A win tonight in Arizona against the Coyotes and the Detroit Red Wings will complete a 3-1 West Coast swing and an over 5-1 mark on their six-game road trip.
“It would be huge,… forward Joakim Andersson said. “Arizona has been winning 3-4 in a row I think, so I mean, they’re a good team right now, but we forget about ourselves and we’ve play good on the road here lately.
“We should have a good chance to win this game.…
Andersson will draw back in to the lineup as Detroit goes with the traditional 12 forwards and six defencemen formation after playing 11 and 7 in Monday’s 4-2 loss at Los Angeles.
He’ll be asked to bolster a penalty-killing that was victimized for a pair of goals in Monday’s setback.
“It’s a lot about positioning and I think I read the game good, so I’m in good positions for sure, and then you’ve got to try to block some shots when you have to and that’s something I try to get better at,… Andersson said.
Another area where Andersson can step up is in the faceoff circle.
“It’s a good point in terms of the faceoffs,… Detroit coach Jeff Blashill said. “He hasn’t taken as many this year because he hasn’t played center as much. He’s been a good faceoff guy in the past. He’s a good penalty killer.
Blashill wasn’t overly bothered by the two goals his penalty killers gave up Monday. He’s more worried about the underachieving performance of the group that’s been evident for quite some time.
“We need everybody on the penalty kill to raise their level a little bit,… Blashill said. “I’m less concerned about last game as I am about the 20-game stretch. I thought last game a little bit process-wise was fine. I thought over a 20-game stretch it hasn’t been good enough.
“Mainly though, if you spend lots of time in your own end you’re going to end up getting scored on. So you’ve got to find ways to win faceoffs, gets it out, have a great penalty-kill forecheck and a great retrieval plan and get it out and he can certainly have that.…
Defensive Pairings With Alexey Marchenko a healthy scratch, these are the defense pairs the Wings will go with against the Coyotes:
Niklas Kronwall-Jonathan Ericsson
Danny DeKeyser-Kyle Quincey
Brendan Smith-Mike Green
DeKeyser and Quincey was a solid shutdown pair for the Wings last season.
“Yeah, I think DK, he’s as good as anybody in the league from the red line back to our net, both from a breakout standpoint and a defending standpoint,… Blashill said. “He’s got such great defensive instincts. I’ll put him up against anybody in the league. That’s not to say he’s not good from the red line in.
“He generally is going to play against the other team’s best forwards. Anybody we’ve had him paired with, whether it be Ericsson, Marchenko and now Quincey have done a real good job against the other team’s best forwards for the most part.
“Quincey did this last year all season for a team that went seven games against the representative in the Stanley Cup finals in Tampa and did a real good job.
“I’ve watched tons of Quincey’s clips this summer. We were looking at different things from a pro scouting standpoint, other guys that we could have maybe gone after and from my decision-making process I thought Quincey was certainly as good defensively as anybody that was available to us and could fill that role and do a great job again this year.…
By putting Smith and Green together, Blashill is going against conventional hockey wisdom that suggests two offensive-minded defenders shouldn’t play together.
“I look for the right chemistry on pairings,… Blashill said. “I’ve never been somebody who’s felt you need a stay-at-home with an offensive guy. In fact, sometimes that can be to the detriment.
“I like guys that want to have the puck together, especially when there’s a lefty and righty and you can really control play by moving together. You have two guys that I would say are really good passers, where sometimes you get a defensive guy and sometimes they don’t pass the puck as well or don’t think on the same offensive wavelength. “They don’t beat each other up the ice, they’ve jumped in the play good. We want to be on the attack with our D-men. So I really like the chemistry, I think they’ve played very well together.…
Follow me on Twitter @asktheduffer