from Ansar Khan of Mlive,

The Detroit Red Wings can sometimes get away with playing their ‘B’ game against lesser opponents. That won’t cut it during the difficult stretch of games that began Monday with a 7-4 loss in Minnesota.

“I thought we had a lot of guys not nearly on their ‘A’ game, and we can’t afford that,” coach Jeff Blashill said. “We’re going to play a whole group of teams that are some of the upper-echelon teams in the league. If you want to win, you have to be as close to your ‘A’ game as possible every night.

“The level of intensity’s going to continue to ramp up the last 30 games. The goals, even though it didn’t happen tonight, they get harder to come by. So, we better make sure we ramp our game up as well.”

The game against the Wild launched the toughest seven-game stretch of the season for the Red Wings, against seven of the top eight teams in the NHL based on points percentage...

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