The Athletic’s Scott examines the Wings’ winning (and losing) ways

The Athletic’s Topher Scott offers his weekly “view from a coach” regarding the Red Wings‘ ups and downs over the past week:

1. Offense comes from good defense: Many of the Red Wings’ scoring chances came from good defensive play. I have written about how Detroit’s roster makeup requires the team to play a flawless defensive game to be able to win. Strong defensive play from the five-man unit on the ice creates turnovers, leading to transition offense going the other way. A lot of times, this comes from strong gaps, good backchecks and shot-blocking in the neutral and defensive zones.

2. Defense jumping in the play creates offense: Over the last three games, I saw the defensemen involved in the offense more than any other time during the first half of the season. It led to a lot of scoring chances and even a few goals. Maybe they saw how Brent Burns was playing and decided to emulate him?

Whatever it was, I loved it. Having the defense involved in the rush and even the cycle is where the NHL is heading today. You will see in the video below how the Red Wings’ defense jumped right into the play offensively, leading to scoring chances and goals.

Continued (paywall)

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George Malik

My name is George Malik, and I'm the Malik Report's editor/blogger/poster. I have been blogging about the Red Wings since 2006, when MLive hired me to work their SlapShots blog, and I joined Kukla's Korner in 2011 as The Malik Report. I'm starting The Malik Report as a stand-alone site, hoping that having my readers fund the website is indeed the way to go to build a better community and create better content.