DETROIT \u2013 The Detroit Red Wings have gotten good goaltending this season, and that continued Saturday at practice when 4-year-old Merrick stepped into the net.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome of the saves he made on some key guys, I think that he at least deserves a contract and maybe we\u2019ll sign him for a day or two and he can pinch hit,\u201d coach Todd McLellan said.<\/p>\n
Merrick is a cancer survivor who visited through Make-A-Wish, and the Red Wings were delighted to have him join them on the ice. John Gibson helped get him set up between the pipes.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s always a special day when you can do something a little like that to help him out,\u201d Gibson said. \u201cYou could tell how much it meant to him and his family and his sister. So, it\u2019s cool. They\u2019re very appreciative. And anytime you see him being able to smile and have fun out there, and he was excited to stop the breakaway, so it was a good day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gibson showed the boy around the room before practice and spent time with him and his family.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have kids around the same age as him, too, so it definitely hits home,\u201d Gibson said. \u201cAnd to make you feel grateful for what you have, and you see a little boy like that fighting his fight and his battle, and he\u2019s here. He\u2019s just being a kid, happy to be here, and kind of take his mind off whatever they have going on. So nice to just help out, be a small part of his day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Said McLellan: \u201cI think he\u2019s working out in the gym with Gibby right now. So, once he\u2019s done his workout, he\u2019ll come in and spend some time with the coaches and maybe he can give us a few pointers. We could use the help.\u201d<\/p>\n
McLellan called the experience uplifting for the team.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt does something for the spirit a little bit, makes you feel good and you reflect on your own situation, whether it\u2019s family immediately or down the road or little ones or whatever it might be, and how fortunate we are,\u201d McLellan said. \u201cAnd it also makes you think about can we do more to help? We get so wrapped up in wins and losses and slumps and who\u2019s playing well, who isn\u2019t, that there\u2019s probably more time for the real world and we should try to find it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DETROIT \u2013 The Detroit Red Wings have gotten good goaltending this season, and that continued Saturday at practice…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":414772,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-414771","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-nhl","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414771","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=414771"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414771\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/414772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}