DETROIT \u2013 Detroit Red Wings coach Todd McLellan doesn\u2019t want to hear that teams often struggle to find their legs in their first game back after a West Coast trip.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t buy that at all. That excuse is for losers,\u201d McLellan said. \u201cWe never talk about it after a team plays really well when they come home from a road trip. We usually only talk about it after a crappy game, and we don\u2019t plan on having a crappy game, so there\u2019s no excuses.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Red Wings (9-5-0) host the New York Rangers Friday (7 p.m., FanDuel Sports Network Extra), after finishing a 3-2 trip Tuesday with a 1-0 loss to Vegas.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first thing we have to do is come home and get engaged,\u201d McLellan said. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve had some time to rest all day (Wednesday) and get the cobwebs out today. We did have some cobwebs early in practice, but I thought as practice went on, we were a little bit better. Now we come home to a good chunk of home games, and we have to perform well here and find ways to put points in the bank. As you see in the standings, there\u2019s very little separation in our division and our conference. Everybody\u2019s in it, and so you better keep your foot on the gas to keep going.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the start of a four-game homestand and a stretch of 10-of-13 games at Little Caesars Arena. The Red Wings should get an offensive boost, perhaps as soon as Friday, with Patrick Kane\u2019s return from an upper-body injury on Oct. 17.<\/a><\/p>\n McLellan said the most encouraging aspect of the trip was the team\u2019s resiliency.<\/p>\n \u201cIt started at home, we\u2019re down four and we find a way to come back (6-4 win over St. Louis,\u201d McLellan said. \u201cWe get to St. Louis and we\u2019re scored on real early. We stuck with it and played a pretty solid game. We go to Los Angeles, we play a solid game, and they get two quick ones at the end. And it would have been easy to be happy with a point, but we were resilient enough to overcome the call in overtime and get playing again (4-3 shootout win).<\/p>\n \u201cBounced back after a game in Anaheim where we didn\u2019t play as well (5-2 loss followed by 3-2 shootout win in San Jose). So, the resiliency, the mental drive for the group ended in Vegas. \u201cI\u2019ve been on teams where sometimes that game five or six of a road trip is \u2026 if it goes your way, great. If it doesn\u2019t, then you\u2019re done and you\u2019re getting home. It\u2019s just that demanding. And that wasn\u2019t the case with us. Right to the last minute we left what we had out there. It wasn\u2019t enough, but at least we had it.\u201d<\/p>\n If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement<\/a> and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and\/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DETROIT \u2013 Detroit Red Wings coach Todd McLellan doesn\u2019t want to hear that teams often struggle to find…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":277218,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-277217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=277217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277217\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/277218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=277217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=277217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=277217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}