As the Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan notes, the Red Wings’ final game of the 2019-2020 season was supposed to take place in the nation’s capital city, so coach Jeff Blashill admitted that it felt a little weird to return to Washington, DC:
“I remember being pretty sure we weren’t going to play, but there was no official word,” [Wings coach Jeff Blashill] said. “Then there was an official word we weren’t going to skate and just the unknown (of it all). I had conversations with (general manager) Steve Yzerman at that point and potentially flying to Tampa, that was our next opponent. And to think about that now, there was no chance we were going to play another game after.”
The NHL had a shortened 2020-21 season beginning in January with severe restrictions upon staff and players. Flashing forward, the Wings appear to be in a much better place.
The team was going through a historically bad season when the pandemic shut things down. As they returned to Washington on Wednesday, with rookies Moritz Seider and Lucas Raymond igniting things, the focus is on the future.
“(It was) as hard a year as I’ve been through professionally, and we were in a spot where we look back at it now, and think it was kind of rock bottom,” Blashill said. “(But) organizationally we started to trend in the right direction last year. We were better, and this year we have an opportunity to be better.
[Robby] Fabbri is appreciative of the return to some sense of normalcy.
“We have more freedom on the road (compared to last season),” he said. “We can go out to dinners and get out of the hotel and do things, which is nice. But you have to do your part to make sure you’re following the rules in different cities and do your part to keep yourself safe.”
