Detroit Red Wings' Jeff Blashill: 'We are going to fight like hell'

TRAVERSE CITY — Detroit Red Wings coach Jeff Blashill changed tactics with this year’s training camp squads.

Breaking from a years-long tradition of divvying up NHL veterans among all three teams, Blashill essentially created one squad comprised largely of those that will make up the 2017-18 Red Wings, another squad heavy on those that will comprise the Grand Rapids Griffins and possible call-ups, and a third of mostly prospects.

The decision was spurred by a desire to come out of the gate finely tuned.

“You’re limited on practice times until the first game of the year,” Blashill said Thursday morning outside Centre Ice Arena, where the Red Wings will begin training camp. “The first game of the year is critical. I’ve been through a number of training camps now and I wanted to have the group that I see today as our group, give or take a a few players. It gives us a chance to work on, specifically, specialty teams.

“When you split the guys up into different teams, it is hard to get that specialty teams chemistry going right away. We want as much time as possible to get the chemistry going as we can.”

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Team Delvecchio consists of forwards Justin Abdelkader, Tyler Bertuzzi, Luke Glendening, Darren Helm, Dylan Larkin, Anthony Mantha, Frans Nielsen, Gustav Nyquist, P-A Parenteau, Riley Sheahan, Ben Street, Tomas Tatar, Luke Witkowski and Henrik Zetterberg; defensemen Dennis Cholowski, Trevor Daley, Danny DeKeyser, Jonathan Ericsson, Mike Green, Nick Jensen, Niklas Kronwall, Xavier Ouellet and Ryan Sproul; goaltenders Jimmy Howard and Petr Mrazek.

Players spent Thursday morning undergoing physicals. General manager Ken Holland told the Free Press that Sproul was not cleared (he had off-season knee surgery). Sproul is unlikely to make the Wings regardless. Cholowski is not going to play in Detroit and and neither is Street, but otherwise, that’s more or less the Detroit squad. Pencil in restricted free agent Andreas Athanasiou if he returns; his agent told the Free Press Thursday afternoon that negotiations were ongoing. Parenteau is on a tryout.

Team Howe consists of forwards David Booth, Colin Campbell, Corey Elkins, Turner Elson, Luke Esposito, Matt Ford, Martin Frk, Axel Holmstrom, Matt Lorito, Dylan Sadowy, Dominik Shine, Evgeny Svechnikov, Eric Tangradi and Dominic Turgeon; defensemen Joe Hicketts, Filip Hronek, Brian Lashoff, Pat McCarron, Dylan McIlrath, Dan Renouf, Robbie Russo and Vili Saarijarvi; goaltenders Jared Coreau, Matej Machovsky and Tom McCollum.

Team Lindsay comprises forwards Mike Borkowski, Austen Brassard, Oliver Castleman, Connor Crisp, Zach Gallant, Brady Gilmour, Isaac Johnson, Sean Josling, Luke Kutkevicius, Zach Nastasiuk, Michael Rasmussen, Givani Smith and Lane Zablocki; defensemen Marcus Crawford, Simon Denis, Evan Fiala, Cole Fraser, Jordan Sambrook, Libor Sulak, Kevin Tansey and Reilly Webb; goaltenders Corbin Boes, Kaden Fulcher and Pat Nagle.

Blashill wouldn’t divulge his lines. The defense pairings shape up to be Daley-DeKeyser, Kronwall-Green, and Ericsson-Jensen, with Ouellet as the seventh guy. Howard and Mrazek will both be relied on heavily.

There was a team meeting scheduled after the physicals. Blashill’s message focused on moving forward from having missed the playoffs last spring and snapping a 25-season streak of doing so. “When things go bad, you have two choices,” Blashill said. “You can decide to feel sorry for yourself, you can place blame, you can do all those things, or you can dig in and fight like hell.

“We are going to dig in and fight like hell."

Other issues Blashill addressed including goaltending and Mantha:

On goalie competition: “I think there is a battle at every position every day. This is a day-by-day business. I know both goalies on most teams have had an impact and I anticipate both goalies will have an impact on our season. We need elite goaltending. We can’t have OK goaltending. Both guys can give us elite goaltending. Jimmy certainly did when he was healthy, gave us elite goaltending in the World Championship.”

On Mrazek, who was exposed in the expansion draft after a mediocre season: “I have talked to Petr. I think his mind is in a great spot. He made some adjustments in his training methods both on and off the ice this summer and he feels real confident that it has really put him in a position to have success.”

On the need for Mantha to take a step forward: “We need Anthony to be a real good player. Anthony is going to get a chance to play real big minutes for us, so he has got to take those minutes and turn them into lots of production in a winning way. I’ve got great belief he can. He’s lost some old habits where he didn’t skate quite as much and now he is skating way more on a regular basis. When Anthony Mantha moves his feet and skates and attacks the game, he is an elite player. The key is to get him to do it as consistent as possible. But he is going to get an opportunity to be a real impact player.”

On newcomer Daley: “He makes us a better team. He has proven he can play top-four minutes, he’s a puck mover, he skates well. That makes us a better team.”

On veteran forwards Parenteau and Booth at camp on tryouts: “You bring guys in on PTOs and you get a free look. They are going to have to play great to earn a spot. If we feel at the end of our exhibition season that they can make our team better than somebody we currently have on under contract, then perfect — we’ve gotten better. We’ll see how they play.”

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

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