Twenty-six games into the NHL season, there are plenty of valid complaints that can be registered regarding the performance to date of the Detroit Red Wings.
The play of captain Henrik Zetterberg isn’t one of them.
No, he isn’t the same player who won the Conn Smythe Trophy in 2007-08, Detroit’s last Stanley Cup-winning campaign but at 36, the captain of the Wings is displaying that there’s plenty of hockey left in him.
“Z’s been real good all year,… Detroit coach Jeff Blashill said. “He just seems to continue to go. Z’s one of those funny players where the more ice time he gets the more juice he has in his legs it seems like.…
A summer knee injury that scuttled his chance to captain Sweden in the World Cup of Hockey left Zetterberg out until the beginning of the regular season, and things didn’t start well for him. He went the entire month of October without a goal.
Lately, though, Zetterberg has been producing, with goals in each of Detroit’s last three games and points in four successive games.
“Yeah, I’m glad to be out there,… Zetterberg said. “I’m glad to still be able to help out the team. We have a fun group here, a good group of guys.
“I’ve been feeling OK. Hopefully can get a little better even.…
Since moving back to center after beginning the year on left wing, Zetterberg admits that he feels more at home, in a more natural setting.
“Yeah, we’ve been talking about this for a few years now,… Zetterberg said. “I’m more comfortable in the center but if they want me as a wing I play on the wing.
“But right now I’m playing center and I’m happy to do that.…
He really appears to have unearthed some chemistry working between left-winger Tomas Tatar and right-winger Anthony Mantha. That trio has combined for five goals and six assists over the past six games.
“I think both Tuna and Mo, we’ve been playing together here for five or six games and it’s nice to get some chemistry going,… said Zetterberg, who then seemed to take a veiled shot at Blashill’s line-shuffling techniques.
“It’s nice to see that we can keep the lines together. It’s the one thing that we’ve probably been lacking is offense sometimes, and I think if we keep the lines together it will probably be easier to get that.…
The way Zetterberg keeps it together has a lot to do with the keeping the Wings going through what has so far been an up and down season.
“We’ve been having our back a little bit against the wall, digging our own hole, and he’s been stepping up as the leader he is,… Detroit center Frans Nielsen said. “So it’s been great to see.…
After years of watching from afar, first-year Wing Nielsen is going to school studying Zetterberg’s game up close.
“I always looked up to Henrik, me as a player,… Nielsen said. “I always watched him on TV a lot, I liked playing against him. But now being on the same team, he does all the little things I think the normal fan doesn’t always see. But everything he does out there is right, he never does anything wrong out there. He always makes the right plays, he’s always in the right position.
“It’s just awesome to see, especially for a guy like me playing center. It’s amazing just watching him. Even sitting on the bench, I like watching him closely all the time because you can learn so much from a guy like that.
“He’s just a true pro, I think. Everything he does is hockey. But other than that, he’s not the fastest guy out there, he doesn’t have the hardest shot and all, but I think his hockey IQ is higher than anyone else. I think he’s just so much smarter than everyone else. He’s always in the right position, always good stick. So it’s just all the little things combined that makes him so good.…
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