Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff took note of some of Red Wings forward Lucas Raymond’s comments about playing for Team Sweden ahead of tonight’s Four Nations Face-Off opener between the Swedes and Team USA (8 PM on TNT/Max/Sportsnet/TVA Sports):
“I think anytime you put on your national team jersey and get to play for your country, it’s always an honor and something that I think a lot of guys take a lot of pride in,” Raymond said. “So it’s always exciting. And then obviously playing with guys you normally don’t. A lot of high profile players are going to play important minutes for their teams.”
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In practice leading up to Wednesday’s tournament opener against Canada, Raymond is skating on Sweden’s third line with Jesper Bratt of the New Jersey Devils and Joel Eriksson Ek of the Minnesota Wild. He’s also working with Sweden’s No. 1 power-play unit.
While many of his teammates are off somewhere tropical, thinking about anything but hockey, he’s looking to use this tournament as a springboard toward driving the Red Wings into the NHL playoffs for the first time since 2016 – oddly enough, the previous year that there was an NHL best on best tournament, the World Cup of Hockey.
“You can look at it different ways,” Raymond said. “I think it all depends on kind of what mindset you’re going with it. I think it’s going to be an energy boost playing those type of games in those type of environments. And yeah, no rust to dust off when we get back.”
