There isn’t much cause for excitement in the camp of the Detroit Red Wings, especially so during their winless March death march to oblivion, but in Gustav Nyquist, perhaps there is a glimmer of hope that things could get better.
Entering Sunday’s game at Colorado against the Avalanche, Nyquist has scored in three straight games. He’s tallied 19 goals for the season, his best output since netting 27 goals in 2014-15, and completely obliterating last season’s dismal 12-goal total.
“Nyquie’s played hard all year,” Wings coach Jeff Blashill told Detroitredwings.com. “I think Nyquie’s been excellent all year.”
This productivity likely made it easier for the Wings to move steady 20-goal scorer Tomas Tatar at the NHL trade deadline, but when queried as to why the puck going in for him, Nyquist doesn’t seek to analyze the scenario, only to roll with it.
“I don’t know, it’s a tough question to answer,” Nyquist said. “Obviously last year I didn’t score as much as I would have liked to. It’s hard to put a finger on it, but obviously it’s nice to see them go in right now.”
Blashill is much more analytical when assessing the uptick in Nyquist’s output.
“His competitive level has been unreal,” Blashill said. “It’s been the best of the three years I’ve been here, maybe the best since I’ve coached him.”
“The fact he’s on a roll here doesn’t surprise me, because he’s been playing really good hockey all season.”
An instant sniper when he arrived to the NHL for good during the 2013-14 season, Nyquist scored twice in his first game that season. He netted four goals in his first five games, 13 in his first 30 games, 28 in his first 51 games and 55 over his first two full NHL campaigns, a span of 149 games. But then he scored just 29 goals over the next 158 games.
Blashill believes that early explosiveness miscast Nyquist as a finisher, rather than as an all-around offensive contributor, pointing out that last season, even though his goal output was down significantly, Nyquist dished out a career-high 36 assists.
“I don’t want to take anything away from him in the sense that he can score,” Blashill explained. “I just thought he had kind of been a 20-40, 25-45 or 20-50 type guy most of his career, and all of a sudden he scored big time when he came into the league.
“I just wanted people to understand that when you’re judging him, don’t just judge him on the 29 goals. He might get 18 but have lots of assists.”
The amazing thing this season is that as much as his lighting of red lamps has improved, Nyquist’s teammates believe that you ain’t seen nothing yet.
“He's been working hard all year, but hasn't really gotten the production that he's probably deserved when you look at his work ethic, so it's good to see that he got some now,” Wings captain Henrik Zetterberg said.
Blashill echoed that assessment.
“If there’s one guy I think’s been a little bit snakebitten and I think if you give him the same chances a year from now and he could score more, it’s Nyquist,” Blashill said.
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