Notes: Nielsen is league's shootout king

DETROIT -- All hail the shootout king, Frans Nielsen.
When Nielsen shot the puck through New York Rangers goaltender Henrik Lundqvist's five-hole to open the shootout Friday night at Little Caesars Arena, it marked his 47th career shootout goal.

Not only did it extend his league record, it put another notch on Nielsen's goaltender victim scorecard.
"I'd never scored on Lundqvist," Nielsen said after the team's optional practice Saturday at BELFOR Training Center. "(Ryan) Miller, he's done a lot of scouting. He seems to know what I'm going to do every time. I haven't even been close to scoring on him. So there's been a couple of goalies I've struggled with."
After the game, Wings coach Jeff Blashill was asked what made Nielsen so successful in shootouts.
"I would say Nielsen's got a couple moves and he doesn't overcomplicate it," Blashill said. "I think sometimes some guys, some real good scorers are bad at shootouts. Guys were talking about it (yesterday), we were watching the USA-Canada game, it's amazing how some really good players, especially good scorers, can be really bad shootout guys because they overcomplicate it. Nielsen doesn't, he keeps it simple. He's got a couple go-to moves and he just reads the goalie and makes those moves."
Only Washington's T.J. Oshie has been better than Nielsen in shootout percentage.
Nielsen has succeeded on 50 percent of his chances, 47 of 94, while Oshie has connected on 53.3 percent of his, 40 of 75.
"I've definitely stuck with the same couple of moves through the whole time, just doing stuff I'm comfortable with," Nielsen said. "I think for the most part I've kind of made up my mind before I even go in. If I change my mind at the last second, it kind of turns into nothing. I think I just worked a lot on a couple of things and I've stuck with it."
However, because Nielsen's goal Friday was the shootout winner, he moved ahead of Oshie in that category with 21.
Nielsen said in his first few years, he always went with the backhand until goaltenders started expecting that.
Blashill said the one thing he doesn't want to do with his players when it comes to the shootout is over-coach it.
"We make available tendencies, both from a shooter's standpoint and from a goalie's standpoint and by that I mean, we don't force it down their throats," Blashill said. "Some guys don't like to think lots, some guys are really analytical. So every guy had their own approach to it. I was a bad goalie, I'm not going to tell somebody how to score. Certainly there's times where there's things we might see, Double-A (Andreas Athanasiou), for example, he's really good on breakaways in games but he hasn't been quite as good in the shootout. One thing we've talked to him about is making sure he keeps his speed. In the game, he's going full speed, it's real hard on the goalie."
Nielsen said he benefited from watching something that happened earlier in Friday's game when it came to shootout time.
"Yesterday, Lundqvist I think was the one guy I'd never scored on, or one of them," Nielsen said. "We kind of went back and looked at Gus' (Nyquist) breakaway from the first period and saw how he opened up between his legs."
Nielsen said he enjoys watching other players' shootout moves but doesn't always try to incorporate them into his own arsenal.
"Actually, the backhand thing started already when I played in Sweden," Nielsen said. "We watched (Alexei) Kovalev do some kind of move and then the next day, everyone was out there trying to copy him. You see guys do stuff and then you try to copy a little bit. Some stuff, you know, 'No I can't do that,' and you stay away from it."
Last season, the Wings were a perfect 9-for-9 in shootouts.
This year they are 3-1 with their only blemish coming on Nov. 11 against the Columbus Blue Jackets.
But in the 2015-16 season, they were 2-5 and in the 2014-15 season, they were a dismal 4-10.
"Over the course of the two years (Nielsen's) been here and the course of his career, I'm sure he's accumulated lots of points for us and the Islanders," Blashill said. "He's excellent in the shootout. Last year I think our fortunes changed a lot in the shootouts and a large part of it was because of Frans. I think our goaltenders have really worked hard at their games at getting better at the shootouts but certainly Frans and last year Thomas Vanek has helped changed the fortunes of that."
Last year Petr Mrazek had an .867 save percentage in shootouts and Howard had an .833 save percentage.
In the 2015-16 season, Mrazek had a .667 shootout save percentage and Howard had a .556 shootout save percentage.
"(Howard's) worked hard, hard, hard at it," Blashill said after the game. "That's what makes him great at it. It's not any trick to be great at stuff, you got to work at it and he's really worked at it. It was not that long ago that there was lots of talk about how bad Detroit was in shootouts. He's really, really worked at his game, he takes tons of breakaways after practice. That's how you get good at things."
MANTHA STILL QUESTIONABLE: There was no major update on forward Anthony Mantha, who missed Friday night's game due to a nagging injury.
"Day to day for right now," Blashill said. "I don't think it's anything I'm overly worried about but questionable for tomorrow."
The goal is to make sure that Mantha does not miss extended time by aggravating something more.
"A lot of this is dealing with our training staff and letting them make the best decision for the player," Blashill said. "Their job is to help protect the player and make sure that the players want to play and we're putting them in a position to not miss long-term."
OPTIONAL SKATE: The Wings held an optional practice Saturday and only David Booth, Tyler Bertuzzi, Martin Frk, Darren Helm, Nielsen, Mrazek, Nick Jensen, Xavier Ouellet and Luke Witkowski opted to take the ice.
"It's kind of the way it's been when we've gone game, practice, game," Blashill said. "That practice in between we've gone fairly hard. I went to three lines at a decent spot last night in the third and a bunch of guys were between 18 and 22 minutes. The average age of our team isn't young. At that point you're probably giving five-six guys the day off anyways and once you give five-six guys the day off - some guys have nicks and bumps - so you give them the option.
"I'd love to practice way more than we do but you have to manage practice time vs. energy come game time. I talk to my coaching staff, I talk to our leadership group and I talk to our training staff."