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Wings' Kronwall learning to deal with pain |
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For veteran Detroit Red Wings defenseman Niklas Kronwall, the amount he will be able to play for the team this season will come down to how much pain he can endure from his surgically-repaired knee.
“It’s about finding a way to play with what’s going on,” explained Kronwall, who will be on the sideline when the Wings hit the ice Friday for the first day of training camp in Traverse City, Mich.
“I won’t be starting day one at camp with the guys. I’ll be skating a lot on my own up there. But I’m still making progress, still moving in the right direction, it feels. It’s feeling better and better on the ice.
“I don’t know if it will ever be pain-free, but hopefully I’ll be able to be out there in a position where it doesn’t bite as much.”
That can’t be good news for a Red Wings team that knows how much Kronwall, 35, struggled last season to play effectively through his knee issues, especially when he reveals that the only time the pain is really severe is when he tries to skate.
“I was feeling pretty good until I hit the ice again,” Kronwall said. “So right now, it’s just about getting the feel on the ice and then go from there.”
“The last two weeks it’s been pretty good, I’m back on the ice skating. So it’s going in the right direction.”
Kronwall opted out of playing for Sweden in the World Cup of Hockey after his knee issues flared up. As much as it hurt him to do so, he knew it was his only course of action.
“There’s no doubt, that was a major disappointment, there’s no hiding that,” Kronwall admitted. “But in saying that, there was just no chance of going there. Then going there, you’re sacrificing not just the start of the season but maybe potentially something more.
“I feel this was the only right decision, there was only one decision to be made but of course, I’m very disappointed that I’m not farther down the road than I am right now. I would have hoped obviously with a few months at home, I would have been a little farther down the road.”
As for going under the knife again, Kronwall made it clear that this isn’t an option if he desires to continue to be a Red Wing.
“I think the surgery that was talked about was something that wouldn’t be the best idea if I wanted to play again, let’s just put it that way,” Kronwall explained.
He’s Back
The Wings released their training camp roster on Wednesday and it includes fan favorite (just kidding) Dan Cleary, invited to camp on a pro tryout.
The Wings liked how Cleary mentored some of their up and coming talent with AHL Grand Rapids last season, so that’s likely his destination should he receive a contract offer.
The entire camp roster:
Team Yzerman
Forwards: Louis-Marc Aubry, Mike Borkowski, Mitch Callahan, Colin Campbell, Dan Cleary, Darren Helm, Tomas Nosek, Gustav Nyquist, Teemu Pulkkinen*, Riley Sheahan, Givani Smith, Ben Street, Evgeni Svechnikov, Eric Tangradi, Henrik Zetterberg*
Defensemen: Conor Allen, Dylan Coghlan, Danny DeKeyser, Niklas Kronwall*, Brian Lashoff, Xavier Ouellet, Robbie Russo, Vili Saarijarvi*, Brendan Smith, Ryan Sproul
Goaltenders: Jared Coreau, Cal Heeter, Edward Pasquale
Team Howe
Forwards: Andreas Athanasiou, Tyler Bertuzzi, Kyle Criscuolo, Matthew Ford, Martin Frk, Luke Glendening, Tomas Jurco*, Matt Lorito, Anthony Mantha, Adam Marsh*, Drew Miller, Zach Nastasiuk, Steve Ott, Dylan Sadowy, Dominic Turgeon
Defensemen: Jonathan Ericsson, Mike Green, Joe Hicketts, Filip Hronek, Nick Jensen, Nathan Paetsch, Dan Renouf, Jordan Sambrook
Goaltenders: Jimmy Howard, Jake Paterson
Team Lindsay
Forwards: Justin Brazeau, Luke Coleman, Jeff de Wit, Alex Globke, Luke Kirwan, Mathew Santos
Defensemen: Matthew Caito
Goaltenders: Stephen Dhillon, Connor Hicks
* denotes injured players, whose participation in on-ice and off-ice sessions may be limited
With so many players injured and away playing in the World Cup, the Wings don’t have enough for three full teams, which will alter their normal training camp format.
“We had known going into training camp that with the World Cup we’d be missing a significant number of players, guys that will have a real impact on our season,” Detroit coach Jeff Blashill said. “So that part doesn’t change.
“We’ve got a few extra injuries to deal with, but we already set the structure to be a little different. We’ll have two full teams and a third group rather than three full teams. We’ll do some different things in terms of scrimmages, we won’t just have pure scrimmages.
“The first couple of days we’ll do some specialty team scrimmages and a three-on-three and four-on-four scrimmage. We’ll leave the main scrimmage for the Red-White game.
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