Among the Hockey News’s Sam Stockton’s Day 3 of training camp notes is the following about both Saturday’s special teams work and Sunday’s Red and White Game (12 PM EDT):
“You’ll see many different [power play] looks” before camp is up, warned Derek Lalonde. “It’s a lot more options. We had four power play units today all with some guys in some comfortable spots. The added depth five-on-five has also added depth to our power play.”
Lalonde described the state of the man advantage as “a work in progress, but these are really good problems to be working through,” with the team of course preferring to have too many potent options as opposed to too few.
Tomorrow, Detroit will hold its annual Red-White scrimmage (streamed on the team’s social media channels). Lalonde said the plan is to begin with a period of five-on-five, then play a period of special teams, then close with a period of situational play (e.g. 3-on-3.
When asked what he’d like to see from his group tomorrow, Lalonde said, “Obviously, we’d love to see some of our D-zone [coverage] perform well tomorrow. Neutral zone is always a work-in-progress. Kind of just all of our structure, introducing it and teaching it. We would like that to be ahead of schedule, but…it’s our first step with some extra game action.”
