Notes: Wings pick up Goloubef on waivers

UNIONDALE -- The Wings created some depth on the blue line Friday, picking up defenseman Cody Goloubef on waivers from Ottawa.
The team then returned defenseman Brian Lashoff to the AHL's Grand Rapids Griffins.

"Right now, it helps our depth on defense," Wings coach Jeff Blashill said. "We'll see how everything shakes out through the week. We had some guys that were questionable injury-wise that I think are going to be okay but you just don't know, so we want to make sure that we have that kind of depth.
"I actually know Cody going back to when he was a minor midget playing for the Toronto Marlies a long time ago which a whole bunch of guys that you would know, good players. He's a good, solid player who again adds to our depth."
Goloubef, 30, had one goal and one assist in 24 games with the Senators this season.
Blashill said Goloubef would join the team Saturday, not in New York.
One player whose availability was in question was defenseman Alex Biega, who underwent tests and found that he had a fractured cheekbone after blocking a shot off the stick of Boston's David Pastrnak last Saturday.
But Blashill said Biega was available to play.
BAD MEMORIES: The last time the Wings were on Long Island, they dropped an 8-2 decision to the Islanders.
"I think when you get embarrassed, you always want to get another chance at it but I think more importantly, we just gotta keep building our individual games and our team game, and I think we've done a pretty good job of staying focused on that," Blashill said. "I didn't like our start the other night but I liked the way we dug in and finished and we gotta build off it."

Although the score was not pretty, Blashill said the team's effort on Jan. 14 was not as bad as it would seem.
"If you look at the last game, from a structural standpoint, from a systematic standpoint, you go back and watch the tape and you have a lot of good clips of us doing good things," Blashill said. "But they scored obviously eight goals and it just kept going in our net. So we gotta make sure we don't give them momentum with the goals against. We gotta make sure we make them defend."
TOP 10 FINNS: When Valtteri Filppula assisted on the goal Tuesday night against Montreal, it marked his 514th career point.
That moved him into a tie with Jere Lehtinen for 10th all-time among Finnish-born players.
"To be honest, I didn't even think about it before, a couple teammates said it before the game that I have a chance to be top 10," Filppula said after Wednesday's practice. "I think it just means I've been in the league for a while and that's a positive thing for sure. Other than that, I don't really think about the points that much."
Like the majority of Finnish players, Filppula doesn't really toot his own too much so the accomplishment didn't really faze him.
"If I'm 10th right now, how many with that kind of amount of points," Filppula noted. "If you think about Canadian and American, there's a lot."
Most of the players from Finland are familiar with each other so Filppula does know Lehtinen.
"I played with him. I know him well," Filppula said. "We do stuff over the summer in Finland."
But Filppula doesn't plan to call Lehtinen as soon as he breaks the tie to push him into 11th.
"No, I won't do that," Filppula said with a laugh. "Maybe over the summer when I see him, maybe I'll say something."
Teemu Selanne leads all Finnish-born players with 1,457 points, Jari Kurri is second with 1,398 and Saku Koivu is third with 832.
FABBRI PROVING THINGS: Forward Robby Fabbri came to the Wings at a time when they really needed someone with scoring ability.
When Fabbri was with the St. Louis Blues, he had suffered two devastating injuries to his left knee and had seen his ice time diminish even when he got healthy again.
On Nov. 6, the Wings traded center Jacob de la Rose for Fabbri. In his first game, Fabbri scored twice on the power play.
He is currently third on the team in goals with 13, behind only Tyler Bertuzzi, who has 18, and Dylan Larkin, who has 15.
When he scored Tuesday against Montreal, Fabbri reached 29 points, the second most of his career.
"This year is just about getting my confidence back and kind of just proving to myself that I can still be the player that I was," Fabbri said Thursday. "So it's been good in that sense, I guess you could say."
He had 29 points (11-18-29) in 51 games in the 2016-17 season. The previous season, Fabbri had 18 goals and 19 assists for a career-best 37 points in 72 games.
Of course, Fabbri would like to see the team get some more wins as they did against the Canadiens Tuesday.
"I don't think anyone in here is packing it in," Fabbri said. "We've got a lot to prove to each other in here. That's the most important thing. The outside noise is whatever but to get rewarded like we did (Tuesday) night after the work we put in for the full 60 minutes was nice. Hopefully that now allows us to keep carrying it over game to game."