Frans Nielsen smiled as he began to talk.

The Detroit Red Wings are 4-0 in preseason, and prospects are producing. Only so much can be read into that, of course, but for a team fragile on confidence, it helps.

“Preseason is a funny thing,” Nielsen said Monday. “If you lose, you say, well, we’re working on stuff. But for sure it matters — it’s nice to get some wins. The season is sneaking up on us now, and getting that confidence, hopefully everyone has a point or a goal, so you just have a little confidence going into the season.”

To that end, it’s encouraging how much production has come from prospects: Michael Rasmussen has two goals and an assist, Dennis Cholowski has a goal and two assists, Filip Zadina has a goal and an assist, Libor Sulak has two assists, Evgeny Svechnikov has two goals, Joe Veleno has two assists, and Filip Hronek has an assist.

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