Red Wings trying to maximize practice time amid daily grind of season

DETROIT -- The Detroit Red Wings laced up their skates for practice at Little Caesars Arena’s BELFOR Training Center on Monday morning, gearing up for a busy stretch of three games in four nights that begins Wednesday against the Chicago Blackhawks at United Center.

“This condensed schedule with the international break this year, it’s going to be a grind,” Detroit head coach Derek Lalonde said. “You’re going to hit it in different ways. You get very little practice time. I can sit here and argue -- we’re talking about one of our better 60-minute games [2-1 victory over Buffalo Sabres on Saturday]. Certainly not perfect, is that a reflection of a lot of practice time? Practice is really hard to come by. I think to take it advantage of it when we can. Even with the two forwards down today, we were able to work on some things we wanted to work on.”

The two forwards Lalonde was referring to were captain Dylan Larkin and Patrick Kane, who didn’t practice on Monday but are expected to be available against the Blackhawks.

“More maintenance, bumps and bruises,” Lalonde said. “Made sense from our medical staff to give them a day off, especially since we have a unique part of our schedule here where in the next two weeks, back-to-back [games] and three [games] in four [days] with travel.”

Lalonde also had an encouraging update on Tyler Motte, who practiced again on Monday and has been out since Oct. 17 with a lower-body injury.

“He’s in a good spot right now,” Lalonde said about Motte. “He’s coming along. I like the fact that we have 13 forwards that we’re very comfortable with. Obviously he’s unique in that he’s done a really good job checking in his career. We’re also coming off a game, arguably one of our more complete games, so he’s likely to be available for Wednesday. We’ll get a feel for that in the next couple days.”

Eager to return to game action, Motte believes he's integrated well with the Red Wings. The 29-year-old forward inked a one-year free-agent deal with Detroit in July.

“I felt pretty good through the preseason and learned the systems pretty easily,” Motte said. “Obviously I knew a lot of the guys. Transition was pretty easy. You get into live game reps, and unfortunately it wasn’t too many of them. Obviously in preseason you get some touches, but with some different people. Not too worried about it coming back. Hockey is hockey. you go out there and play, make mistakes, learn on the fly and give your best effort.”

Motte added that the Red Wings have already seen several highs and lows through their first 11 games of the season.

“Obviously there’s areas to improve,” Motte said. “I think we all want to take a look in the mirror on some special teams at times, and I think we have recently. Power play comes back and gets two [goals] the other night. PK has gotten kills when we’ve needed them. Just need 5-on-5 game. It’s a night-in, night-out process. You’re going to make mistakes, but you’ve got to be able to regroup and continue to go out and perform.”