Perhaps regression is coming?

Things look pretty bleak on the surface. Defense and effort/physical engagement are seemingly binary with this team game to game. Goaltending is so bad that it feels like they've only got a chance when Talbot is in net, and his save percentage is .887. Kasper's sophomore slump is so bad it makes you worry if he was more the pre-January 10 player than post.

Yet there are a few bits of hope for positive regression:

1. The Red Wings are dead last with a PDO of 95.81. No NHL has finished a season with a PDO <96. Only once in the past decade, and twice since 2008 (start of MoneyPuck's data) has a team finished with a PDO of less than 97, and that most recent time was the 2019-20 Red Wings. Either they are truly terrible or they are just really unlucky.

2. They are 5th in shot differential, after years of getting caved in. They're 4th in rebound shots differential, and 5th in high danger shots for, though giving up nearly as many against. Yet they rank 9th best in total giveaways and 15th in giveaways in the defensive zone, while Carolina, Colorado, and Dallas are all worse at this.

Using Colorado as a reference point since they look unstoppable, they compare fairly well to the Avs in all these metrics, plus similar special teams differential. The biggest difference is in PDO. While the Red Wings have that league-worst 95.8, the Avalanche have a league-best 104.

(This is not suggesting the Red Wings are truly similar to Colorado, but merely that both teams are at extremes in both perceptions and outcomes yet doing a lot of things similarly.)