Red Wings up for challenges of week ahead with 2025 NHL Stadium Series behind them

DETROIT -- The Detroit Red Wings practiced at Little Caesars Arena’s BELFOR Training Center on Monday afternoon, beginning a stretch that will see them host the Carolina Hurricanes on Tuesday night and Utah Hockey Club on Thursday night before visiting the Eastern Conference-leading Washington Capitals at Capital One Arena on Friday night.

With big points up for grabs this week, keeping their focus on the ice and muting the noise of the 2025 NHL Trade Deadline (3 p.m. ET on Friday) is what head coach Todd McLellan wants the Red Wings to prioritize in the coming days.

“I think what has happened in our world is we try to magnify moments or days, and the media outlets want to capture,” McLellan said. “There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s great for our game and to promote it, but we’re dealing with families, lives and that type of stuff. A lot of that stuff can be so far from the truth…We have other things to focus on. We have a big week ahead of us coming off a weekend when we didn’t get any points.”

Detroit enters the first week of March in a similar position to last season -- holding one of two Wild-Card spots in the Eastern Conference -- but this time knowing more about what it takes to play beyond game No. 82.

“We’ll have to wait and see, but I think the experience that last year gave a lot of us is big,” Lucas Raymond said. “Just shows the importance of every game and every point.”

Raymond added that staying focused on the task at hand, even with everything going on at this point of the season, is “easy to do because it’s a lot of fun.”

“These are the games that are fun to play,” Raymond said. “We did it last year. Obviously, it didn’t go our way. This year, I think everyone is very eager for it to go our way, so these are fun games. You can’t not like it. It’s an awesome atmosphere. It means a lot every game, especially the position we are in. Everyone is just excited to get going.”

Goalie Cam Talbot wasn’t with the Red Wings last season, but the 37-year-old has seen both peaks and valleys while pushing for a Stanley Cup Playoffs spot with several clubs over his NHL career. He said staying on an even keel from here on out will benefit Detroit.

“When you’re in it, the highs can get high,” Talbot said. “Then you lose a couple, and you can get too low. I think maintaining that mentality of what happened the night before doesn’t matter. Whether it’s a win or a loss, it’s about focusing on the next game and how we can keep pushing forward. Like I said, every point is used down the stretch here. We gave a couple back the last couple games, but we’re still in a good spot.”

The Red Wings have faced several challenges already this season, and McLellan believes they’ve done an overall good job responding. However, he acknowledged the club has some work to do in understanding the ebbs and flows of a game.

“A lot of the ups and downs can happen between minute one and minute 60,” McLellan said. “I think we can manage that better, hence the game in Columbus [on Saturday night] with some of the lapses or lack of understanding time of game, where we are, the momentum and that type of stuff. Some of it is experience, learning how to win and just mistakes.”