Week Ahead: Nov 12 to 18

It’s been a rough season so far for the Red Wings, albeit not by surprise. They rank fifth last in goals for, fourth last by goals per game. At the other end of the ice, they’re also fifth last for both goals against and goals against per game. They’ve got the fourth worst shots per game, third worst shots against per game, and are tied for 19th on the penalty kill with a success rate of 80%. The power play is decent though, sitting at 10th at 24%.

So really, other than goals for they’re not that far off of the Sens. Makes sense that they enter the week a point (and game played) behind Ottawa.

That all said, they’ve only lost one game in the past two weeks, and only by one goal. Close to half of their goals on the season have come from those six games, scoring at least three in five of them (with a third “goal” from the shootout in the sixth).

Dylan Larkin and Gustav Nyquist have been leading the recent charge, with eight and seven points respectively in the past two weeks, while nobody else has more than four. Before you say they’re looking top-heavy though, 19 of 23 skaters who suited up at some point have at least a point. For the four who didn’t, none played all six games, three of them are in the bottom five for TOI and TOI per game, and the fourth is the injured Jonathan Ericsson who only got in two games. Larkin and Nyquist haven’t played much together in this stretch, either, and were only on together for one goal for. So they’ve had two productive, but separate, threats, and the rest of the lineup chipping in here and there.

Who had the Penguins and the Senators tied in the standings a month in? Anybody? To be fair, the Pens have played three fewer games, but I doubt too many people expected them to be only two points above .500 after 15 games.

Pittsburgh has been sliding, and had the opposite record in the past two weeks to Detroit - only one win out of six games (though they did pick up an extra point on one of those losses) and finally ended a six game losing streak on Saturday. They’ve been outscored almost two to one in that stretch, allowing a shutout against and a pair of one-goal games.

Nearly half of the roster has been held off the score sheet, several of their big names in Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang are nursing multi-game droughts, and Matt Murray has (at least temporarily) lost his net to Casey DeSmith.

They’ve busted their slump though, so no need to worry about the Ottawa Slumpbusters showing up.

Still, you can’t count them out. Malkin and Letang aren’t going to stay cold for too long, the team has the better side of the shot share (even after adjusting for score effects), and they’re rocking a two-week PDO of .955. They’ve been snake-bitten as a team, and it isn’t likely to last very long before they return to form.