DetroitRedWings.com’s Dana Wakiji was the only Wings scribe that attended Saturday’s practice, and she offers a sound and solid notebook from said practice.
Wakiji reports that the Wings worked on their penalty-killing, that Henrik Zetterberg is OK after taking a maintenance day and that the Wings are wary of their Sunday opponent, the Washington Capitals.
Most noteworthy from Wakiji is this passage regarding the team’s attempts to put Friday’s debacle behind them:
“There’s not one thing you can about it, except for learn,” Wings coach Jeff Blashill said. “You can’t go get yesterday back in life. All you can do is learn from it and move forward. So we have to move forward. The lesson there, we got to make sure we’re disciplined and we gotta be ultra committed like playoff hockey to blocking shots. And then we’ve got to do lots of things we did. We played fast, we were one top of them.
“We played great hockey for certainly 40 minutes if not 55 minutes, even though they pushed a little bit in the beginning of the third. We’ve got to do the same thing tomorrow. That’s the hockey that makes us successful. I think our guys understand that. We gotta go tomorrow and play the same way.”
The Wings practiced Saturday morning at New Jersey’s Prudential Center before leaving for Washington, D.C., where they play the Capitals Sunday.
Naturally, one of the main points of focus was the penalty kill.
“Obviously, we gave up four there last night, so we want to make sure we get back to work at it,” Blashill said. “I would say the biggest thing is when the penalty kill is at its best, it’s making stands at the line, it’s forcing the puck out of opposition hand, getting it and getting it out of the zone. We gave up the entry too easy. So when you give up the entry, now you got opportunities for them to shoot and they have a real shooting power play with who I think is the best net-front guy (Anders Lee) in the league. The best way to avoid that is to not let them set up. Unfortunately last night, we let them set up too much.”
Wakiji continues at length, and her article is worth your time…
