Coach McLellan’s ‘mini camp’ is a teaching experience

As the Red Wings continue their “mini camp” today, Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff took note of Wings coach Todd McLellan’s belief that now is the time to impart as much wisdom as his charges are able to take in:

“They are not video or meeting fatigued anymore because they haven’t had it for eight days, so now’s a good time to tap them a little bit,” McLellan said. “We spent a little more time on video, stuff we had talked about but really hadn’t seen. We spent time showing them video of our team here instead of showing them maybe L.A. Kings clips to explain our points. We can now show Detroit Red Wings clips, which is a real positive. And then we took it onto the ice.”

Some NHL teams will be utilizing the four days of practice as a conditioning camp. They’ll want to ensure the players have their legs back under them.

That’s also part of the package for the Red Wings. But McLellan intends to mesh conditioning with the learning of new concepts.

“We could have just lined them up and said, ‘skate,’” McLellan explained. “We get nothing out of that. But we did do that with a lot of game-scenario situations involved. I think we got better condition and got our legs going again, but we did it with a purpose, a game purpose. We spent (Tuesday) working on offensive concepts, forecheck and entries and we’ll start working back on our end (on Wednesday). There’s going to be some special teams, faceoff scenarios we haven’t even talked about any of that since we’ve been here.”

He won’t get everything implemented.

“Not enough time,” McLellan said.

Continued; the “new coach” has a four-day (now three-day) window with which to continue implementing his systems of play. This is the time for his players to listen and learn;

Update: Here’s a little more from the Free Press’s Helene St. James:

For the rest of the Wings, it was back to work Tuesday. Well, everyone except assistant coach Trent Yawney, who like coach Todd McLellan moved his belongings from Los Angeles to Detroit. “Yawns has a dog that’s almost the size of a horse, so he and his wife drove and ran into weather,” McLellan said.

“The players are, I think they’re excited to be back here,” McLellan said. “They are not video-or-meeting fatigued any more because they haven’t had it for eight days, so now is a real good time to tap them a little bit. We have spent time showing them video of our time here instead of showing them maybe L.A. Kings clips. We can now show Detroit Red Wings clips, which is a real positive.

“And then we took it onto the ice, and there was a lot of skating, up and down. Long skating, try and work them back into it. And we’ll build as the next few days go on with new concepts and new ideas.”

The Wings (28-22-5) sit in the second wild-card spot in the East, with 27 games left on the schedule.

“They’re going to be huge games to get into the playoffs,” Kane said.