Wings' Quincey (ankle surgery) skates with coaches

George Sipple | Detroit Free Press

Show Caption Hide Caption Kyle Quincey says he still has some pain in surgically reparied ankle Red Wings defenseman Kyle Quincey skated with coaches Sunday, four weeks after having right ankle surgery. Video by George Sipple/DFP

For the first time since having right ankle surgery four weeks ago, Red Wings defenseman Kyle Quincey skated with a coach Sunday morning at Joe Louis Arena. Quincey recently began to skate on his own.

“It’s good to just be on the ice again,” said Quincey. “I still have a little bit of pain, but it’s different pain. It’s surgery pain, it’s not bone chips and other stuff.”

Quincey said he skated for 40 minutes. He’s hoping to begin skating with teammates next week. There’s no timetable for when he might play in a game.

“Six, seven weeks is a long time to be off the ice,” Quincey said. “So that’s going to be the biggest thing right now, to get my legs back.”

Quincey joked he now has matching scars on his ankles. He had surgery last May on his left ankle.

He was doing a battle drill with Justin Abdelkader before the team left for training camp and injured the right ankle.

“It flared up and obviously (when) you skate for three hours, two hours every day it’s only going to get worse,” Quincey said. “Everything happens for a reason. I had an opportunity to get (surgery) done. It’s half a season. Hopefully I have no pain going forward and hopefully I have a really good last end of the season.”

Quincey, 30, played in 73 games for the Wings last season. He notched three goals and 15 assists.

He played in seven games this season and scored one goal and two assists.

He has 27 goals and 105 points for 132 points over 455 career NHL games with the Wings, Kings and Avalanche.

“Every day we’re doing something,” Quincey said. “It feels great after an off day. We’ll skate three or four times this week, maybe five times next week and try to get in with the team.

“I’m lucky that they’re home. So, I can get a lot of practices in.

“Skating by yourself, it’s a good step forward. But you need to get the speed of the game back. To do that, you have to be on with the guys.”

Going back: Wings forward Justin Abdelkader was honored as the first member of the Cedar Rapids RoughRiders Hall of Fame on Saturday night. Abdelkader helped Cedar Rapids (USHL) win its only Clark Cup in 2004-2005, when he scored 27 goals and 25 assists for 52 points.

“It was really nice to get back there,” Abdelkader said. “Brought back a lot of good memories. Mark Carlson is there, the coach who coached me. Not much has changed around there is pretty cool.”

Notebook: Wings head coach Jeff Blashill said penalty kill needs to be better. The Wings have allowed seven goals in 21 chances this month. The Wings gave up two power play goals in a 5-4 shootout win over the Sabres on Dec. 1. The teams meet again Monday at 7:30 at Joe Louis Arena. “We’ve gotta execute at a higher rate,” Blashill said. “I think you’re always going to have some ebbs and flows. We made a point to tell our team we’ve gotta be better on the kill than we’ve been in the last five games.”… Blashill said lately the Wings have turned the puck over too much and have made too many risky decisions. …. Blashill said goaltender Petr Mrazek will start against Buffalo.

Contact George Sipple: gsipple@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter@georgesipple.