DETROIT — Coach Todd McLellan viewed his two days of practice this week as helping his Detroit Red Wings cram to make sure they passed the test the Anaheim Ducks would provide.

“You take the lesson, take the lesson, then you take the test,” McLellan said about the two pointed practices.  Those study seassions stressed the Red Wings must push to the net with greater frequency, take away the goalies’ eyes and scoredirty goals

The Detroit squad retained those lessons well enough to pin a 6-3 loss on a Ducks team that had scored four or more goals in 10 of their first 16 games.

“As you all know, Todd’s very demanding and very detailed,” said Moritz Seider who scored a goal that leaked through traffic in front of the net. “Maybe it was exactly what we needed to get back on track. And yeah, it’s a good, good first step in the right direction.”

The win halted a three-game losing streak, during which the Red Wings only scored two goals.

Against the Ducks, Detroit’s struggling power play scored twice. Also, fourth liner Michael Rasmussen scored his first goal in 11 games. Jonatan Berggren, another fourth liner, had two assists. Alex DeBrincat scored on a double-redirection shot.

“We scored some goals, just simple, hard, playoff type goals really,” McLellan said. “When you think about hard, hard goals that feeder shots that go to the net and you got a battle and then the other way with some of their feeder shots, we were sacrificing in front of our net.”

Rasmussen’s Sweet Shot

Rasmussen’s goal was a thing of beauty — a snap shot buried high into the net as if it was fired by an elite scorer. Not what we’ve seen from Rasmussen this season.

“I thought Ras played his best game of the season today for a lot of different reasons,” McLellan said. “One, the goal. But he looked confident. He looked looked, big, strong, held onto pucks, was physical. For him, that’s a real confidence booster. We’re happy for him. We are glad that he did that and we need that going forward night after night because he can play that way. He’s a pretty effective player when he does.”

McLellan has played the role of a stern taskmaster this week. He made it clear that this team can’t be successful if doesn’t score in a variety of ways.

“You better score in a multitude of ways, or have the ability to score in multiple ways,” McLellan said. “Cycle, power play, shootouts, overtime, five-on-five, tips, deflections, screens. If you’re just a rush two-on-one team, you’re going to have some long nights.”

That’s the real lesson that McLellan was teaching this week. You can’t learn the lesson for one test. The Red Wings need to retain what they’ve learned this week. That’s the only path to the playoffs: consistent hard-nosed hockey.

“We can’t just take the lesson one day and forget about it next week,” McLellan said. “That lesson is supposed to stay with us now.”