Analyzing the Red Wings - Coyotes series

So, the first series that ended was on 4/20. (Insert joke here) Anyways, the Red Wings swept the Yotes 4-0 and just from analyzing the series, there were a lot of things coming in that was in the favor of the Red Wings, but most importantly, the one thing that would've kept the Coyotes in the series didn't show up. You'll see what I mean.

Let's go back and analyze the series position-by-position, scenario-by-scenario:

Looking back: The Red Wings swept the Coyotes, but in all their wins, they scored 3 or 4 goals unanswered that allowed them to gain the lead and build it up so that the Coyotes were playing catch-up the entire series. As a result, the Red Wings were always able to focus on defense and take advantage of the mistakes by the Coyotes to turn around and score.

Forwards: Red Wings
The Red Wings had 10 players get more than 1 point. The Coyotes had only 5. Not only that, the Coyotes had only six goal scorers while the Red Wings had 10 evenly distributed goal scorers. There were guys scoring from the top line down to the bottom line. Datsyuk led the way for the Red Wings, and as usual, he took over the series with Zetterberg out. When Zetterberg comes back, that's going to make this team, that much more dangerous. The Coyotes really didn't get much offense outside of Doan and Hanzal. It was pretty much the first line and second line doing all the heavy lifting which makes it a lot easier to play defense against.

Defensemen: Red Wings
Keith Yandle was the only guy that produced for the Yotes, the Red Wings had everyone produce except for Brad Stuart. Yandle had four of his five points on the power play and the coyotes defensemen had only 2 points at regular strength. Not only that, no defensemen for the Coyotes had a +/- better than -2. Their defensemen were awful in general at even-strength and it shows.

Goaltending: Red Wings
Ilya Bryzgalov got lit up like Christmas tree, it's not even funny, he got wrecked. The Red Wings scored at least four goals a game and the Coyotes do not have the offense to match that. Ilya couldn't keep his team in the series. On the other end, Jimmy Howard was solid in net and made a lot of key saves while his team was short-handed, but if Ilya played well, I wouldn't be writing this piece right now.

Power Play: Phoenix
They absolutely shredded the Red Wings on the PP, infact, more than half their goals in the series came via Power Play. That should tell you something, the Red Wings will have to be better if they want to make it past the second round, for the Coyotes, if they had more PP chances, they might've pulled out a few games.

Penalty Kill: Phoenix
What? You thought I'd put Detroit after they let in 6 goals on 18 chances? No way, they need to fix that, Phoenix wasn't much better, but they WERE better. they were just under 75%

X-Factors: Ilya didn't show up, Henrik didn't play, so I'd have to give it to Datsyuk. He was the reason the Coyotes didn't win with his spectacular two-way play. If Zetterberg gets back, this team will be a lot better.

Looking ahead: The Red Wings will have to fix their special teams if they want to win in the second round, they have a possibility of drawing either San Jose, Nashville or Los Angeles. Of all the teams, they want the Kings for the best match-up.