Detroit Red Wings Quarterly Grades
The Detroit Red Wings are a different team this year. They have a much more defensive approach than in years past and are no longer the high scoring team they were when they had Steve Yzerman, Brett Hull, Luc Robitaille, Brendan Shanahan and Sergei Federov. The team is amongst the league leaders in fewest shots allowed on goal and also in the highest number of even strength goals. Given how the Wings struggled to score even strength goals in recent playoffs I think this is a good sign. So I decided to take a look at the team now that we are one quarter of the way through the season. Grading players isn’t the best way to assess the team but it is the most expedient. So here goes:
|
Player |
Grade |
Comments |
| Nicklas Lidstrom | A |
Leads league in +/- and is a Hart and Norris |
| Dominik Hasek | A |
Leads league in GAA, worth every |
| Dan Cleary | A | Off to career year, tied with Zetterberg for most goals |
| Daniil Markov | B | Excellent pairing for Lidstrom, provides necessary grit |
| Brett Lebda | B | Solid in own end, adds much needed speed |
| Kris Draper | B | Already has 3 SH goals, PK is slowly improving |
| Robert Lang | B | 4 game winning goals and is +15 |
| Henrik Zetterberg | B- | Got off to a slow start, but is beginning to dominate |
| Johan Franzen | B- | Good size and defense, but need more points from him |
| Mikael Samuelsson | B- | Two-way player on pace for another 20 goal season |
| Pavel Datsyuk | C | Solid defense & on PP, but needs to score more goals |
| Mathieu Schneider | C | PP specialist is even at +/- |
| Jason Williams | C | Torres’ pinata needs to prove last year wasn’t a fluke |
| Valtteri Filppula | C | Does the little things right, best of the rookie class right now |
| Tomas Kopecky | C | Checking Czech has performed ok with limited ice time |
| Tomas Holmstrom | C | PP specialist has 2 PPP, otherwise on pace for average year |
| Chris Chelios | C | Solid, reliable defensive defenseman |
| Niklas Kronwall | C- | No goals, 4 assists and only +1. Need more from him. |
| Kirk Maltby | C- | On pace for his second minus year in a row |
| Andreas Lilja | C- | On pace for even +/- after going +18 with Lidstrom last season |
| Jiri Hudler | C- | Has 4 goals, 2 of them on the PP. Could be effective in SO |
| Chris Osgood | inc | Only 4 appearances and one didn’t last long |
| Mike Babcock | B- | Needs to resolve PP woes |
| Ken Holland | B- | Hasek and Markov were great signings, need a power forward |
If Hasek, Osgood, Kronwall and Markov can stay relatively healthy then the goaltending and defense should be solid. The Wings need at least one more solid winger with size who can add some scoring punch. Those kind of guys are tough to find but might become available as we get closer to the trading deadline.
Oh yeah, I totally stole the Torres’ pinata line in regard to Jason Williams from someone. If it was you put a comment in the comment section so you can be properly attributed.
2006 NHL season Central Division Red Wings4 Comments
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