Notebook: Zadina looking to improve offense, Vrana back with team

It is a bit strange to consider that, for as long as Filip Zadina has been a known commodity in the Detroit Red Wings' system, he has yet to play a full year resembling normalcy.
Zadina was drafted back in 2018, at the beginning of the Red Wings' rebuild, and made his NHL debut over nine games later that season. The next year, he split his time between Detroit and Grand Rapids, adjusting to the pro game but seeming to be on an upward trend.
Then, the pandemic happened - ending a promising season early. The next time Zadina took the ice would be on loan in his native Czech Republic, while waiting for the NHL to return. When it did, his production took a dip. In 2020-21, Zadina had 19 points over 49 games, a drop coming with his goal-scoring in particular, which went from 1.1 per 60 minutes to 0.4.

This training camp, though, is somehow Zadina's first in which he both doesn't need to worry about making the roster and isn't mired in a routine-altering pandemic. Naturally, that bodes well.
"I'm really excited to get things going again and have fun on the ice in front of fans," he said Saturday. "It's gonna be a great season I believe and we'll have fun doing the best we can to be better than the last years."

His offense, of course, remains the central question. Red Wings coach Jeff Blashill said Friday that one of the keys in Zadina's development is creating space with the puck.
"Ultimately as a player, the best players find ways to create space and some guys do it being super fast and some guys do it being big," Blashill said. "He's gotta use his brain for sure. He's gotta give and go, he's gotta find the open areas at a critical moment where he can get a puck back.
"I think learning to get the puck out quicker and learning to be accurate with the shot is important. I think when you're younger, you work on shooting it as hard as you can. But that's not really the point. The point is to find those little openings not to miss the net and to score. So again, I think he worked hard at it."
With Jakub Vrana missing the first few days of training camp, Zadina has been skating on a line with Dylan Larkin and Tyler Bertuzzi, an opportunity he hopes carries into the preseason.
"I'm doing the best I can to stick with them as well. It depends how I play hockey with them," Zadina said. "We might be playing together at the start of the season. It's still too far ahead to tell if I'll be playing with them."
Like the team as a whole, Zadina's outlook for the season is simple: improve as much as possible.
"Just hold onto the puck, play with the puck, go more to the net," Zadina said. "Just force myself a little bit more to shoot the puck and just believe."

Vrana back with team, but injured

After a visa issue kept him from joining the Red Wings at the start of training camp, Vrana arrived on Saturday.
Just 10 minutes after taking the ice for the first time, though, he suffered a shoulder injury. The severity of the injury is unknown, as Blashill said Vrana will be reevaluated later on.
If healthy, Vrana will give a major goal-scoring boost to the Red Wings. Blashill has talked to him about being a "driver" for the team.
"What I did talk to him about a season ago when he got traded to us is there's real opportunity and with that comes responsibility," Blashill said. "We can't afford for him to be a passenger who does it right some nights and some nights doesn't, and somebody else carries the mail. We need him to be a driver."

Veleno in the mix for winger role

Although Joe Veleno has played center for most of his career, Blashill said Saturday that he'll be in the mix for a role on the wing as well.
The top three center spots for the Red Wings are more or less set between Dylan Larkin, Pius Suter and Michael Rasmussen, with Carter Rowney, Mitchell Stephens and Veleno fighting for the fourth. Moving the 21-year-old Veleno to the wing could be an antidote that allows him to develop in the NHL while not compromising his time on ice.
"I think if he ends up a much better player than some of the guys that are in those (wing) spots, that we foresee in those spots and he's a better player than those guys, then we can find him a spot in the top nine somewhere, then I think it's a discussion," Blashill said. "The discussion for fourth line center, we'd have to talk what's best for Joe Veleno, at that point, too. Not just necessarily is he a little bit better than another guy. Is that the best thing for our organization and the best thing for him in terms of his development?"