Winning Not Dulling Focus Of Red Wings
By Ashley Dunkak
@AshleyDunkak
CBS DETROIT - The Detroit Red Wings have not lost two games in a row since December, and the team cannot afford to start now, goaltender Jimmy Howard said Friday.
"It seems like you drop a game one night, everyone around you wins," Howard said, "so we've got to find a way right from the get-go here tomorrow night, get on top of them because they're a fast, physical team that likes to get in on the forecheck."
The Red Wings, who host the Winnipeg Jets on Saturday, are currently third in the Atlantic Division with 71 points. The team had won nine of its last 10 games before losing, 4-1, to the Pittsburgh Penguins on Wednesday.
"I think last game was, like you said, a setback," defenseman Niklas Kronwall said. "I don't know what we were expecting, but we didn't play whatsoever. They came out fine, and we didn't skate at all. Against a team like that, you'd better be skating. Otherwise you're going to end up in trouble, and that's what happened to us. We kept turning the puck over and couldn't really get anything going. We've got to get back on track here, get our legs going, get the energy back that we've had here as of late."
Head coach Mike Babcock hinted the team could draw some energy from the return of number one goaltender Howard, who on Saturday will make his first start since Jan. 10, when he suffered a groin injury that has kept him out for more than a month.
"He's a real good player for us, been real important for us, especially at the start of the year, before we earned our confidence, I think Howie was our best player in that first 10 games there, so it's important for him to get up and running and us to have him in the net and feel good about ourselves," Babcock said, "so it'll be exciting to have him tomorrow."
While much of the season remains, Babcock indicated he feels good about where the team stands at the moment.
"I think the season's gone real well, and the fact that just coming into the season we didn't know where we'd be, we've got a vastly improved group, we're getting better, we seem to be competitive on most nights," Babcock said. "What happened last week and what's going to happen next week doesn't much matter. We've got to get ready and play well tomorrow."
The Red Wings (31-13-9) were able to stay in the Eastern Conference race without Howard because of the impressive performance of 22-year-old goaltender Petr Mrazek, who started the season as the third-stringer. Mrazek is 9-2 in his last 11 games for the Red Wings.
"I've got to thank Petr for that," Howard said. "He did a tremendous job for us the whole month of January and a little bit here into February, and is putting us into a good spot, so I've just got to pick up where he left off."
Howard got into Wednesday's game when Babcock pulled Mrazek after the second period, and Howard said it helped him to get some time on the ice before his first start back from injury.
"Just tracking the puck, I find is the biggest thing, going from practice and feeling good in practice, then all of a sudden there's 10 guys out there in front of you," Howard said. "That's the biggest thing, and Coach has done quite a few battle drills here this week, with guys in front of me, whether it's penalty kill or power play or five-on-five situations. I treated those as a game-like situation."
The Red Wings play two games in three days at Joe Louis Arena over the holiday weekend, and those games are the only home games they play all month. As Babcock noted, the team has to focus on only its next game, but Kronwall said players have started paying attention to their potential playoff position.
"I think everybody's starting to watch the standings every day, to be honest with you," Kronwall said. "Sure, our position might be a little bit different today than it was a year ago, two years ago, but at the same time, you can't let your foot off the gas. The other teams are going to keep winning, and we have to keep winning to keep up.
"Of course, the higher seed the better," Kronwall added. "You might get an extra home game, and that's huge come playoff time ... You want to be feeling good coming into the playoffs, but we have another 29 games or so. It's still a long way to go. We haven't reached anything. We've got to make sure that we keep pressure on staying on top of things to make sure that we keep getting points and keep climbing in the standings."
