Nashville — Maybe it’s that uniform number that Matt Luff wears with the Red Wings, the number 22.
One of Luff’s friends is Mitchell Stephens, who played with the Wings last season but also went through an injury-marred campaign. Stephens, incidentally, wore 22.
Maybe it’s simply the number.
“We were joking around that it’s something with the number 22,” Luff said. “I’m hoping with the new year here, it’s kind of changed the voodoo on 22.”
For Luff’s sake, it sure would be nice. The luck hasn’t been overly positive this season.
It was Luff who took a puck to the face off a slapshot from Minnesota’s Matt Dumba on Oct. 29, only to come back the next game in Buffalo wearing a shield. Luff had 16 stitches and lost teeth, but was at the next scheduled morning skate.
Then, five games after the puck to the face, Luff was hit, or pushed, dangerously into the boards by Montreal’s Juraj Slafkovsky, the No. 1 overall pick in last year’s NHL Entry Draft. Luff had surgery, he wouldn’t reveal what kind other than upper-body, causing him to miss three months of playing time.
“He (Slafkovsky) sent a DM and it’s all you can do, you can’t change what happened,” Luff said. “It’s hockey. Things happen fast and people have their opinions, and I have mine.”
Luff never did see the replay of the hit by Slafkovsky until recently, when a friend of Luff’s showed it. Luff didn’t want to see it.
“No, no,” Luff said. “I mean, it wasn’t the greatest hit.”
Luff was recalled from Grand Rapids on Monday, and was at Tuesday’s morning skate as insurance in case any of three forwards who are banged up aren’t ready to play after the pregame skate, coach Derek Lalonde said.
Luff, who has seven goals and 23 points in 25 games in Grand Rapids (one goal in seven games with the Wings), sees this as an opportunity to show he deserves to be someone who should be brought back to the organization next season.
“We have a young team down there (in Grand Rapids) and I want to be a leader down there, even though being a leader at (age) 25 in a dressing room is kind of funny, but I want to take on that leadership role with my play down there and just try to do things the way the young guys should do them,” Luff said.
The back-to-back injuries frustrated Luff, who was getting an opportunity of being a regular in the Wings’ lineup at the time. That’s invaluable for a player attempting to stick in the NHL.
“It was disappointing,” Luff said. “Anytime you get a chance to play for an NHL team is pretty fun, and an opportunity, especially early in the season, to prove yourself … anytime you’re injured, it stinks. To miss any time, is frustrating.
“But it’s a tip of the cap to the whole training staff here and down in Grand Rapids to get me ready to come back now, get my game back here, and show that a guy who is up for a contract this year can play here or Grand Rapids, and I that I want to stay here.”
Hanging around
All Lalonde can do is laugh at certain times when he sees the Eastern Conference playoff standings on different television networks, and occasionally see the Red Wings listed among the hopefuls and sometimes not.
Such as Monday, when the Wings and Buffalo were tied with 69 points (before Buffalo defeated Toronto). But while Buffalo was shown on the chart as a being in the thick of the race, the Wings weren’t on the screen at all.
“I laugh because everyone still has Buffalo strongly in there because of the roster it’s fielding, and the team we have (having traded pieces at the trade deadline), and we were tied (in the standings),” Lalonde said. “But it’s understandable. It’s where both rosters are at.
“But it’s a credit to our group that they keep finding ways to compete and being right in there.”
Lalonde doesn’t talk playoffs with his team. Lalonde wants to focus on each particular game, with a lineup that knows it’s here for the rest of the season and not dwelling on who isn’t there anymore.
“It’s all about this group and game by game, but it’s funny they clip us off (the playoff picture) and clip is on sometimes, but it’s the reality,” Lalonde said. “We’ve lost, literally, six guys out of our lineup that was pushing there, that got us over the playoff line (Feb. 23).
“We 100% did the right thing (trading away veteran potential free agents), it’s the reality of the growth of our organization. You saw us feel sorry for ourselves through that six-game losing streak, but we have gotten over it in a good way and our group has competed pretty well of late.”
ted.kulfan@detroitnews.com
Twitter: @tkulfan