Jimmy Howard was the reason why the Red Wings got as far as they did this past season. Detroit had a mediocre offense (19th), power play (15th) and penalty kill (12th) so goaltending was the key to it all. Take a look back and see what Detroit did last season with a look ahead for next season.
Team Name: Detroit Red Wings
Record: 24-16-8, 3rd in Central, Lost 4-3 to Chicago in Western Conference Semifinals.
Player of the Season: Howard was the best part of the team from a fantasy standpoint. It’s hard to beat 21-13-7 with a 2.13 GAA and a .923 save percentage with five shutouts.
Breakout of the Season: Damien Brunner burst onto the scene as a rookie and posted a solid 12-14–26 line with 10 points on the power play. Brunner should be getting consistent power play time going forward and would make a solid second-line player in Motown.
Disappointment of the Season: Depth. Once you got past the household name players, there wasn’t much behind them. Detroit needs to be able to have solid and consistent second line in order to have more fantasy value as a team.
Team Analysis: Nobody on this team scored more than Datsyuk and his 15 goals. Johan Franzen had 14 but keep in mind that the man called “Mule” had seven goals and six assists in the final month of the season. All told, 13 of his 31 points came at the end of the year so hopefully he can find more consistency. If it wasn’t for their assists Datsyuk (34) and Henrik Zetterberg (37) would have had drastically lowered value in fantasy.
2013-2014 Story Lines: Realignment. Realignment. Realignment. They go from the old Western Conference into the Eastern Conference where they will be in Division C (as it’s called now). They will now have Boston, Buffalo, Florida, Montreal, Ottawa, Tampa Bay and Toronto as divisional foes in the 2013-14 season. Travel will be reduced for them greatly so they might be a fresher team late in the season.
2013-2014 Fantasy Guys to Have: Howard, Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Franzen, Kronwall, Brunner,
Guys On the Fringe: Jakub Kindl (+15 rating)
| PLAYER | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | ATOI | PPG | PPA | SHG | SHA | SOG | SPCT |
| Pavel Datsyuk, C | 47 | 15 | 34 | 49 | 21 | 14 | 20:11 | 8 | 8 | 0 | 3 | 107 | 14.0 |
| Henrik Zetterberg, C | 46 | 11 | 37 | 48 | 2 | 18 | 20:31 | 4 | 19 | 2 | 0 | 173 | 6.4 |
| Johan Franzen, LW | 41 | 14 | 17 | 31 | 13 | 41 | 18:05 | 6 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 116 | 12.1 |
| Niklas Kronwall, D | 48 | 5 | 24 | 29 | -5 | 44 | 24:22 | 2 | 14 | 0 | 0 | 67 | 7.5 |
| Damien Brunner, C | 44 | 12 | 14 | 26 | -6 | 12 | 15:35 | 3 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 123 | 9.8 |
| Valtteri Filppula, C | 41 | 9 | 8 | 17 | -4 | 6 | 17:47 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 78 | 11.5 |
| Daniel Cleary, RW | 48 | 9 | 6 | 15 | -6 | 40 | 16:27 | 5 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 93 | 9.7 |
| Jakub Kindl, D | 41 | 4 | 9 | 13 | 15 | 28 | 18:33 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 76 | 5.3 |
| Jonathan Ericsson, D | 45 | 3 | 10 | 13 | 6 | 29 | 21:19 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 34 | 8.8 |
| Justin Abdelkader, LW | 48 | 10 | 3 | 13 | 6 | 34 | 14:49 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 96 | 10.4 |
| Joakim Andersson, C | 38 | 3 | 5 | 8 | 2 | 8 | 12:05 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 43 | 7.0 |
| Brendan Smith, D | 34 | 0 | 8 | 8 | 1 | 36 | 18:24 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 33 | 0.0 |
| Cory Emmerton, C | 48 | 5 | 3 | 8 | -1 | 4 | 10:49 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 55 | 9.1 |
| Patrick Eaves, RW | 34 | 2 | 6 | 8 | -1 | 4 | 10:35 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 42 | 4.8 |
| Drew Miller, LW | 44 | 4 | 4 | 8 | -8 | 2 | 13:49 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 54 | 7.4 |
| Jordin Tootoo, RW | 42 | 3 | 5 | 8 | 0 | 78 | 9:05 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 45 | 6.7 |
| Tomas Tatar, C | 18 | 4 | 3 | 7 | 2 | 4 | 11:22 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 32 | 12.5 |
| Gustav Nyquist, C | 22 | 3 | 3 | 6 | 0 | 6 | 13:02 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 46 | 6.5 |
| Brian Lashoff, D | 31 | 1 | 4 | 5 | -10 | 15 | 17:47 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 26 | 3.8 |
| Ian White, D | 25 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 19:35 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 27 | 7.4 |
| Kyle Quincey, D | 36 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 7 | 18 | 19:13 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 36 | 2.8 |
| Todd Bertuzzi, RW | 7 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 15:31 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 20.0 |
| Danny DeKeyser, D | 11 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 2 | 18:03 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 15 | 0.0 |
| Carlo Colaiacovo, D | 6 | 0 | 1 | 1 | -4 | 2 | 18:55 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 12 | 0.0 |
| Mikael Samuelsson, RW | 4 | 0 | 1 | 1 | -3 | 0 | 12:52 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 0.0 |
| Kent Huskins, D † | 11 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -3 | 4 | 15:21 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0.0 |
| Darren Helm, C | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 12:27 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0.0 |
| Riley Sheahan, C | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 6:47 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0.0 |
| Jan Mursak, LW | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 5:39 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.0 |
| PLAYER | GP | W | L | OTL | GAA | TOI | SV | SV% | SHO | TGA | TSA | PIM |
| Petr Mrazek | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2.01 | 119:09 | 47 | .922 | 0 | 4 | 51 | 0 |
| Jimmy Howard | 42 | 21 | 13 | 7 | 2.13 | 2445:44 | 1042 | .923 | 5 | 87 | 1129 | 0 |
| Jonas Gustavsson | 7 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2.92 | 349:15 | 123 | .879 | 0 | 17 | 140 | 2 |
