from Bob Duff of Detroit Hockey Now,
The glaring spotlight shining upon them is a fact of life for players on the Detroit Red Wings. It’s part of what you sign up for when signing a contract to be playing a professional sport.
However, there’s one place where they’d rather not be appearing on the big screen. That’s behind the closed doors of a team meeting, as what went wrong from the previous game is broken down via video by the coaching staff in front of their peers. At that point, there’s nowhere to hide....
Over the years, Lalonde was learning a trait that’s helping out in this manner. That’s having an assistant coach taking the player aside for a one-on-one video session prior to the team meeting. This can soften the blow. They aren’t being caught by surprise during the group session.
“If I’m going to have a really hard conversation, if some of our players are going to show up in the team video in a hard way, sometimes that’s a good heads-up for the assistant,” Lalonde explaned. “Now it’s a one-on-one meeting, some video – don’t be surprised if you see this in the video, take it constructively, the right way.
“That’s all part of managing.”
from Helene St. James of the Detroit Free Press,
For only the second time this season, the Wings (3-1-2) face a team that made the playoffs last season when they take on the Bruins (6-1-0) in Boston Thursday. The Wings, who lost in overtime when they played the Los Angeles Kings at home on Oct. 17, are coming off a 6-2 loss to the New Jersey Devils, and the end of a five-game point streak has increased focus on players who are struggling.
Chief among them is Lucas Raymond, who is still looking for his first goal and has two assists in six games.
"Lucas is lacking some detail in his game, which is understandable of a young player," Lalonde said Wednesday. "He is so competitive. Now he is channeling it incorrectly. Hes pressing. Its not going in for him, and I think he believes he needs to help the team with offense. Now its looping, now its cheating, now its not taking care of the wall, and now hes getting stuck in his d-zone instead of doing the things he can do in the offensive zone. Not concerned at all. Its typical of a young player pressing a little bit. Its our job with him to get him playing the right way."...
"Were trying to work through some things and trying to get some different guys going," Lalonde said. "I think were going to be in this blender look for a while."
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