Helene St. James

Detroit Free Press

As a long offseason starts, one of Jeff Blashill's first objectives is examining how to improve.

His first year as head coach of the Detroit Red Wings ended in the disappointment of a first-round loss in the playoffs. As he begins work towards making his second season more successful, tasks include finding a new bench assistant, exploring how best to divide duties, and how to make sure there isn't a repeat of so many players underperforming.

"Without question, I better have learned," Blashill said earlier this week after the 2015-16 Wings met one last time as a team at Joe Louis Arena. "That's in every job I've ever had and every year of every job I've ever had. You better learn and get better. Part of the process over the next month is looking at every which way that myself and our staff can be better.

"I'll have discussions with the staff on that, I'll have discussions with Ken Holland on that - ways we can be better. Is that a fix from outside, is that a fix from within, we'll look at both of those. As a group, we can be better. That's included in the D corps."

Blashill lost his NHL-experienced assistant, Tony Granato, who is moving on to coach at Wisconsin. The new assistant, ideally, brings in an equally NHL-heavy resume. Blashill said part of the examination will include whether to hire somebody to take over Granato's duties with the defense and penalty killing, or switching that focus to assistant Pat Ferschweiler and have the new face be in charge of forwards and the power play. Both special teams struggled last season, but the power play was especially dysfunctional.

"We'll look at everything," Blashill said. "How we can all be better as a staff. How to make ourselves more productive next year."

One of the expectations when Blashill took over for Mike Babcock was the possibility that Blashill would be able to get more out of Tomas Jurco and Teemu Pulkkinen, both of whom thrived under Blashill in Grand Rapids. As the season closed, Jurco and Pulkkinen were healthy scratches - but that was overshadowed by how many regulars had disappointed, led by Gustav Nyquist and Tomas Tatar. Avoiding a repeat of that scenario is chief on Blashill's agenda.

"One thing that we want to do, we want to help our guys get better," Blashill said. "That doesn't always mean production wise you're going to improve from year to year. Sometimes it has to do with minutes, and there are only so many minutes to go around, and that can affect a lot of things including production. But part of what we want to do here is make sure we help our guys get better and make sure that we get better as a team."

Blashill honed in on how the Wings need some of their young players "to become elite players in the NHL," noting it's "way different than being a good complimentary player."

Blashill described an elite player as someone who is able to "put the team on your shoulders every night. That means you have to produce while still playing great defense. That means that the other team is gunning for you. You're seeing the best the opponent has every single night and it's extremely hard to do."

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Among the current forward group, the only young player who seems likely to reach that level is Dylan Larkin. He led the team in goals with 23, and demanded a better performance of himself after he didn't like his playoff debut. With Pavel Datsyuk seemingly have made up his mind to return to Russia with a year left on his contract, there may be an even bigger role for Larkin next season. But the Wings need more than one young player to step up and support Henrik Zetterberg, as he and Datsyuk did a decade ago for Steve Yzerman and Brendan Shanahan. An expanded role, Zetterberg noted "has to be earned. You can't just give more minutes away."

The Wings will explore adding new faces from the outside during the summer, while balancing how many internal candidates are ready to challenge for minutes. Andreas Athanasiou has earned a bigger role. Defenseman Xavier Ouelllet already is penned onto next year's team. Anthony Mantha is a strong possibility. Tyler Bertuzzi is putting in a second strong playoff performance in this year's AHL run for the Grand Rapids Griffins.

Blashill has won at every level he's tried at hockey. His first foray at the NHL level should pay off next season, in making the Wings better.

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

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