MLive’s Ansar Khan filed a notebook article regarding the comments made by coach Jeff Blashill and forward Sam Gagner after today’s optional practice at Little Caesars Arena, noting that the Wings’ near-two-week layoff will require some readjusting to game situations:
“When you’ve been off an awful long time, your defensive habits aren’t as good,” Red Wings coach Jeff Blashill said. “It’s just like when you don’t practice much your defensive habits aren’t as good. So now you got a whole league whose defensive habits aren’t quite there. That’s why I believe at the beginning of every year scores are higher than they are at the end of the year.
“When you’re off for a long period of time, things can be chaotic. You just lose your structure, you lose your habits, but your offensive hands can still produce.”
Gagner said attention to detail can be off after a lengthy layoff.
“You’re focused on your conditioning level and getting back and getting your timing and sometimes those little intricacies of the game take a little bit of time to get back,” he said. “We’re going to have an opportunity to practice a couple of times as a (nearly full) team and do some special teams and team play, and hopefully we come out for our first game ready to go.”
Barring any further postponements, the Red Wings’ next three games will be at home, where they are 11-3-2, significantly better than their road record (4-10-1).
