The Detroit Red Wings play 10 times over the course of October, and they begin with a gauntlet of three games in 5 nights against the Penguins, Predators and Rangers, followed by the back half of home-and-home series against Nashville and New York. Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff discusses the necessity of the Red Wings starting strongly this morning:
“It’s real,” Red Wings coach Derek Lalonde said of the challenging first month his team is facing. “Sometimes you get a stretch of games when you’re just playing some really good competition. And we just happen to have Pittsburgh, the Rangers twice and Nashville twice for our first five games.”
If the Wings were to launch the season say 3-6-1, they’d be giving themselves a rugged climb to get back into the race. It’s not impossible to do, but it does make reaching the objective that much harder.
They’re going to have to hit the ice on top of their game from the get-go. Lalonde, for one, believes he’s got a team that will be proving capable of meeting that challenge.
“No matter what our competition is, I still think it’s about us and getting our game in order to play the right way,” Lalonde said. “And obviously we’ll certainly need it with the caliber of competition we’re going to start to season with.”
For any team, if they want to be a success and ultimately be a legitimate Stanley Cup contender, they’ll need to face up to and overcome challenging tasks such as this one. In Larkin’s mind, it all comes down to embracing the opportunity to excel.
“We’re excited to get back to Little Caesars Arena and play in front of our fans,” Larkin said. “I can’t tell you how many times I thought about that. Our last home game against Montreal, I’d watch the video of Lucas (Raymond) scoring with the goalie pulled and that atmosphere was the best it’s been since the building opened and I played a game there. So I’ve talked to a lot of our fans. They’re excited for us to be back. So I expect our fans, I’m hoping our fans can, can like they were last year, be there for us and be excited as we are.”
Continued; as Duff says, it’s essential to not struggle coming out of the gate if the Wings are to make a playoff push.
