Updated 2x at 4:09 PM: Prior to leaving for a two-game road trip to Los Angeles and Anaheim, the Red Wings updated their injury situation (Jonathan Ericsson won’t play on the road trip, but Niklas Kronwall is nearing a return), and coach Blashill discussed the pluck displayed by Filip Hronek and Libor Sulak with MLive’s Ansar Khan:
“If you’re a young player in this league, you better prove you can stand up for yourself,” Red Wings coach Jeff Blashill said. “There’s not as much intimidation in the league as there was a number of years ago, but it’s like being on the playground, if you don’t stand up for yourself, you’re going to get picked on all the time.”
“I think Hronek’s got an edge to him big-time. I’ve seen it lots. I saw it in the American League (with the Grand Rapids Griffins). What I like about Sulak, he’s not afraid to throw (Chicago’s) Patrick Kane down like he did in the preseason to help you score a winning goal. You’d love to have as much of that out of your players as possible while maintaining your focus on winning the hockey game.”
Blashill said Dennis Cholowski, who scored a goal, and Hronek stood out among the four rookie defensemen in the game. They manned the points on the power play.
“I thought Hronek had a great game,” Blashill said. “He did a real good job jumping in the play, of making little breakout passes, good job of being hard (to play against). He was out there enough against that heavy line, (Brandon) Dubinsky’s line; it’s a hard line to play against and I thought he did a good job. I’d say all had moments of good and moments of not great.”
Blashill said Sulak, who logged 18:26, got tired.
“He’s got to make sure that he keeps his poise, even as you start to breathe through your eyelids a little bit, which happens when you’re stuck in your end,” Blashill said.
Khan continues, and he posted videos of Blashill and Christoffer Ehn’s off-day remarks, as well as comments from Thomas Vanek:
Team bonding
The Wings didn’t practice on Friday before heading out on a quick West Coast trip. They play a back-to-back against Los Angeles on Sunday and Anaheim on Monday before returning home to face Toronto.
Defenseman Trevor Daley believes the trip could be beneficial for a team with so many young faces.
“It’s a chance for the boys to get on the road and do some team bonding and get together,” he said. “We’re out in California, so it’s not the worst place to be.”
The Kings open against San Jose on Friday.
“It will be good to see how we can can get out of our zone,” Blashill said. “We have to have the puck a lot. If we don’t have the puck a lot, they’re a big, heavy team and they’ll be hard to handle.”
Update #2: From the Detroit News’s Gregg Krupa’s notes:
Christoffer Ehn admitted, the day after, that playing in his first NHL game caused some uneasiness for a while. Then, as the newness dissipated, and he became more accustomed to how quickly he had to play, he relaxed.
“I think it went OK,” said the 22-year-old, from Skara, Sweden, who surprised even his coach by cracking the lineup this season.
“I was a little bit stressed, at first,” Ehn said. “But I kind of settled in halfway through the game, and I played little bit better in the third.”
On ice for 8:09 during 12 shifts, including on the penalty kill with Justin Abdelkader when the Wings yielded the first goal, Ehn had four hits, a takeaway and finished with two face-off wins and five losses.
He said that the individual players are about as strong and fast as they are in the Swedish Hockey League, the top pro league. But, the game is played quicker in the NHL.
“It moves way faster,” Ehn said. “And you have to be more careful because you can turn the puck over, here, in the wrong areas, and it will come back at you so fast. That’s the biggest difference. In Sweden, sometimes you get away with a bad dump-in, or not being strong at the lines.
“I think that’s the main difference,” said the 6-foot-3, 181-pound center. “You’ve got to know who you’re up against, out there, and everything about it.”
