Red Wings Game Analysis, After-Action Report for Tuesday February 24th: Detroit Red Wings 0 - LA Kings 1

The Wings headed up the freeway from lower Los Angeles to Los Angeles proper looking to bounce back after blowing a lead against the Ducks on Monday. The good news is they didn't blow a lead this time. The bad news is they never had one to blow, as Jonathan Quick shut them out 1-0.

Box Score Here

Complaining about the reffing in a game where Detroit had a 5-3 advantage in power play opportunities seems a bit silly, considering I believe the Wings got away with about as much interference, hooking, holding, grabbing, mugging, and other stuff as the Kings did. Only LA score on the power play (obviously). Shots ended up 27-20 in favor of the Kings.

Jonas Gustavsson had a very good night in goal for the Wings, but was his usual terrifying self. Hey, when it works it works. The only goal that got by him was tipped and on a power play. Jonathan Quick tried to give the Wings a goal in the 2nd period, but that got screwed up. Other than that, he and his defense did a good job of limiting 2nd opportunities and he made a very big save on Gustav Nyquist in the third.

Guide to plus/minus adjustments

The Goals

1st Period 02:24 - Los Angeles Goal (PP):Justin Williams (tip in) from Jake Muzzin and Marion Gaborik
LA gets on the board first with a power play goal through traffic. The Kings get control off a scrambled faceoff and do a very good job aggressively moving the puck around the zone to keep the PKers chasing. Eventually, Gaborik resets from low to high with Muzzin on the point with room to take two steps away from the wall and fire a shot through the traffic that is coming together perfectly. Williams tips it in and Gustavsson can't stop it. Nobody blew a coverage here. This is a case of a power play that works to perfection. No adjustment.

The Penalties

1st Period 02:03 - Drew Miller (holding the stick) against Nick Shore: Miller is battling the larger Kings' forward down low and he handily loses this battle. Miller responds by holding the stick and going to the box. Miller will a minus.

1st Period 07:08 - Matt Greene (hooking) against Tomas Jurco: Jurco is creating good space in the offensive zone and catches Greene flat-footed, who hooks him down to prevent a good shot on goal. Jurco will get a plus.

2nd Period 03:32 - Dwight King (tripping) against Jonathan Ericsson: King the King takes a dumb penalty as he chases Ericsson and lazily reaches out to bring his man down. No adjustment. This isn't a drawn call.

2nd Period 09:54 - Tyler Toffoli (slashing) against Brendan Smith: Gustavsson makes a save on a good Drew Doughty scoring opportunity and Smith gets to the loose puck. For some reason, Toffoli blasts him in the back of the knee with his stick and heads to the box. I'm going to give Smith a half-plus for really good positioning on this rebound.

2nd Period 10:53 - Jonas Gustavsson (high sticking) against Anze Kopitar: I don't care about giving penalty minuses to goaltenders, but Gustavsson would get one if I did.

2nd Period 16:23 - Robyn Regehr (holding) against Justin Abdelkader: Abby holds off Regehr down low and the Kings' D-Man responds by mugging him. Abby will get a plus for drawing this one.

3rd Period 00:12 - Marian Gaborik (hooking) against Pavel Datsyuk: Pavs walks the defense coming into the Kings' zone early in the third and Gaborik hooks him as a result. Easy call to make. Plus for Datsyuk.

3rd Period 14:39 - Jakub Kindl (hooking) against Dustin Brown: Kindl mishandles at center and gives the Kings a rush into the zone. In coming back to help defensively, he gets his stick out on Brown. It's not much of a hook, but it was long overdue. Kindl will get a minus.

3rd Period 16:14 - Luke Glendening (puck over glass): Simple easy call on a dumb misplay by Glendening, who gets a minus.

3rd Period 13:56 - Justin Abdelkader and Drew Doughty (roughing): It's like a fight, but it isn't! No adjustment.

Total Adjustments

Full Season Chart Here

Possession Metrics

Even-strength Corsi numbers provided thanks to NHL.com via War-On-Ice.com.

Jurco leading the team in Corsi while putting zero shot attempts at the net himself in very low zone starts is a pretty good microcosm of the entire game. The matchups were scrambled quite a bit in this one, as both coaches were trying to get what they wanted out there, but the big one was that Drew Doughty and Robyn Regehr shared a huge portion of Datsyuk's minutes and essentially pushed on that matchup.

Need to get better out of the depth when they're being given more opportunities to start in good spots. Weiss, Pulkkinen, and Andersson were big let-downs as far as possession, although I do think all three played well defensively.

Check out more from war-on-ice.com, including the visualized shift chart here.

Final Say

The Wings played too tight and the Kings really took advantage of their size. I'd like to see a seven-game series between these two squads.

Corsi Timeline from Hockeystats.ca