The Red Wings begin a stretch of 3 games to be played over the course of 3 nights tonight at home vs. Toronto (7 PM EDT start on Bally Sports Detroit). As such, the Free Press’s Helene St. James took note of the fact that the Wings practiced particularly hard on Wednesday, playing “small area games” of 3-on-3 hockey, and then taking sprints to end Wednesday’s practice.
Why undergo all of that work and mental and physical wear-and-tear while the team’s in the middle of a stretch where they’re playing 6 times over the course of 6 nights (Monday’s double-header included)?
“You just have to make sure your brain is working, that you’re back in a game mentality,” captain Dylan Larkin said Wednesday. “I think everyone in here has a good understanding of the systems at this point in camp, but it’s getting your legs and your brain going, getting your awareness set up. That’s my main objective the next few games.”
The cramped schedule — the Wings play six games in six days this week — means the NHL regulars among the 55 players at camp (Alex Chiasson was released from his professional tryout Wednesday) mostly are split into different groups for games. But as the regular season nears, there’s extra focus on getting the NHL’ers looks together. Most of Wednesday’s practice was spent on special teams, featuring Larkin on a unit with Patrick Kane, Alex DeBrincat, Lucas Raymond and Moritz Seider and another unit comprised of Erik Gustafsson, Vladimir Tarasenko, Jonatan Berggren, J.T. Compher and Joe Veleno.
“We checked off a lot of boxes,” head coach Derek Lalonde said. “Some other areas — some goalie-pull situations, some four-on-three, some five-on-three. Just a necessity throughout camp.”
The heavy emphasis on three-on-three — aka, overtime play — stems from what happened at the end of last season, when the Wings missed out on the playoffs by virtue of a tiebreaker. “Lessons learned from last year,” Lalonde said. “One point here or there makes a ton of difference as you’re growing and building on this. Three-on-three is very important for us.”
Continued (paywall); aside from pointing out that Cam Talbot’s going to get the net for the full game tonight, with Alex Lyon entertaining the Ottawa Senators in a home game tomorrow, it’s worth noting that there’s a bit of a traditional rhythm that the Red Wings use toward the end of the preseason.
Usually speaking, the Wings have undertaken 1 or 2 full “dress reharsals” with a near-full-NHL roster during their final home game(s), with a final group of prospects and AHL’ers making the trip to Toronto on Saturday.
Detroit’s never played in 3 straight games to close the exhibition season, however, so I’m not certain whether the Wings might stretch out their lineups to minimize wear and tear.
Regardless of how things end up, pressure ramps up over the next three games, and the pace of play ramps up over the next three games as the regular season approaches.
This is the time when management begins to make its decisions as to how the opening-night roster is going to look and where prospects are in initial “pecking order” for call-ups from Grand Rapids.
We’ll also have to see how try-out Austin Watson and Griffins players further down the depth chart do in terms of attempting to impress both the Wings and Griffins’ brass, because this year’s AHL team is going to be particularly competitive in terms of battles for jobs on the Griffins and spillover onto the ECHL’s Toledo Walleye.
Finally, St. James posted a clip of Larkin and Lalonde speaking about the Wings’ situation:
