Red Wings coach Todd McLellan told MLive’s Ansar Khan that he’s emphasizing an increase in team toughness, seeking to hone an edge to the Red Wings’ play that will make the team more difficult to play against:
“Our team has to harden up a little bit,” McLellan said this week during training camp. “It has to get harder in front of the net. We have to try to push them to become that.”
He wants a heavier and harder forecheck.
“If we’re able to go back and win pucks along the boards and play in areas that aren’t comfortable and do it better than we have in the past, we spend less time in our zone,” McLellan said. “If we’re better around our net, heavier, firmer, and going after the puck, we spend less time in our zone. We have to be harder, and we’re going to ask the players to do that.”
Coach McLellan told Khan that the departures of Patrick Kane, James van Riemsdyk, and David Perron mean that the team can add a physical edge to through its new personnel:
“The pieces that left and the pieces that potentially could be coming in, they play the game a little bit different than some of those guys did,” McLellan said. “[Michael] Brandsegg-Nygard’s going to make our team harder, assuming he makes the team, which I think he can. [Viktor] Arvidsson’s a very competitive individual. He’s going to drag people. [Keegan] Kolesar is going to make us heavier, harder to play against. Now we’ve got to get some other guys that are on our roster that can provide us that and become heavier and harder to play against. And then collectively, we might score more by doing that.”
Both Andrew Copp and Kolesar believe that the team can play harder in many senses of the term:
“Are our hits going to go up? Yeah, sure. That probably needs to go up,” Copp said. “But investing physically in the game, whether that’s faceoffs, winning battles, taking a hit to make a play, blocking shots. There’s so much that goes into the hardening and physicality of a team. It’s definitely not just hits.”
But physicality is important and Kolesar annually ranked among the league leaders in hits while playing for Vegas.
“My first camp where I’ve seen guys hitting,” Kolesar said. “It’s usually been good sticks and let’s not try and kill each other. But it looks like guys are really getting into it. And I think that comes with just the shortened camp; you got to get into game mode quickly. I think everyone so far has taken onus on themselves of bringing a little bit more. And if I can do what I can do and bring that role, I think guys can feed off it well.”
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