from Helene St. James of the Detroit Free Press,
Half a dozen Detroit Red Wings, most of them on the injured list or taxi squad, partook in an optional practice Monday; the rest sat through meetings.
The Wings want to turn the tide of their season-long woes on the road, where they are 4-11-2, in general and salvage this trip to California in particular when they play the Sharks on Tuesday at SAP Center....
The regular squad needed a bit of breather Monday, after playing back-to-back at Los Angeles and Anaheim. In the meetings, Blashill stressed that while the Wings (16-16-4) have just one point in their last three road games, dating to pre-Christmas at Carolina, they were the ones with the better quantity of scoring chances against the Hurricanes and the Ducks.
Breaking down games that way, rather than simply looking at the results (5-3 loss to the Hurricanes, 4-0 to the Kings, and 4-3 in a shootout to the Ducks) works better, especially for a team trying to move the needle upwards of .500.
"I think chances can really take the emotion out of it with the wins and losses and and can tell how you really played," Blashill said. "That can be true when you don’t win and it can be true when you win. We certainly with our guys about that part of it. My bigger focus is on getting better and we had a meeting where we need to get better and some areas we did do well enough. We want to improve and become a better hockey team than we are right now. To do that, there are certain things we need to do better."
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