If The Red Wings Miss The Playoffs It Won't Be Because Of Who Is In Goal [BLOG]
By: Craig Peterson
The Red Wings' streak of consecutive playoff appearances will end at 24 years and it won't have anything to do with whose playing goalie. Dylan Larkin's speed will have no bearing on a postseason run. Injuries won't be to blame for struggles down the stretch.
No, the Wings won't be in the 2016 NHL playoffs beginning in mid-April and Jeff Blashill's inexperience as an NHL coach will be the reason.
I believe Blashill was the right hire as the 27th coach in franchise history. He was general manager Ken Holland's equivalent of a "Michigan Man" as a homegrown, born and bred in the Mitten, understudy to Mike Babcock.
However, I also believe that there is a learning curve to the job and that transition from the NCAA to the AHL and then to the NHL does not come without bumps and bruises along the way.
Through 51 games this season, the Wings are who they are. We've seen a large enough sample size to gage expectations of the team and quite frankly, the numbers are underwhelming. They rank 20th-or-worse in goals for (23rd, 125), shots for (23rd, 28.8 per game), power play (20th, 17.9 percent) and penalty kill (23rd, 79.3 percent) with all signs pointing toward Blashill and his inability as a young coach.
It's surprising because this team is virtually identical from a season ago, if not better than Babcock's 2014-15 team from a talent standpoint. Look at Petr Mrazek's comfort level between the pipes in year two of his career, the emergence of Larkin as a once-in-a-generation player and the offseason additions of veterans Mike Green and Brad Richards.
Yet in February of last season under Babcock, the Wings claimed the NHL's top-ranked power play with Gustav Nyquist, Henrik Zetterberg, Tomas Tatar and Pavel Datsyuk combining for 28 of the team's 46 goals on the man advantage. A year later in Blashill's system, those same four players have managed just 15 goals on the power play, barely half of their output from a year ago.
Similarly, the penalty kill still features names like Luke Glendening, Darren Helm and Jonathan Ericsson — and Drew Miller until a month ago — from last season but haven't been nearly as efficient. They rank seventh out of the eight Eastern Conference teams currently claiming a playoff spot.
So if the personnel in the daily lineup and on special teams is the same if not improved from a season ago, then the only indication for the team's struggles to convert on opportunities, its inability to score goals and excuse for defensive breakdowns…is the man pulling all the strings.
I think Blashill will be a successful coach in Detroit but it is going to take time to get there and the road is going to get a lot tougher before it gets any easier for him in his first season behind the bench. Coping with major injuries to Miller and Niklas Kronwall as well as scoring droughts from key players such as Tatar, Nyquist and Datsyuk for periodic stretches has force the first-year coach into uncomfortable situations that he has yet to experience at the game's highest level.
Brace yourself Hockeytown because Stan Van Gundy and the Pistons could prove to be Detroit's ONLY hope for a playoff team in this fiscal sports year.
