Notes: Wings offer new dad DeKeyser some advice

DETROIT -- Life is about to get more hectic but a whole lot sweeter for Red Wings defenseman Danny DeKeyser and his wife, Melissa.
"We got back late from the Rangers game there on Sunday night, I went straight to the hospital that night," DeKeyser said. "I met my wife there and ultimately she gave birth Monday night around 10:30 to a baby girl, McKinley Ann. They're both doing well."

DeKeyser said McKinley Ann was seven pounds, one ounce, and 21 inches long.
He admitted it was tough to leave, especially with all the travel coming up in March.
"I flew in this morning," DeKeyser said. "I asked Blash (Wings coach Jeff Blashill) if I could have a little bit of extra time. Obviously he let me do that, no problem, so he was good with that. It's kind of tough being away right away like that. (this month is bad) This trip, then the west coast trip. I feel a little bad for Melissa, kind of leaving her there but she's going to do good, I know."
If DeKeyser needs some advice, he doesn't have to look far as many of his teammates are fathers, like his fellow defensemen.
"Danny's actually been coming up to me on several occasions and asking me about stuff," Jonathan Ericsson said after a recent practice. "It's more things that he's worried about, like lack of sleep. 'Is it really like you don't sleep at all during the night?' And what's the changes and what's he going to be able to do once he has the baby.
"The thing is when he's going to have his daughter, everything else is going to come in second place. It's all going to be just natural for him. That's what I think anyways. I'm looking forward to seeing him come in here a little tired in the mornings probably. But in the first part of their lives, there's not much as a dad you can do if the mom is nursing."
Xavier Ouellet can relate as his wife, Liz, had their baby girl, Thea, last July.
His advice is to keep it simple.
"Not overthink it. It comes naturally, I feel like," Ouellet said. "That's how it happened for me. You don't know anything about babies and then all of a sudden you seem to know what to do and you get to know your baby and you get to know what she likes and what she wants and what she doesn't. You just go with it. As long as you love her, she's going to be fine."
As for the sleep or lack thereof, Ouellet said, "Just go to bed a little earlier. It gives you extra time. I feel like I got really lucky. It hasn't been that bad for me. I've heard way worse stories. I'd say it's teamwork. Him and his wife are going to have to work together and try to figure out a pattern and a schedule that works for both of them."
DeKeyser had a great example in his own dad, Mick, who will always be there to offer some fatherly wisdom.
"I'd tell him first of all, you got to have patience," Mick DeKeyser said before the annual Fathers' trip. "When you're younger sometimes you haven't learned the virtue of patience. So he'll learn that pretty quick. I learned that, he'll do fine. Him and Melissa, his wife, they're going to be great."
Being a parent is hard work but there are incredible benefits as well.
"Every moment," Ouellet said. "Every time I'm at the house, I spend the whole day with her almost, try to play around. She's getting so close to crawl around and roll around. Every day she seems to do new things and it's just fun to see how they develop, starting to see her personality and how curious they are and they learn. I like every day."
Ericsson's daughter, Liv, is now four and his son, Leo, is almost 20 months old.
"It's just so rewarding," Ericsson said. "Every morning when you wake up and you have someone so happy, smiling in your face, just getting hugs and the love you get is just so rewarding. Very lucky like that."
BERTUZZI, FRK READY FOR NEW OPPORTUNITY: Now that Tomas Tatar is a member of the Vegas Golden Knights, Tyler Bertuzzi and Martin Frk will be getting new opportunities.
Bertuzzi moves from the fourth line to the second with Dylan Larkin and Andreas Athanasiou, a spot he had played in a little earlier in the season.
"They got a lot of speed so if can be good on the walls and get them the puck, and if we get O-zone time, they'll create opportunities and I'll be net-front," Bertuzzi said. "It's a huge part of my career, big learning thing for me to be in a second-line spot. I'm just going to learn from it and play hard."
Frk has been a healthy scratch in four of the last five games.
He now returns to the fourth line alongside Luke Glendening and David Booth, and to the second power-play unit.
"We lost a good player, he was a great guy in the room, too, as well so it's a little hard," Frk said. "We will miss him. In the opposite way, it's good for me to get back in the lineup and hopefully I can produce and help the team win games."
POWER-PLAY CHANGES: The Wings are doing a few different things with their power-play units.
Anthony Mantha is with Henrik Zetterberg, Gustav Nyquist, Justin Abdelkader and Niklas Kronwall but Abdelkader is serving as the net-front guy.
"I've been reticent to move Anthony off the net because I wanted to make sure we trained him to be a good net-front presence, not just on the PP, but 5-on-5," Blashill said. "I think he's done a pretty good job of that. He leads us in power-play goals and I think he's probably learned somewhat that you get some free goals if you're in front of the net, it's an easy way to get free goals.
"But now we also have in Abby and Bert, two other real good net-front presence type guys, so I also want to try to utilize Anthony's shot as a weapon. He's got a real good shot. On the net, you can't really utilize it, so let's put him on the flank and see how good he is at. He was good in the American League, he was good in junior, that doesn't always translate to the NHL but certainly that shot is a big weapon that we want to use."
On the second power-play unit, Frk is with Larkin, Athanasiou, Bertuzzi and Trevor Daley as Mike Green remains out. "
He put me in a different spot (middle) so it'll be a little bit different," Frk said. "I got to go get used to it but on the power play there is four more guys that can score too, so it doesn't have to be me all the time. So I just got to go learn what to do there quickly, hopefully I can get it right away and hopefully we can score tonight."
BLUES STRUGGLING: The St. Louis Blues are going through a rough patch, having lost seven games in a row.
On Tuesday night, the Blues got hammered in Minnesota, 8-3.
"They're a good team, they're fighting to get into the playoffs," DeKeyser said. "I think they're a few points out right now. So we know that they're going to be coming out hard tonight, especially after last night's game."
The Blues are currently 10th in the Western Conference with 72 points (34-26-4) in 64 games.
"I'm not really focused on them but the biggest thing is making sure we come in tonight battle-ready and in that first period we're ready to compete like crazy, so we can't feel our way into the game, we got to make sure … it's a building that is a momentum building, it's loud, they've got good fans here, so we got to make sure we're ready to compete right away," Blashill said.