Red Wings need help Alex Lyon & Cam Talbot – The Hockey Writers – Detroit Red Wings

It’s never a bad thing when your goalies play well. This can be bad when you need good results from your goalkeepers all the time. This is exactly the situation that the Detroit Red Wings found themselves in the first nine games of the 2024-2025 season.

In those nine games, the Red Wings primarily relied on Alex Lyon and Cam Talbot to guard their goal while Ville Gusso started the season opener and was banished to the American Hockey League a few days later. Although Lyon and Talbot have been good in their four starts, they have struggled due to Detroit’s overall poor defensive play.

This is a trend that is simply not sustainable. If the Red Wings are going to take a big step forward this season, they need to do a better job of helping their goalies.

Red Wings goaltenders under siege

The discussion of what a tough job the Red Wings goaltenders are doing starts with the fact that the players in front of them allow a lot of shots while creating very little offense on the other end. The Red Wings currently rank last in the NHL in shots on goal at 24.8 per game. 31 rank^St in the league by the number of shots – 34.9. In other words, they usually allow 10 more shots than they do, and if you’ve watched games this season, 10 probably seems less than the games have felt.

related: The truth about the Red Wings’ shot volume inconsistency

The Red Wings are regularly under siege in their zone. They’ve adopted a “bend, don’t break” style of defense to start this season, which is producing the results we’re seeing. They were content with poor shot totals, instead preferring quality chances in a kick, counter attack. This strategy is mostly effective when Moritz Seider and Simon Edvinsson are on the ice together, but the Red Wings often struggle for their lives when other defensemen are on the ice.

From early results, this style of play will produce about as many wins as losses – and that’s assuming the Red Wings continue to get great goaltending from Lyon and Talbot.

Lyon and Talbot became the first MVP

With a 2.05 goals-against average (GAA) and .940 save percentage (SV%), Lyon was stellar in goal for the Red Wings. In his second season in Detroit, the soon-to-be 32-year-old endeared himself to Red Wings fans last season as he climbed the organization’s scoring charts. He played a career-high 44 games and cemented his status as an NHL goaltender, although at times it was painfully obvious that the workload was too much for him.

Entering this season, there were questions about Lyon’s status in the team. The Red Wings signed Talbot as a free agent, and Husso was expected to compete for the starting role he lost last season. Although the 2024-25 season is still young, Lyon has quickly reclaimed his role as Detroit’s regular. As of this writing, Lyon’s .940 SV% ranks third in the NHL among goaltenders who have played at least four games this season, while his 2.05 GAA ranks fifth.

Talbot, on the other hand, doesn’t have the same impressive stats as Lyon, but Talbot matched Lyon in wins (two) and shutouts (one). Talbot’s wealth of NHL experience (491 regular season games played) suggests the Red Wings can rely on him to beat Lyon more often and more effectively than Hasso and James Reimer did last season. After the COVID-shortened 2020-21 season, Talbot has a .593 save percentage, better than any Red Wings goaltender over the same time period.

Among goaltenders who have played in four or more games this season, Talbot ranks eighth in the league in goals-against-expected saves (3.3), while Lyon ranks sixth at 5.0 (number for Moneypuck). Talbot and Lyon have combined to prevent eight overtime goals this season, which has been a huge difference for the Red Wings considering they are already averaging just over three goals per game. In short, they’ve been able to get back to their bend-don’t-break style because their goaltenders make sure things don’t break.

Help your goalkeeper!

The Red Wings had two goals at the start of this season: secure a playoff spot and improve their overall defensive play. Last season, they averaged 32.4 shots against and averaged 28.9. In other words, their shooting numbers took a hit early this season. Even though the season is still young, the Red Wings will want to quickly reverse that trend because, as good as Lyon and Talbot have been, relying on your goaltender to steal a win night in and night out is only a viable strategy when you to have such an elite goalkeeper as Connor Hellebyuk or Igor Shesterkin.

Improving their defensive play was always going to be the key to the Red Wings’ 2024-25 season. But if they don’t want their goaltenders to burn out already, they’ll need to achieve that goal sooner rather than later. What they are doing now is simply not sustainable.