Red Wings to get boost in lineup with return of Mike Green

WINNIPEG, Manitoba — Mike Green declared himself ready to return, a boost for the Detroit Red Wings even as it comes too late for the managerial side.

Green said after Thursday’s practice at MTS Place he will play Friday when the Wings face the Winnipeg Jets. It’ll be Green’s first game since a hit Feb. 15 at Tampa Bay that aggravated a neck injury dating to last season. His 29 points in 56 games leads team defensemen.

“He brings offense in a variety of ways,” coach Jeff Blashill said. “One is on the power play — he’s a weapon up top. One is just him jumping in the play — he really pushes up the ice, but also just his ability to break out and make outlet passes. He’s one of our best passers. Mike has really become a real top-four defenseman in the NHL on any team. He’s really built his defensive game up as well, so he’s a big piece for us.”

Green, 32, might have been a big piece for a Stanley Cup contender had he not been injured leading up to Monday’s trade deadline. The Lightning and the Capitals both had interest, but were wary as the missed games grew. Furthermore, once the New York Rangers became sellers, the Lightning ended up successfully pursuing a trade for defenseman Ryan McDonagh.

Green had consented to waiving his no-trade clause, but no good offer materialized.

“Obviously it was bad timing,” Green said. He’d had “a few discussions, maybe a handful,” with general manager Ken Holland about trade scenarios. Green learned 30 minutes before the 3 p.m. closing bell that he wasn’t going anywhere.

“At the end of the day, I’m here, I’m focused and I’m happy,” Green said. “You never know what’s going to happen and the day off, it can weigh on you. After it’s all said and done, yeah, there’s a little bit of relief.”

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While management eyes the future, Blashill and players are determined to keep trying to make the playoffs. To that end, retaining their top source of offense from the back end was a victory.

“I certainly understand management’s perspective, but from the coach perspective, you hope to keep everybody and you want to make as good a push as you can to the playoffs,” Blashill said. “Especially on the back end, you saw when we lost Johnny Ericsson last year, traded Brendan Smith, it got harder on the back end. So keeping a guy like that on the back end is a real plus for us.”

Power play perusing

Green’s availability provides an opportunity to go back to the power play units that had the Wings seventh in the NHL, at 22.6 percent, through the first 34 games of the season. The power play struggled through January and into February before Green was hurt (overall in the past 29 games, the Wings have scored 10 goals on 78 opportunities, good for a 12.8 percent that ranks 30th in the league since Christmas) but maybe he can help reboot one of the units.

“He has the element of the big shot,” Blashill said. “He can shoot it on net. The more weapons you have on your power play, the better chance you are going to score on a consistent basis.”

Green had been on a unit with Dylan Larkin, Andreas Athanasiou, Martin Frk and Anthony Mantha, while the other unit had Henrik Zetterberg with Gustav Nyquist, Tomas Tatar, Justin Abdelkader and Niklas Kronwall. With Tatar traded and Tyler Bertuzzi a recent power-play addition, Mantha may slide into Tatar’s spot and Bertuzzi serve as net-front on the Larkin unit.

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An unimpressive two power-play opportunities in St. Louis renewed focus on trying to get the units functional again.

“I can’t put my finger on why,” Blashill said. “I can say one thing for sure — the first part of the year, our entries were really good. Zetterberg’s unit used a particular entry that had great success for a long time and then all of a sudden it just went totally dry. To their credit they got back going on a different type of entry and they have been able to get in. The other unit, it seems like it lost confidence at some point. It just hasn’t been nearly the same. Then we’ve kind of played with different guys in different spots and sometimes in trying to help, you actually hurt by moving guys around. So I may put some of the young guys back together again and see if that chemistry is better.”

Contact Helene St. James: hstjames@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @helenestjames.