from Ted Kulfan of the Detroit News,
In a season where the Wings haven’t won much (8-16-4), these two games with largely a healthy, full roster, showed a team capable of earning points in the standings.
“It allows us to be more complete as a team,” coach Jeff Blashill said of the full roster. “We don’t have enough difference-making players to lose them. When we lost a number of guys, it hurt us, and when we’ve been healthy, we’ve played pretty good hockey overall. We haven’t won enough, but we’ve played pretty good.
“To come out and get three points here against Tampa is a good thing for us.
"Now we have to build on it.”
Blashill talked earlier in the week, when analyzing the first half of the season, about how the Wings were a difficult team to play against when the roster was full.
But injuries and players out with COVID-19 began to decimate the roster from the opening weeks, and the Wings simply don't have the depth yet to overcome that.
“We've put teams on heels at times and been physical. That's been the good part about it when we've had a full roster,” Blashill said. “The bad would be when we haven't had a full enough roster, I don't think we've handled that well enough. We've probably needed more guys to step up, and in general, I don't think we've had the production that we would have hoped across the board.
“We've had chances and not enough production.
"We need more of that, but that comes in time."
If you missed it earlier today, Evgeny Svechnikov has been assigned to Grand Rapids.
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