The Detroit Red Wings wrap up their 4-game home stand tonight against the Calgary Flames, and then the Wings head on the road for three games. The Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan filed a notebook article discussing the challenges the Wings will face as they head east to play Montreal on Saturday, double back to play in Chicago on Sunday, and wrap up their road trip in Washington next Wednesday:
“Away games are going to be interesting compared to last year,” forward Pius Suter said.
It’s back to normal this season, or at least feels like it, though coach Jeff Blashill cautions everyone still needs to be careful.
“It’s back to somewhat normal, but you need to take the necessary precautions and apply it by the local health rules, whatever they are,” Blashill said. “Every city we got into, it will be a little different. I also think from our own own perspective, as we all know, with the vaccine you can still test positive. The severity will be much less, but you can still test positive and the positive tests hurt your ability to participate, so we still need to be smart and vigilant. But it’s more normal than it would have been a year ago.”
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An early-season stretch such as this one can bring a team together, in some cases. But in Blashill’s mind, there’s one item that can surely help bonding.
“If you win,” Blashill said. “There’s bonding through hardship, you can bond through struggle at times, but you definitely bond when you win. These are different kind of road trips maybe (from) 20 years ago, in terms of going out for a long time on the West Coast and spend days off. A lot of our trips are quick. We’re into Montreal (Saturday) and play a back-to-back (Sunday) in Chicago, and there’s not a lot of time for a group (to bond). We go into Washington (Wednesday) and come back right away and play Florida, and go right to Toronto (the next day).”
