probably. Didn't have the consistently good goaltending that Bernier provided last year. And while those vets were mostly spent, they do provide a solid floor by virtue of their experience. So having more youth who are still learning and prone to off or bad games, even stretches, makes a difference. I imagine those blowouts are related to that.

But it's not only the Wings themselves. There's just a big difference between the 'have' and the 'have not' teams this year. That's why there's barely been any kind of playoff race. The playoff and non-playoff teams have been mostly decided for a while. There's a pretty big talent gap between those two groups and the Wings are on the outside looking in. The best teams generally put up numbers against the worst ones, for obvious reasons, but that seems to be especially true this season.

 

[SpookyTsuki]

Other: Blash losing the room.

 

[RedHawkDown]

Bernier played insanely good last year

 

[OgeeOgelthorpe]

 

[Mount Suribachi]

Other: Blash losing the room.

Yep. This talentless roster played its ass off last season, and the first half of this season. That allowed them to at least be competitive, even if we still lost a lot. Its why I defended Blash from his perennial detractors - the team was clearly playing for him.

Round January time, the compete level just seemed to vanish. We no longer were a team that sucked but was hard to play against. We just sucked.

 

[GMR]

I voted "other"

Scoring has skyrocketed this year in the NHL. Numerous players scoring over 100 points. Records being broken for assists by left wingers. Matthews scoring 60. Kreider scoring 50. And much more. Detroit is easy pickings for these offensive outbursts.

Also, as others mentioned, Detroit's goaltending has been worse than last season.

 

[Frk It]

-Suter was deployed as the 2C all season, despite consistently displaying terrible defensive coverage.
-Hronek was exceptionally bad at defending passes from out wide to the center of the ice all season.
-Teams consistently got shots in high danger areas in the middle of the ice because of points 1&2
-We also just are very bad as a team at covering the trailer/slot, and clearing the front of the net. I don't know how many times we saw guys wide open that were staggered coming into the zone, or a rebound sitting there where we lose the battle and they score. We need more guys that play with urgency and can win battles.
-I think we saw pretty good evidence that Ned is not suited to be a workhorse goalie that starts 50+ games. I think he could be really effective as part of a tandem, we just need to find him a running mate.
-Poor coaching.

 

[cjm502]

I'll blame it solely on the teams compete level dropping as the season grinded on.

 

[SoupGuru]

I don't buy into the "Suter is bad at defense" angle. I think most nights his line is out matched but to call on him specifically as being poor defensively didn't make sense.

 

[Frk It]

I don't buy into the "Suter is bad at defense" angle. I think most nights his line is out matched but to call on him specifically as being poor defensively didn't make sense.

You watched all the games and thought he provided adequate defensive coverage in the defensive zone?

I thought it was glaringly not the case to me.

 

[PelagicJoe]

11-2 vs PIT and 10-7 vs TOR might have something to do with it.
As far as goaltending being worse, I still like Ned more than Howard. Maybe we bring Bernier back next year to replace Greiss.

 

[muchbetterthanlada]

Random thoughts on GAA:
- more difficult to keep it together for a full 82 game season. (56 last year)
- too many disasterous games in 2022: allowed 9 goals to Ari, 11+7 vs Pens, 7+10 vs Leafs, 8 vs Chi...
- 26 Empty Net Goals allowed this season vs 7 in 2020-21.
- Jordan Oesterle played 44 games.
- Greiss' play dropped off a lot:

20-21: 34GP .912% 2.70 GAA​

21-22: 31GP .891% 3.66 GAA​

unpopular opinion: I think Bernier gets too much credit from Wings fans. He only played 24 games last season and his number would almost certainly have suffered if he'd played more.. All in all, his 3 years in Detroit were very medicocre and I think Nedeljkovic is the much better goalie.

24GP .914 2.99GAA << Bernier last year
24GP .915 2.86GAA << Ned's first 24 games

on a positive note, goals scored are up from last year: 2.23 to 2.74 GF/GP.

 

[GreatGordie9]

Why did the Wings's goals against average skyrocket?
The Wings' GAA last year was 3.00.
This year, with one game remaining, it's 3.79.

You have to remember that they played in one division the year before like other teams. They would play the same teams like 7-8 times each. They didn't play elite teams outside their division. Our offense I believe was 2.2 goals per game the previous year and 2.75 per game this year. We did lose some sound defensive defensemen in Nemeth and good pk men in Helm and Glendening. Glendening was sound in face off wins. Yes goaltending had its moments too with Ned and Greiss having off nights. However we need to strengthen our blueline with the draft and free agency. Bring in Edvinsson will help. We did give up 30 empty goals including multiple games with more than one.

 

[OgeeOgelthorpe]

I don't buy into the "Suter is bad at defense" angle. I think most nights his line is out matched but to call on him specifically as being poor defensively didn't make sense.

Did you see the Tavares goal last night? That was in large part because his missed coverage. That is just one of many examples of him not being in the right place at the right time.

Little guys can be outmatched physically but can still be good defensively. Look at Larionov for instance. The dude was tiny but still one of the best defensive centers in the league.

Suter is just not very good, my dude.

 

[FMichael]

"Other"...

Shitty coaching/system, painfully below average talent by NHL standards throughout the roster, total indifference by the players.

IMHO the goalies are by far the least of our worries - Ned/Greiss have play well considering the team in front of them.

 

[Ezekial]

Great Gordie is onto something with playing more than 7 teams. Playing the same opponents all year leads to tightening up.

Add that to Bernier playing outside his mind last season and less defensively inclined players on the blue line, boom. Bad GAA.

Ned was trying to do a Bernier impression in 2021, 2022 was rough defensively for us.

 

[Retire91]

Goaltending getting shelled by a roster mostly devoid of NHL level talent. The longer season grinding on the players getting shelled.

 

[wingerdinger]

Our left side of defense is a walking dead of NHL defensmen, and on most given nights 3 out of 4 of our lines were outmatched. Plus Blash overworked Ned, leading to mental exhausting and a loss of confidence. A perfect swirling shitstorm. It's a credit to the goaltending that the gaa wasn't higher.

 

[19 for president]

I think its a few items:

1. Stevie went more offensive dman this year that defensive dman. Guys like Leddy, Oesterle, etc are going to give up more goals than Merril.
2. Staal and DD both got older and to some extent worse (more so DD and Staal)
3. We got rid of LGD and with him our best PKer and faceoff guy. Helm still was decent on the PK
4. Scoring is up overall
5. Bernier play out of his mind for most of the season vs 1/2 a season from Ned. Greiss was Greiss.

 

[Gniwder]

I voted other:

According to the other threads, there's too many floating turds and nobody knows who #2 is working for.