The Detroit Red Wings are about to embark upon an exhibition season in which they will play 8 games over the course of only 11 nights, and Red Wings coach Jeff Blashill addressed the situation as it stands today, as noted by the Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan:
“They’re valuable from an evaluation standpoint, for sure,” coach Jeff Blashill said. “Whoever can grab jobs, grab jobs. It’s as competitive here as it has been for a long time.”
Nearly every NHL team has, essentially, two rosters during the exhibition season to play the onslaught of exhibition games, and to evaluate so many players. Blashill was going to have a “Detroit” lineup and a “Grand Rapids”, minor league-heavy lineup for these next two weeks.
“But I don’t know who is on that Detroit team, yet,” Blashill said. “I stayed with two split groups and we keep going. We’ll see during the exhibition season to determine who is on the team.”
An injury to forward Jakub Vrana (shoulder), and keeping forwards Dylan Larkin (neck) and Tyler Bertuzzi (back surgery) on a planned schedule heading into the regular season (both were hurt at the end of last season), all have impacted the lineups.
“It’s a little like that movie ‘A Beautiful Mind’,” said Blashill, as to how the coaching staff devises exhibition lineups. “You have all these numbers, and we have an Excel spreadsheet, and three guys get hurt and you have to re-plan it. We’re in the re-planning stage.”
Continued, with talk of Troy Stecher and Kirill Tyutyayev…
