The Red Wings’ management team, and specifically speaking, its general manager, tends to speak with the Red Wings’ head coach on a daily basis about player personnel matters. That was true for Derek Lalonde, and it’s true for Todd McLellan.
As the Hockey News’s Sam Stockton notes, coach McLellan is not “tipping his hand” as to whether the Wings will “buy” at the trade deadline, and that’s good:
However, when asked about that possibility after Thursday’s practice, coach Todd McLellan answer coolly, saying, “I’m not prepared to answer that question right now. That’s a March question. I think the trade deadline’s in March. I don’t even know when it is.”
“We’re a full month away,” he added. “We’ve got so much in front of us right now, so that’s not a question I’m going to answer right now.” When informed by a reporter that the Red Wings play just eight more times before that date, McLellan quipped, “When it gets down to two or three, maybe we’ll figure it out.”
McLellan was also asked whether the international break for the 4 Nations Face-Off will give he and general manager Steve Yzerman an extended chance to unpack their plans. The coach once again declined to embrace that possibility. Instead, he emphasized that those conversations are constant and ongoing, therefore the break is unnecessary to spur them.
“Yes, it is, but it’s nothing special, because we do this [all the time],” McLellan said. “We just spent a half hour talking hockey and teams and players and things like that, so we do that on a regular basis, almost daily. So this break isn’t gonna change a lot. There may be things that come up and we discuss, but I don’t think it’s going to throw our routine out of whack.”
