The Red Wings are happy to have gotten back to work at Little Caesars Arena ahead of a daunting stretch run schedule, as Andrew Copp told DetroitRedWings.com’s Jonathan Mills…
“Ten days is a long time to be away from the rink no matter if you’re skating, working out or doing nothing,” Andrew Copp said. “You need these four days. It’s been pretty upbeat and energetic so far. I think guys are excited to get back.”
Detroit went into the 4 Nations Face-Off break with plenty of momentum, going 15-4-1 from Dec. 29 – Feb. 8. Now, according to Copp, it’s about improving and carrying that momentum over into the club’s final 27 games of the regular season.
“[Red Wings head coach Todd McLellan] has been trying to make sure we’re paying attention to the details,” Copp said. “We’re staying in shifts kind of long to make sure that we’re not only physically ready, but our minds are ready to be at tip-top [shape] for games that last three hours. You can replicate as much as you want in practice, but we’re only out there for an hour. It’s hard to have that mental stamina to stay in a game for 2.5 – 3 hours after two weeks off.”
The players know mentality matters, especially as the team continues forming its identity under McLellan.
“We talked a little bit about identity again today and all the parts of the actual hockey game, but something that we talked about at the end was our togetherness, resiliency and the team that we have, in terms of handling adversity, but sticking together,” Copp said. “That has really improved since Christmas. Obviously, winning helps with that but I feel like we’re really gelling as a team.”
But the Red Wings have an incredibly difficult schedule between this weekend and the end of the regular season, as MLive’s Ansar Khan noted:
- The Red Wings have the NHL’s most difficult remaining schedule based on opponents’ points percentage (.587), according to tankathon.com.
- Out of their 27 remaining games, 18 are against teams currently in a playoff position, including 12 vs. clubs in the top eight overall.
- They have only 12 home games. Only Boston has fewer (11) among teams they’re competing with for a playoff spot.
- They play five of their final six on the road, including two sets of tough back-to-backs (Florida-Tampa Bay April 10-11 and New Jersey-Toronto April 16-17).
Moritz Seider probably speaks for the team when he says he doesn’t concern himself with the entirety of the schedule, just the next game (Saturday at home vs. Minnesota, 12:30 p.m., ABC).
“I don’t even want to know if we’re having the hardest schedule or if we’re flying the most miles in the league,” Seider said. “There are no excuses right now. We got to get points. We got to win. And no matter who we play, I think if we bring our ‘A’ game, we have a good chance of getting two points.”
Said Copp: “Anyone can beat anyone on any given night. We played Edmonton really well this year — maybe the No. 1 team in the league — and there’s some games that we lost that maybe we shouldn’t have.”
The Red Wings (28-22-5, 61 points) are 15-5-1 under McLellan and despite a 6-3 loss to Tampa Bay on Feb. 8 in their final game before the 4 Nations Face-Off break maintain the second wild card spot in the Eastern Conference, one point behind Ottawa and one point ahead of Columbus and Boston.
“It’s great that we worked hard to get ourselves in a position like that, but now we have to maintain it or even elevate our game to stay in that position and maybe climb a couple spots,” Seider said. “I think the Tampa game was a little slip there, but obviously now we have a great chance going back on track with almost like a mini-training camp, which I think will be really beneficial heading into the last third of the year.”
Coach Todd McLellan told Detroit Hockey Now’s Kevin Allen that the Red Wings will truly forge their identity over the final stretch of the season:
“Are we October to December or are we December to February?,” McLellan said Wednesday as the team prepares to resume the regular-season Saturday with a 12:30 game (ABC).
Another way to ask the same question: Are the Red Wings the inconsistent 13-17-4 Derek Lalonde team or McLellan’s 15-5-1 confident bunch? It’s a fair question because all of the momentum the Red Wings had under McLellan has probably been lost from the 4 Nations Face-off break.
“It’s not going to be easy, it’s not going to be perfect,” McLellan said. “Are we a playoff team? Close to a playoff team? Are we distant? We have got to figure all this out.”
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This week’s practices are being used like the team is having a mini-training camp. That’s important because McLellan took over the team the day after Christmas and hasn’t had enough practices to implement his full program.
“Part of that is trying to develop an identity and playing towards it,” McLellan said. “If they’re saying things, they’re grabbing messages, that’s a good thing. It doesn’t guarantee us anything moving forward, just that at this moment they’re buying in.”
The Red Wings believe they can earn a playoff spot, even though odds still seem against them.
“That’s going to be answered in the next 27 games,” McLellan said.
McLellan reiterated his points of emphasis to the Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan…
“Who are we? That’s going to get answered in the next 27 games,” McLellan said. “Are we the October-to-December, or December-to-February (Red Wings)? Who are we? It’s not going to be easy or perfect. Are we a playoff team? Close to a playoff team? Or a distant (miss)? We have to figure this out, and part of this is the belief system we’ve talked about, and develop an identity and playing towards it.”
But for the present moment, it’s all about preparation for the stretch run…
McLellan has talked about these four days of practice as a mini-training camp and it certainly has felt like it.
“It’s an opportunity to grow our game a little bit, spend more time on concepts that we think we need,” McLellan said. “We can go harder in practice in that we don’t have to conserve anything, no three games in four nights with travel or anything like that. We’ve gone hard the last couple of days and we’ll begin to taper (heading into the weekend).”
And he was happy with the Wings’ performances on the ice at the BELFOR Training Center on Wednesday afternoon:
“Usually the second day can be a little tougher than the first; you still have a lot of crap left in your legs from the day before,” McLellan said. “The intensity was just as high, and it was designed that way, and they battled to the end. No complaints about that. The ice got chewed up pretty quick, so passing was a little ragged, but that’s OK because that’s like playing late in the game.”
The Wings don’t have a game until Saturday when they host Minnesota, then entertain Anaheim the next day, before playing in Minnesota again on Tuesday. Three games in four nights, which quickly will get a team back into the swing of things.
“The answer will come Saturday and Sunday to see whether we did what we had to do to prepare,” McLellan said.
