Notes: Mantha expected to play against Coyotes

GLENDALE -- It was a quick trip west for Detroit Red Wings forward Christoffer Ehn.
After playing in the Grand Rapids Griffins' 5-4 overtime loss to the Rockford IceHogs in Rockford, Ill. Friday night, Ehn had to fly to Phoenix.

The Wings called Ehn up under emergency conditions as forward Anthony Mantha had been sick.
"He's an emergency, so if Anthony is able to play and we have enough healthy forwards, then we'll terminate the emergency call-up and send him back," Wings coach Jeff Blashill said. "But as of last night I didn't think he was going to be able to play but he's felt much better here over the course of the last 12 hours, so we expect him to play. He may come here today and not feel great. In that case, we would keep Ehn on emergency."

Ehn, 22, has played in 44 games with the Wings this season, recording two goals and five assists as an even player.
Mantha, 24, is in the midst of a four-game point streak in which he has two goals and five assists.
Mantha is also third on the team in goals with 16, behind Dylan Larkin's 26 and Andreas Athanasiou's 22.
Blashill also said Larkin and Mike Green, who both missed practice Thursday, are expected to play.
COYOTES HOWLING: The Arizona Coyotes are one of the hotter teams in the league.
Since their 5-0 victory over the New York Rangers on Jan. 6, the Coyotes are 14-7-2.
They have won five straight games and eight of their last 10.
"I think Tocch's (Coyotes coach Rick Tocchet) done a real good job with that team," Blashill said Friday in Detroit. "Last year they had a real tough start and it buried them a little bit but their second half was very good once they started getting real good goaltending. The beginning part of the year, they just didn't get very good goaltending. I thought once they started to get way better goaltending, they were a very, very good team the second half of the year. They work up front, they've got a pretty good D corps, they've got some depth. They've got a good combination of some guys like Derek Stepan, who's been a real good pro, although I think he got hurt (the other) night, and some younger guys like (Clayton) Keller and (Alex) Galchenyuk and that so you've got some talent infused with some good, veteran mix. Richardson's having a heck of a year and then (Darcy) Kuemper's been great here lately.
"Like anything in this league, when your goalie gets hot, it helps you a ton and their goalie's been hot. Then I think the fact that in the West, all those teams see light. That last playoff spot's attainable for so many teams because of where the point total's at that they see light at the end of the tunnel. It keeps you going."
In the new year, Kuemper is 14-3-3 with a 2.31 goals-against average and .925 save percentage.
Kuemper's 14 victories in 2019 rank second in the NHL.
The Coyotes also benefit from having the league's top penalty kill at 85.9 percent.
"Pressure. Early pressure, especially," Blashill said. "When you get set up on them they're not a whole lot different than a whole lot of other teams. They give up some seam plays. Usually, when you give up seam plays you're in a tough spot on the kill. What they do do is they pressure up the ice and they pressure in the zone and they don't allow you to have many easy set-ups.
"They also have some elite premier shot-blockers on the back end. (Niklas) Hjalmasson's been on the best for a long time. I think (Jordan) Oesterle does a real good job blocking shots. When you do get into the flanks or you are able to break them down a little bit they seem to block a lot of shots."
However, the Coyotes lost Stepan, one of their top penalty killers, for the remainder of the regular season with a lower-body injury.

The Wings are looking to bounce back after an embarrassing 8-1 home loss to the Montreal Canadiens Tuesday.
"You got to earn your confidence back," Blashill said. "When you get kicked, you got to get back up. That's what life is about. We got kicked, and it was self-induced, on Tuesday, but now we got to get back up and we got to make sure we play the right way. I think the biggest thing is that you're playing the right hockey. If you do that over and over and over again, you get results. That's where I want to make sure we don't give away any easy goals. When you give away easy goals and you're kind of on the wrong side, it makes it hard for you."
The Wings beat the Coyotes, 6-1, at Little Caesars Arena but that was a while ago, back on Nov. 13.
"When you look back to that game, they went in easy that night, for whatever reason," Blashill said. "It was just one of those nights. We haven't lots of them, where, I use the term score easy, we scored easy. We were the better team in the first but then the game was very even after that, but the score was a bit out of hand. I just think it's so long ago, it's more focus on us making sure we play great hockey. Let's not give away any easy opportunities. Let's make it hard for them to create offense but then let's make sure we have that relentless attack we've had through lots of the year."