DetroitRedWings.com’s Jonathan Mills asked Red Wings coach Todd McLellan to give his impressions of the pluses and minuses of Detroit’s training camp and abbreviated preseason, all ahead of tonight’s exhibition finale against Columbus (7 PM EDT start on Detroit SportsNet/97.1 FM):
“Just the unity of the players right now is fairly good, but we haven’t really played yet,” Red Wings head coach Todd McLellan said. “I had some concern about that. Not that they’re going to be torn apart, but just how they were going to deal with all of this stuff. And to this point, the locker room, the practices, the intermingling that I do with the group, they’re handling it fairly well. I don’t want to say that’s a surprise, but that’s good to see in here.”
A lot of credit goes to Detroit’s veterans for helping foster that environment this fall, a group that largely set the tone in Thursday night’s 3-2 overtime victory over the Buffalo Sabres – a physical, rather chippy contest that included the preseason debuts of established names like Alex DeBrincat, Lucas Raymond, Moritz Seider and Andrew Copp.
Now, based on Saturday’s morning skate, McLellan is again icing a lineup of mostly NHL regulars against the Blue Jackets – though some Opening-Night roster battles are coming down to the wire.
“It’s been very competitive,” McLellan said. “And the decisions, as I’ve said, they’ll basically decide with their play who ends up being on the team and who doesn’t. Separation has been created. Some individuals are getting another opportunity tonight, but there are obvious individuals that have stepped up – players that haven’t played on our club before have stepped up – and done a real good job. They have to continue to grow their game, but it’s starting to become clear to everybody in the organization.”
With the Detroit Tigers amid their final homestand of the 2026 MLB season this weekend, it was only fitting that McLellan borrowed some baseball terminology to describe how the organization is deciding who might make up the club’s 23-man Opening-Night roster.
“A lot of the immediate evaluation goes into it, because this is who you are in the moment,” McLellan said. “They do have track records that we have to refer to. Maybe things aren’t going quite as well for them in the moment right now or somebody has hit a bunch of home runs that normally doesn’t hit the long ball, so we have to be realistic and take their whole body of work into consideration. But basically, Training Camp, last game, roster on Monday. It’s about right now. Can you help us? That’s where we’re at.”
