DetroitRedWings.com’s Jonathan Mills looks back at Andrew Copp’s 2022-2023 season this morning:
While his Detroit Red Wings teammates prepared for the 2022-23 season throughout training camp and the preseason, Andrew Copp was rehabbing from offseason abdominal surgery.
Copp did recover to make his Red Wings debut on Opening Night, but the 29-year-old forward admitted he was not his normal self at the start of his first campaign in Detroit.
“Especially in the beginning of the season, I don’t think I was playing my best,” Copp said in his end-of-season media session. “I got very pass happy. Kind of related to the injury, not being able to drive and skate with the puck as well as I would have liked.”
But Copp got healthier as the season progressed and finished with 42 points, including a career-high 33 assists, and was one of only three Red Wings skaters to play all 82 games.
“As the year went on, I thought he had a bigger impact,” Red Wings Executive Vice President and General Manager Steve Yzerman said. “He was very good on our penalty kill. He’s a very good defensive player. He was one of our plus players and played a lot of hard minutes.”
Continued; Copp will definitely be a better player after a year’s worth of recovery from his core muscle surgery, as well as a year’s worth of acclimation to the Red Wings’ systems of play.
