The Nashville Predators host the Detroit Red Wings this evening.
It’s been an up-and-down season in Detroit, with long streaks of mostly wins intermingled with long streaks of mostly losses. They’re on the upswing out of a losing streak right now, going 3-1 in their last four games after a season-long seven consecutive losses to start the month, and are currently part of the shuffle for the second wildcard spot in the Atlantic.
Detroit’s most salient strength has been a combination of shooting talent and shooting luck. While their offense itself is profoundly uninspired–they don’t take a lot of shots, and they don’t get to the front of the net pretty much at all, especially at even strength–their skaters have been scoring from all over the ice nevertheless, elevating a pretty average power play to well above that and managing to come in seventh in the league in 5v5 goals scored despite having the third-worst 5v5 expected goals total.