from Ansar Khan of Mlive,

The Red Wings were the game's best puck-possession team for years with Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg in their prime and a host of other skilled players before that.

That's no longer the case, so it calls for a change of approach. They still want to possess the puck, but when they don't have it, they need to be more aggressive, coach Jeff Blashill said.

"More forechecking and a faster transition game," Blashill said. "I think in the past it was bring it back and loop and do some things and it was awesome for a while. Some of that was with the number of Russian players that were here, that's how they'd grown up playing. Some of that is the league was much different, there were huge disparities in talent from one team to the next.

"It's not that way anymore. We've tried to implement a much faster transition game to try to make use of what I think is one of our best assets -- our speed. I didn't think enough coaches said to me last year that our team was fast. I don't know if there's a coach I talk to now that doesn't say our team's fast. I think we've learned to play way faster, and part of that is being willing to put pucks behind people and go forecheck a little bit more. This certainly wasn't noted as a forechecking team in the past. I think everybody in here knows that you have to be that if you want to win."

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