Notes: Young Wings learning to become everyday players in the NHL

DETROIT -- The hardest thing is not just getting to the NHL, it's becoming what former Wings coach Mike Babcock calls an "everydayer."
Over the course of a grueling 82-game schedule, there aren't that many games where players feel 100 percent.

So players have to find a way to prepare themselves to get through a 60-minute game and help their team win somehow.
"Guys (who) are coming up from the American League generally are elite players at the American League level so their talent discrepancy is greater," Wings coach Jeff Blashill said. "There's still, I think, discrepancy in talent amongst the American League teams where you can take nights off and win in that league. There is none of those here. It's way different than five years ago, it's way different than seven years ago. Certainly (much) different than 15 years ago. There's no bad teams. Even teams with bad records aren't bad teams.
"So every night you have to be so much on top of your game. I think it's a learned process at times for young guys to understand and that's what separates the elite players in the league from the good players is the guys that find a way to be at the 90 to 100 percentile of their max every single night because there just is no chance to go out and kind of work yourself into the game and there's no chance to go out and kind of skill yourself around the rink."
Every young player goes through those kind of growing pains, learning how to perform when they aren't feeling their best.
"It's hard, it's 82 games, practice almost every day," Dylan Larkin said. "Luckily for the young guys in this room, including myself, we have great leadership we get to look at every day, it's an everyday reminder of what it takes to be who they are and why they're still playing and why they're the leaders on our team. The games don't get easier this time of year. Guys are tired, it's the middle of winter. But the guys that are the best players in the world past winters, they show up every day and they play every night. It's definitely been learning, my first three years, this time of year is a tough time of year but we got to find ways to produce."
Larkin went through many of those growing pains last year.
Now guys like Tyler Bertuzzi, Andreas Athanasiou and Anthony Mantha are experiencing that.
On Jan. 7 against the Tampa Bay Lightning, Bertuzzi played a career-high 18:06, recorded one assist and was an even player.
In the last game against the Boston Bruins, Bertuzzi played just 7:54, had no shots and finished minus-2.
Bertuzzi knows what he has to do.
"Just play simple, play smart, play hard," Bertuzzi said. "The big thing for Blash is if I can just work hard and play smart and limit the mistakes, then I'll be good."
In the Bruins game, Athanasiou centered the fourth line and played just 10:57, getting no shots and finishing minus-2.
That's a far cry from the 20 minutes he was playing throughout most of January when he averaged three shots per game.
In Thursday's practice at the BELFOR Training Center, Bertuzzi was back on Larkin's wing along with Tomas Tatar.
Mantha, who still leads the team in goals with 16 and is third in points with 30 behind Larkin's 39 and captain Henrik Zetterberg's 34.
But Mantha hasn't scored since Jan. 25 against the Chicago Blackhawks and has just that point in his last nine games.
"The guys that figure it out are the ones that are the real good players in the league," Blashill said. "My job is to make sure I'm their mirror and make sure I'm telling them when they're doing it right, when they're not doing it right. Certainly after the other night, my job as a mirror was to say it wasn't good enough. We weren't determined enough.
"We went out there, we were OK, we hung on, we had a chance to win at the end but we weren't determined enough. We didn't have enough chances. We've got to be more determined than that. I don't care if you're big or small, you got to make sure you come out with that level of determination."
Mantha said he and Blashill have kept the lines of communication open.
"For me it's been a message for four years now," Mantha said. "I think lately I've been playing pretty good. We talked, me and Blash, a lot this year, a lot of video. We got it going a little bit better than in the past.
"Just to be focused every game, every shift, to do the little details you need to perform. Preparation."
As Larkin mentioned, the young players do have a lot of good examples to follow in the team's leaders.
"That's one thing that I think that we have going for us above other organizations in the league, at least on my knowledge of coaching other teams in the world championships, talking to other people who get traded here or sign here as free agents," Blashill said. "We have a group of guys that do it right and guys that you can learn from in Zetterberg and (Niklas) Kronwall, but I'd include guys like (Frans) Nielsen and (Mike) Green and (Trevor) Daley and (Jonathan) Ericsson. They do it right every day.
"So there is no excuse. There's models here to make sure that guys can emulate themselves after in terms of the approach every single day. Zetterberg's one of the best. There's no days where he can just skate around the rink because he's a fluid, easy skater, it's every day he's got to be ready. He's got to be ready to battle and grind and he does."
Zetterberg has said in the past that if players don't have their 'A' game, that is OK but they can't have a 'D' game.
"Try to grind out a win, do anything you can to help the team," Larkin said. "You might not be feeling the best, it might not be your night offensively, but definitely can't put the team down. It seems like how we've been losing is a couple mistakes and if we clean those up we'll find ways to win."
GOOD LUCK IN PYEONGCHANG: The Wings' Chris Chelios is in PyeongChang, South Korea, as an assistant coach for Team USA's men's Olympic hockey team.
Former Red Wings assistant coach Tony Granato is the head coach of the team.
The other assistant coaches are Ron Rolston, Keith Allain and Scott Young.
"I talked to (Chelios), I talked to Tony Granato a little bit, just wishing them and Ron Rolston, (with whom) I have a real good relationship that's on their staff as well, and just wishing them great luck," Blashill said. "It's going to be an interesting tournament. It's way different than any Olympics we've seen in a long time. So it'll be interesting to see. Even prior to the NHL guys getting (in), there were programs in place. This is totally different. I don't know if everyone took a different approach but I think they're certainly in good hands with the coaching staff and I hope they have a great tournament."