The hue and cry from the masses is overwhelming.
Give Andreas Athanasiou more ice time.
Insert Teemu Pulkkinen into the lineup.
Recall Anthony Mantha from AHL Grand Rapids immediately.
If there’s one thing Detroit Red Wings fans do better than any fan base in the NHL, it’s push the panic button. And yet again this time, that mechanism is primed and ready to go.
Down 2-0 to the Tampa Bay Lightning in their opening-round Stanley Cup series, as the Wings come home for Game 3 Sunday at Joe Louis Arena, Detroit fans are doing their best imitation of Yaphet Kotto’s character in Alien.
The Wings, who must win four of the next five games to take the series, are doing their best not to follow suit.
“We’re not looking at it as four out of five,… Detroit left-winger Justin Abdelkader said. “Obviously, that’s what we’ll end up having to do.
“We’re just looking at Game 3 here Sunday. If we can get the win here and obviously take care of our home ice, do our job here, where we’ve played really well, then it shifts to a best of three.…
Downsizing the mission ahead of them was Detroit coach Jeff Blashill’s mission statement as he prepped his team for Game 3.
“My message is to winning the hockey game tomorrow,… Blashill said. “We want to learn from the mistakes we made and we want to accentuate the positives we’ve had and focus on winning the hockey game tomorrow. That’s it.
“The series isn’t over after two games so let’s focus on trying to win a hockey game.…
Powering Up With a meagre a one-for-10 slate through two games, getting the power play clicking again is one method that could get Detroit back into the series.
The Wings’ power play enjoyed its best run of the season last month after rookie forward Mantha was recalled from AHL Grand Rapids. During a 10-game stint, his first taste of NHL action, Mantha scored his first two NHL goals on the power play but Blashill indicated that consideration wasn’t given to recalling Mantha to give the unit a boost, noting that the net-front presence role that Mantha played is being capably filled by Abdelkader and Riley Sheahan.
“No there hasn’t,… Blashill said when asked if any thought was giving to bringing Mantha back to the big club. “I think both Abby and Sheahan have done a real good job net front, so no. “I would say we obviously scored on that last power play, which was a key one. I think the bigger issue is finding a way to deliver the pucks to the net. I don’t think our net presence has been an issue.
“We haven’t had as nearly as many pucks delivered to the net for multi reasons. One, they do a good job blocking shots. When we went on that hot stretch for about a month we found ways to deliver a lot of pucks to the net. When you do that you create lots of chaos and your big men in front have a chance to jam home rebounds as Mantha did those couple times, but Sheahan’s shown the propensity to do that and certainly Abdelkader as well.…
Whither Pulkkinen? With delivering pucks to the net the issue, might Blashill be giving some thought to returning Pulkkinen and his potentially lethal one timer to the Detroit power play?
“What I would say we’ve given thought to everything and we’ll make lineup decisions tomorrow,… Blashill said. “Pulkky has at times, certainly for me in the American League, been able to one-time pucks. He hasn’t done as good of a job in a very limited opportunity in the NHL.
“I think as he gets more opportunity he will deliver lots to the net, but can you get comfortable enough in one game is something we have to measure and decide as we decide out lineup tomorrow.…
Pulkkinen hasn’t played since March 13 and hasn’t scored a goal since Nov. 21, so Blashill admitted that rink rust might be an issue were the Wings to suit him up for Game 3.
“I think it’s a concern, so as we make our lineup decisions … I’ve said this lots, we have lots of good players,… Blashill said. “There’s good players in the lineup and good players not in the lineup, and as you go down 0-2 you evaluate and say does one of the good players sitting out give you a dimension that maybe one of the good players in the lineup doesn’t?
“We’ll evaluate that (and) rust is certainly something we’ll look at as well.…
AA Treatment With the way things have been going for Detroit, there are no doubt fans out there that might be in need of AA, and there are also fans that feel the need for more AA.
AA being Athanasiou.
He’s seen limited duty through two games but to those who insist Athanasiou deserves greater responsibility, Blashill was ready with his answer, drawing parallels from his AHL coaching experience between Athanasiou and Tampa Bay stars Tyler Johnson and Nikita Kucherov.
“This seems to be a hot topic,… Blashill said. “I like Double A as a player. I think Double A is a good player.
“Johnson was the MVP of the American League. Kucherov’s numbers in the American League were off the charts. Double A wasn’t at that level in the American League. “Double A is a good player who’s growing. Double A will prove whether or not he can an elite player, but when he left the American League he was not yet an elite player, so to think all of a sudden he’s going to come here and be an elite player I think is asking a lot of him.
“What I have thought is he’s shown flashes of elite and that’s why we’ve used him in the minutes that we’ve used him. I got him out there late in (Game 2) in a critical moment in a shift with Pav (Datsyuk) and Z (Henrik Zetterberg) and in those moments he’s got to make sure he executes at a high level.…
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