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Daley still day to day

February 8, 2019, 11:21 PM ET [0 Comments]
Bob Duff
Detroit Red Wings Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
There’s only one person that Trevor Daley intends to listen to when it comes determining his date of return to the Detroit Red Wings’ lineup and that’s himself.

“I wanted to play a while ago,” Daley frankly admitted to Mlive.com. “I’m just going to listen to my body and when I’m ready, I’ll be good to go.”

The Wings remain hopeful that Daley, who has missed 14 games with a broken foot, will be able to return to game action during the club’s upcoming three-game road trip that gets underway Saturday in Buffalo against the Sabres.

“I don’t have that answer today,” Wings coach Jeff Blashill said. “We’ll take those things day by day. We’ll see. He’s not going to play tomorrow in Buffalo for sure. I don’t see him playing in Chicago. So we’ll see.

“We’ll see if he’s ready for the game on Tuesday (at Nashville).”

Daley indicated that his progress has been steady but incremental.

“I’ve been getting better every day, feeling a little better,” Daley said. “I’m still not where I would like to be but every day there’s some progress.”

This is his third injury absence of the season. Daley missed four games in October with an upper-body injury and five games in December due to a lower-body injury.

“Unfortunately, I’ve been dealing with kind of the two same injuries so I know where I need to get to, I know where I need to be,” Daley said. “I was hoping it didn’t take this long but I want to make sure I’m good and ready and I’m strong when I come back.”

Defensive Departure
The Wings got away from their recent spate of solid defensive efforts in their last outing and ended up dropping a 4-3 decision to the Vegas Golden Knights, halting Detroit’s three-game winning streak.

“We gave away easy goals,” Blashill said. “I didn’t like the easy goals, in terms of just nonsensical plays by us. You can’t give up those types of easy goals. We’ve got to make sure we make it harder for the other team.”

What the Wings can’t be doing is sacrificing defense in pursuit of offensive chances.

“Last game we took a step backwards as far as our defensive side of the game,” defenseman Niklas Kronwall said. “I thought we created a lot of chances, more chances than we’ve had in a little bit, but we have to tighten up defensively.

“It’s going to be hard to win games scoring four or five goals. That’s not the identity that we have in this room.”

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