Gustav Nyquist isn’t finished as a finisher, but Detroit Red Wings coach Jeff Blashill is of the belief that Nyquist was miscast as one when he first arrived in the NHL.
Nyquist scored 32 goals in his first 97 NHL games, an average of one goal every 3.03 games. Since then, Nyquist has averaged a goal every 4.28 games, and Blashill figures those digits are closer to being realistic numbers of what his production level should be.
“When I had Nyquie in the American League, he was always a 40-20 type guy, or 45-25 type guy in terms of assist to goal ratio,” Blashill said. “When he came up here originally, he scored at a rate that he probably hadn’t scored in his college or pro career prior to that.
“Not to say he can’t ever do that but that was the reality of it. I think he’s a real good playmaking type guy.”
This season, Nyquist has gone overboard in terms of the playmaking. As the Wings readied to face the Carolina Hurricanes on the road Saturday, with 14 points, he’s second on the team in scoring, but just two of those 14 points are goals.
“I think he’s had chances to score and he hasn’t,” Blashill said. “I think he’s a guy who’s capable of scoring more than certainly the pace he’s on but certainly he’s a guy who can make lots of plays and be a distributor.”
That’s not to suggest that Nyquist isn’t making big plays. In Friday’s 3-2 overtime win against the New York Rangers, with Detroit trailing 2-0 in the third period, Nyquist stripped the puck from Rangers defenseman Brendan Smith and fed Justin Abdelkader for the Wings’ first goal.
“Gus was a dog on a bone all game,” Detroit center Dylan Larkin said. “He was working and he got rewarded with that one.
“It was an early goal in the third period, and we knew we had to get one early. It put them on their heels and advantage us.”
The helper extended Nyquist’s point streak to six games. He has 1-6-7 totals during this stretch.
Like a lot of his teammates, Nyquist is actively seeking to take more of a shot-first mentality to the ice.
“I guess from my perspective, sometimes you feel like you’re a little bit outside a real scoring chance area and sometimes you feel like shooting the puck would be maybe a turnover, when really you’ve got to put it at the net, try to shoot for a rebound off the pad or something like that and not always try to shoot to score,” Nyquist said. Just create some chaos instead of thinking you have to score on every shot. I think that’s just something we got to put in our heads.”
Blashill is of the belief that if Nyquist maintains his current approach, a brace of goals won’t be far off.
“I think like everybody else he was snake-bitten early and that can be a frustrating thing,” Blashill said. “I thought he - like a number of guys on our team - got away from what it’s going to take to be successful and probably started to hope or cheat a little bit for offense.
“When it’s not going in you just got to stay with it and ultimately it will go in. I think he’s been better here lately. He’s certainly has opportunities, chances. If he continues to get those, he’ll convert on them, so he’s got to keep grinding.”
Follow me on Twitter @asktheduffer
Detroit Red Wings Blogger • 
Join the Discussion:
»