Red Wings coach Jeff Blashill took part in a 17-minute interview with DetroitRedWings.com’s Arthur J. Regner on last Thursday’s “The Word on Woodward“…
And today, DetroitRedWings.com’s Josh Berenter took note of Blashill’s remarks regarding “getting more” from his revamped Red Wings team:
“We’ll know the makeup of what our group looks like better once we get to camp, and guys will have a chance to show they can make us better,” Blashill said. “To say jobs are open, to me would be an obvious statement in a sense that we were a bad hockey team last year. We need to be a better hockey team. Guys have to prove they can help us win more games than what we won a year ago. You need players to continuously take steps and we need guys to come out and have great years.”
One of the biggest keys that Blashill identified for the Red Wings’ improvement this season is depth.
Detroit’s top forward line of Dylan Larkin, Anthony Mantha and Tyler Bertuzzi combined for 56 of the Red Wings’ 142 goals last season (more than 39 percent) and 139 of the club’s 392 points (more than 35 percent).
Blashill said to compete among the NHL’s best, you need to have more players contribute offensively.
“The one thing I know for sure is we have to get more out of more lines. Last year, if you look at the chances generated, generally it was based on the Larkin line and they also got the lion share of the ice time,” Blashill said. “As a coaching staff, we’ve looked at it and said, ‘how can we make sure we get more out of more lines?’ We certainly need Larkin’s line to be really good, but we need other guys to have important roles and need to get more out of more guys.
“That’s partly our responsibility as coaches to make sure we’re putting them in the situations to do that. And it’s the players’ responsibility to go out and execute and continue to earn more ice time. We can’t be a one-line team. We’ve added some players to give us more depth. We’ll get a chance to prove that as we get going.”
