The Detroit Red Wings’ prospects held a morning skate ahead of tonight’s game against the Minnesota Wild’s prospects (7:30 PM EDT on FSD GO and the Red Wings’ website), mostly focusing on power play work and breakouts.
Coach Ben Simon has a bit of a battle on his hands trying to teach players who are used to deferring on power play shots and skating in the “outside lane” in breakouts to move the puck up the middle and drive to the net, so it made a lot of sense to work on systems play that emphasizes driving the middle from net to net.
It appears that Patrik Rybar will start (barring a sore groin), and the Wings’ power play units will include a 4-forward group of Filip Zadina, Michael Rasmussen, Givani Smith, Joe Veleno and Dennis Cholowski on the first unit, with Axel Holmstrom, Christoffer Ehn and David Pope working with Vili Saarijarvi and Jared McIsaac.
After practice, I took part in the media scrums for Michael Rasmussen and Filip Zadina, both of whom are looking forward to the tournament (though Zadina has heard less about the WJC-like level of play in Traverse City)…
Zadina emphasized an, “I gotta be me” viewpoint, suggesting that playing the way he can willturn some heads…
Then I spoke with Axel Holmstrom and Christoffer Ehn, who sit next to each other in the locker room. Holmstrom discussed his hopes of playing better hockey after an up-and-down rookie year, and Ehn talked about his transition to North American hockey after several strong seasons with the SHL’s Frolunda Indians:
Finally, the media (myself, DetroitRedWings.com’s Dana Wakiji and the Traverse City Record-Eagle’s Jake Atnip) spoke with Grand Rapids Griffins coach Ben Simon, who discussed trying to get up to speed team-wise and in terms of his coaching staff as the Wings prepare for a tournament in which they are both the oldest and one of the most stackedteams, at least in theory.
