Of Red Wings-related note this morning:
- MLive’s Ansar Khan posted a recap of the Red Wings’ 4-2 victory over the Pittsburgh Penguins last night:
The Red Wings (15-18-4) have done the job offensively (eight goals for) defensively (four goals against) and by winning the special teams battle (3-1).
“I think we’re just playing a good brand of hockey,” [Alex] Lyon said. “I don’t know if it’s any one specific thing, but we just kind of got it to go in the right direction. Todd [McLellan] really stressed the start, and then after the second, he kind of challenged us again to have another good start in the third. And I think we responded both times, so we just can’t sit back too much. I think that’s the one trap that we could fall in.”
McLellan is pleased the team’s defensive performance since its 5-2 loss to Toronto on Friday.
“I think the penalty kill, although we gave one up tonight – we’re not ever going to be perfect — has certainly eliminated some of the volume of chances against at least in the nine periods that we’ve been here,” McLellan said. “We still have work to do in the D-zone. We can get wandering around and a little bit loose. But some of the back-checking principles, some of the sort-out stuff we’re starting to see happen more regularly and I think the players value that. Odds are we’ll have a day where we give it all back and we just have to start over. That’s just how it goes. Florida Panthers did that last year all the time. You’d have a good run and you give it back all at once. You got to start again. Never perfect.”
2. The Hockey News’s Sam Stockton also posted his recap…
The Red Wings weren’t dominant Tuesday night, but they were effective in the right places and at the right times, most of all at the net front. Between [Moritz] Seider’s kick save and [J.T.] Compher’s opportunism, Detroit made the precise plays it needed to wind up on the right side of the evening’s result.
“That’s the recipe in this league,” asserted Lyon. “You gotta score. You gotta be smart and play the game the right way, that fine line of attacking but still playing smart at the same time. I think it’s just about really finding the recipe and continuing to hone that.”
Coach Todd McLellan—who earned his second win as Red Wing coach and 600th in the NHL with the result—declined to take schematic credit for revamping the defense that made that “recipe” effective Tuesday night.
“To be perfectly honest, we haven’t say down with the group and said, ‘Hey, in the D zone, we’re doing these things.’ I just think that some of the other things we’ve worked on puts us in the D zone a less amount of time,” he said. “The next step could very well be D zone. Let’s adjust a few things. Let’s talk about it. But, for the most part, they’re continuing one with some of the principles they’ve used in the past. Maybe getting after it a little harder, little faster, maybe a little smarter, like we talked about.”
3. Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff discussed Jonatan Berggren’s attempts to revive his offensive game as he earns something of a career reset under coach McLellan:
On New Year’s Eve, Berggren was ringing out the old and welcoming the new by potting a beauty of a goal to open the scoring in Detroit’s 4-2 victory over the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Getting behind the Pittsburgh defense, Berggren took a stretch pass from Vladimir Tarasenko in stride and roofed it on the glove side behind Penguins goalie Alex Nedeljkovic.
“I forgot to change, so I was a little bit late,” Berggren sheepishly admitted. “So Vladi saw me coming there, so it’s a little bit luck. But of course, then Vlad make a really good pass, and, yeah, I was lucky to score.”
To hear McLellan describe Berggren’s tally, luck had nothing to do with it.
“I think Bergey’s played pretty well in the three games since I’ve been here,” McLellan said. “But there has to be a reward for all the work you put in at some point.
“If he’s going to be an offensive guy, they feel like they have to score to validate some of the things they’re doing. And he can drive home tonight and feel good about that. But he also raised the bar now and we’ll continue to challenge him. That’s the game we need every night now. He played a little more free, finished well. He did the things that I saw him do earlier in the first two games along the boards and the important stuff. But the offense came out tonight.”
And the Free Press’s Helene St. James wrote a very good article about coach McLellan’s attempts to adjust to coaching the Red Wings as he attempts to find a permanent residence for himself and his wife in Metro Detroit:
McLennan, 57, was tasked by general manager Steve Yzerman to turn around the Wings and get them looking more like the Eastern Conference wild-card chasing team Yzerman expected them to be when the season began. McLennan’s time as an assistant launched an NHL head-coaching tenure that has taken him from the San Jose Sharks to the Edmonton Oilers to the Los Angeles Kings. His 1,100-plus games of coaching at that level are making an immediate impression in the locker room.
“You can tell that he’s been around,” Copp said. “He’s been around 20 years as a head coach. Lot of experience there. So there’s that, but just how he’s explaining things, and video, drawing things up and drills, and getting us to trust ourselves again a little bit instinctually, which is huge. It’s been good.”
Good and, for McLellan, hectic. Last week he spent Christmas Day flying from Kelowna, where he was enjoying the holiday with his family, to Los Angeles to pick up some clothes, then the next day he flew to Detroit. Since then, it’s been tough to balance work and life.
“I have family that’s more important to me than hockey, I can tell you that right now,” he said. “And I want to make sure that that is taken care of, too.
“And quite frankly it’s my wife and I, both my boys are married and on their own, but they’re interested in what’s going on and where are you going to live. I have to balance that and we’ll get after that as quick as we can and just get comfortable.”
