Thursday’s practice had a little bit of everything for the Detroit Red Wings: A tender moment, a fun moment, and at the end, a merry one.
Around 11 a.m., the team found out that Friday’s game at the Ottawa Senators was postponed because of winter weather. That meant that instead of a practicing and going to the airport, coach Derek Lalonde instead had players go through a good hour-long practice that included a three-on-three game and a bag skate. At the end, as players circled mid-ice to stretch, Lalonde stood on the center dot, tapped his stick, and told everyone to, “enjoy the break.”
The Wings got a jump start, adding Friday to the NHL-wide Saturday-Monday shutdown. Their next practice is Tuesday, ahead of playing Thursday in Pittsburgh.
“You get an extra day in the Christmas break, which is nice,” Ville Husso said. “It’s nice to stay home and spend time with the family and just relax.”
He is among the many who will benefit from the extra day of rest and relaxation; others include Dylan Larkin, who is dealing with a sore right hand, and — well, pretty much everyone who has been playing regularly, because that doesn’t come without bumps and bruises.
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It’s a little different for Jakub Vrana, who only just a week ago returned to the team after spending two months in the players assistance program. There was a sweet little scene after the three-on-three game, when he scored to give the white shirts a victory, and was surrounded by happy teammates.
“It’s nice to see him having fun again,” Husso said. “You can see that little smile on his face. Good for him, nice to see that he scored.”
After Wednesday’s 7-4 victory over the Tampa Bay Lightning, both Lalonde and Larkin said they were waiting to hear from the league regarding the game. By then, the NHL already had postponed the Tampa Bay-Buffalo Sabres game scheduled for Friday. The Wings’ game was rescheduled for Feb. 27, when the Wings were due to be in Ottawa anyway for a Feb. 28 game.
It wasn’t getting to Ottawa that worried, it was getting back home.
“Just the stress of having to maybe get caught there, that would not be fun,” David Perron said. “It seems the schedule works out with now we can play back-to-back games, so that will be great.”
Lalonde noted that teams have experience “with fluid situations” all the more because of how many games were rescheduled during the pandemic. “It wasn’t a big deal. You’re coming off two pretty good games, it feels like there’s a little momentum. So maybe you want to get back and play. But at the same time, we have four to five guys unavailable to us that may be available when we play them again. So, you just take it all in stride.”
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Lalonde was among those able to get a head start on holiday travel — he was headed to Cleveland to meet up with his wife and her family. Oskar Sundqvist, on the other hand, had a longer drive ahead, and planned to leave Thursday afternoon.
“It makes it easier for me,” he said. “I’m driving back to St. Louis, to my house, so now I don’t have to drive over the night on Friday. It’s about eight hours. Nice to get it over with today.”
Sundqvist and his girlfriend have an 85-pound Portuguese water dog/poodle mix that was a rescue. Too big to fly in cabin, and too traumatized from its past to be OK in a crate, the only option is to drive.
“You do what you have to,” Sundqvist said.
As Sundqvist was talking, Perron yelled out to him to him, “sauna in five minutes.” The two are close friends, and often joke around.
Perron drew some laughs when he jumped early during bag skates, expecting his group to be called upon only for Lalonde to instead call on the red group again. It was all in good fun. The atmosphere in the locker room was a decidedly merry one as the Wings relished the gift of having the game postponed.
“Now that it is canceled, we are going to enjoy the extra day and get some energy and refocus,” Perron said. “It’s going to be a good Christmas.”
Contact Helene St. James at hstjames@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @helenestjames. Read more on the Detroit Red Wings and sign up for our Red Wings newsletter. Her latest book, “On the Clock: Behind the Scenes with the Detroit Red Wings at the NHL Draft,” is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Triumph Books. Personalized copies available via her e-mail.