The Detroit Red Wings, showing a total of three goals in three consecutive losses, won’t have one of their most dangerous scorers tonight against the Montreal Canadiens
Patrick Kane has been ruled out with an upper body injury, with a tentative day-to-day designation.
He suffered the injury in Dallas, but came back to play in the game. At his morning press conference, coach Todd McLellan said he may know more about Kane Friday. Kane, 36, missed five games with an injury earlier in the season.
Vladimir Tarasenko will take Kane’s spot on a line with Alex DeBrincat and Andrew Copp. He will also take Kane’s spot on the power play. The coaches are undoubtedly hoping Tarasenko, struggling this season, will lift his game playing with Detroit’s top players.
Vladdy will be one of the guys that gets an opportunity with Patrick coming out,” McLellan said. “We’ve all been waiting for him to blossom and he’s been waiting for this opportunity. The two worlds collide now and I think it’s great for him to have the chance to blossom. I thought he played fairly well on the road, just didn’t get rewarded with a lot of offense. The whole team was kind of like that.”
Red Wings Offensive Confidence Is Waning
The Red Wings were scoring more after McLellan arrived, but their confidence has waned again.
“A lot of our offense and offensive confidence came from the power play, when we were scoring a lot,” McLellan said. “So that has to get back to where it was… I think when you start games like we did in Tampa and Dallas and fall behind it affects offense. You get a little more tentative, you don’t want to make more mistakes because if you fall behind two, three, we’re less likely to win, so we start playing reserved and tentative.
“When we’ve had good starts and we’ve been on top of teams, you scored and you feel good, and now you can keep that pace up. It may sound strange but getting scored on first affects the mentality of offense as well. We want to change that if we can.”
