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Balance on back end paving path to success |
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Balance is a good thing, whether you’re talking about your diet, your hockey team’s scoring, or in this case, the back end of the Detroit Red Wings.
As they face the Carolina Hurricanes Tuesday at Joe Louis Arena, the Wings will do so with defense pairings of Danny DeKeyser-Mike Green, Jonathan Ericsson-Alexey Marchenko and Brendan Smith-Ryan Sproul – three left-hand shots (DeKeyser, Ericsson, Smith) and three right-hand shots (Green, Marchenko, Sproul).
It wasn’t that long ago when the Wings suited up six left-hand shots on their defense.
“Everything being equal, you’d prefer to have three righties and three lefties,” Detroit coach Jeff Blashill said. “You still want to take the best lineup available but it certainly makes life easier.
“It allows a number of things, whether it’s the offensive blue line, where it gives you the opportunity to one-time more pucks, or whether it’s breaking pucks out of your own end. It’s much easier.
“When you’re on your normal hand you can see the whole ice in the neutral zone, so there’s lots of advantages to that.
“Hopefully we can benefit from that.”
Only One Change
The Wings will go with the same lineup that beat San Jose Saturday at the JLA with one exception, Petr Mrazek taking over in goal for Jimmy Howard.
Left-winger Justin Abdelkader, a late scratch Saturday due to a lower body injury, skated for a long time Tuesday morning but won’t answer the bell.
“He’s day to day,” Detroit coach Jeff Blashill said of Abdelkader. “I’d expect him to mostly likely be available Thursday (at St. Louis) but we’ll continue to evaluate.”
Kronwall Update
Detroit defenseman Niklas Kronwall (knee) continues to alternate workouts between the team and on his own and there’s no specific timetable as to when he might be game ready.
“He’s on a plan where he’s a couple days on and a day off kind of approach,” Blashill explained. (Monday) he skated with (strength coach) Mike Kadar, who kind of bridges the gap between the athletic trainers to when they can skate with us as a team.
“Obviously Kronner has done some stuff with us as a team and he’ll keep doing that. He’s got to come where he can go full with us three days in a row before he’s going to have an opportunity to play.”
Jurco On Schedule
Right-winger Tomas Jurco (back surgery) remains on target for a mid-November return to action.
“I wouldn’t expect him before the second week of November that he’d be ready to play,” Blashill said.
Green Recognized
Detroit defenseman Mike Green, who scored a hat-trick in their home-opening win over Ottawa on Oct. 17, was named the NHL’s third star of the week, and Blashill believes that Green, with a year under his belt as a Red Wing, has finally acclimatized to his surroundings in Detroit after spending a decade with the Washington Capitals.
“I think sometimes we look at these guys as players, but they’re people and when you move from one organization to a new organization it’s an adjustment when you’ve been with one for a long time,” Blashill said. “It’s an adjustment socially, an adjustment with your family, an adjustment in so many areas, an adjustment to how people coach and the culture. I think he’s much more comfortable.
“From a coaching staff we know him better, too and that allows us to utilize him better. He’s been really, really good. He’s using his assets, his assets is his skating and he’s got a great attack mentality and he’s using his feet both offensively and defensively.”
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