from Helene St. James of the Detroit Free Press,

They start a four-game journey Monday at Columbus on a 4-1 roll, built largely at home but begun with little reminder of how quickly things change. Near the end of October, the Wings were feeling really good about themselves after an overtime victory at Washington, but then came an 0-3-1 stretch that made for an introspective day between games the first week of November.

Red Wings center Pius Suter, center, celebrates his goal with Marc Staal, left, and Moritz Seider in the second period on Saturday, Nov. 13, 2021, at Little Caesars Arena.

“We sat in Buffalo and we talked on the ice in practice,” coach Jeff Blashill said. “We talked about the week prior — I mean literally, if you had rewound the clock a week from then, we had a ton of confidence and all of a sudden we had not much confidence.”

The restoration began when Tyler Bertuzzi scored twice in the third period Nov. 6 against the Sabres, and Moritz Seider scored in overtime. The Wings came home and beat Vegas and Edmonton, lost to Washington, and won in overtime Saturday against Montreal.

“That third period in Buffalo was huge, how good Tyler played there,” Blashill said. “And we’ve picked up steam from there. I think part of it is, as I’ve said before, we have more guys with ability to make some plays to make a difference in the game, and that’s important. There are a lot of things we need to get better at and we’re going to keep working, but we don’t get enough practice time right now just because we’re trying to conserve energy because of how much we’re playing, but we’ll do our best to get better through film."

read on ($$$)