As DetroitRedWings.com’s Jonathan Mills notes, the Red Wings’ participants in media availabilities today spoke unprompted regarding the fact that the team feels it’s in the process of establishing a better, steadier work ethic in year two of the Lalonde administration:
“The hard work has to start here, or else it’s probably not going to start,” [Alex] DeBrincat said Friday. “I think we really need to grind during camp, and it will become a lot easier during the year.”
DeBrincat is amidst his first training camp with Detroit after being acquired via trade with the Ottawa Senators in July. The Farmington Hills, Mich., native said he and his new teammates are actively building habits to help them become “the hardest working team out there.”
‘We need to pin down our systems and work on that, then it becomes second nature to everyone,” DeBrincat said. “It’s just predictable out there. Everyone knows what we’re doing. I think also just the work ethic out there. If everyone is going hard and competing, we all are competing for jobs here. I think once that level is to a certain point, it just becomes easier and easier to compete at that same level every single day. That carries into games.”
Forward David Perron said he noticed an uptick in intensity on Day 2 of camp.
“We go into the practice, and we don’t just wait around to kind of see what the system is going to be or what kind of drills we are going to do,” Perron said. “I think the older guys are all familiar with what we’re supposed to do out on the ice. We can push the pace in practice. That’s exactly what we’ve done the first two days already.”
Continued; the Wings have been physical and intense on the ice over the course of the first two days of training camp, and I don’t expect the intensity to let up over the course of Saturday or the Red vs. White Game on Sunday.
