SAN JOSE, Calif. — Half a dozen Detroit Red Wings, most of them on the injured list or taxi squad, partook in an optional practice Monday; the rest sat through meetings.
The Wings want to turn the tide of their season-long woes on the road, where they are 4-11-2, in general and salvage this trip to California in particular when they play the Sharks on Tuesday at SAP Center.
Those not on the ice included Dylan Larkin, who left Sunday’s game with an upper-body injury, and fellow top-line forward Tyler Bertuzzi, who raced off after sustaining a cut. Coach Jeff Blashill said Larkin was undergoing further evaluation and expected to have a better feel for both players’ status at Tuesday’s morning skate.
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The regular squad needed a bit of breather Monday, after playing back-to-back at Los Angeles and Anaheim. In the meetings, Blashill stressed that while the Wings (16-16-4) have just one point in their last three road games, dating to pre-Christmas at Carolina, they were the ones with the better quantity of scoring chances against the Hurricanes and the Ducks.
Breaking down games that way, rather than simply looking at the results (5-3 loss to the Hurricanes, 4-0 to the Kings, and 4-3 in a shootout to the Ducks) works better, especially for a team trying to move the needle upwards of .500.
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“I think chances can really take the emotion out of it with the wins and losses and and can tell how you really played,” Blashill said. “That can be true when you don’t win and it can be true when you win. We certainly with our guys about that part of it. My bigger focus is on getting better and we had a meeting where we need to get better and some areas we did do well enough. We want to improve and become a better hockey team than we are right now. To do that, there are certain things we need to do better.”
Setting a tone when the puck drops is one area of focus. The Wings never recovered from their poor start against the Kings, but stabilized after a shaky first five minutes against the Ducks. Veteran defenseman Marc Staal has been impressing upon his teammates that the Wings need to be less passive on the road, especially at the start of games.
In addition to advice from within, this trip affords an opportunity to hear advice from above, as general manager Steve Yzerman is on the trip and perched in visiting arenas’ press boxes during games.
“Certainly when Steve is on the trip, I talk to him after every game,” Blashill said. “He’s got a lot of experience and is a very, very smart hockey guy, so I pick his brain in a lot of areas. We talk about our team and go over things. We’ve had good communication that way and I’ve learned lots from Steve. He sees the game from a different angle — when you’re up on top in a rink, it’s different than on the bench. That perspective is important. So I try to get that perspective from him whenever possible.”
Contact Helene St. James at hstjames@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @helenestjames. Read more on the Detroit Red Wings and sign up for our Red Wings newsletter. Her book, The Big 50: The Detroit Red Wings is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Triumph Books. Personalized copies available via her e-mail.