The Red Wings haven’t received much scoring from their blueline this season, but Jeff Petry (1G, 1A) and Moritz Seider (1G) posted goals during Saturday’s 4-2 victory over Toronto. As such, MLive’s Ansar Khan asked Petry and Seider what the team can do to generate more offense from the team’s blueliners:
The Red Wings have struggled to produce. They rank 28th in goals per game (2.57), a significant decline from last season when they finished ninth (3.35).
Part of that is due to less offense from the defense, which isn’t unexpected after they lost Shayne Gostisbehere (10 goals, 56 points) to free agency and traded Jake Walman (12 goals, 21 points).
The Red Wings ranked seventh in the NHL in goals (44) and points (188) from defensemen in 2023-24. They’re currently in the bottom five in that category (10 goals, 48 points).
Petry said they’ve talked about creating more offense from the back end.
“Cycling the puck, getting it low to high, getting bodies to the net,” Petry said. “I think just creating that shot-scramble mentality, and I think that opens up space for plays to be made but also rebounds that are sitting there. When you’re not putting the puck in the net as often as you’d like, I think you get some of those greasy, gritty goals, and I think that just kind of lifts you up.”
Seider leads the team’s defensemen with four goals, including two in the past three games, and 16 points.
“Obviously, not the primary job, but I would say it’s a really good feeling,” Seider said. “I think we can do a better job of just getting pucks to the net, especially from the blue line, creating a little bit of chaos in front of the net and let the forwards do their work net-front, and hopefully we (defensemen) can chip in a little bit of offense that way.”
Continued; I know that Seider’s “primary job” isn’t to generate offense, but it never hurts to rip a slap or snap shot from the point toward the goal. Larry Murphy of all people proved to me that you don’t need to have a snap shot that breaks a pane of glass to facilitate offense.
