With 41-game mark of their Centennial season right around the corner, Red Wings reflect on confidence gained and need for carrying it forward

DETROIT -- Just one game away from hitting the halfway mark of their Centennial season, the Detroit Red Wings spoke about what they’ve accomplished up to this point and what still needs to get done following their practice at Little Caesars Arena’s BELFOR Training Center on Tuesday morning.

“We’ve definitely earned some of the confidence with the way we’ve played but it’s always about the next game, especially with how tight the standings are,” James van Riemsdyk said. “From one to eight in our division, it’s nine points. You don’t have time to not be ready to play any game, so you have got to give yourself a chance every night. Obviously, we have a ton of divisional games throughout the rest of the year. Every game for us is an important one, but we’re excited for that challenge.”

As of Tuesday morning, Detroit was in first place in the Atlantic Division at 23-14-3 with the second-most points (49) collected among the 16 Eastern Conference teams and fifth-most in the NHL. Eleven of those 23 wins have come in comeback fashion, trailing only the Philadelphia Flyers (13).

Patrick Kane believes the Red Wings have been able to find different ways to win this season.

“That’s something we talked about during the offseason and Training Camp, is that resiliency,” Kane said. “You could easily see that game against Toronto [on Sunday] maybe go the other way last year or year before, but for whatever reason this year we’re finding ways to dig into those moments and turn the game in our favor. Even when it was 2-1, and we’re probably outplaying [the Maple Leafs] and they have the lead, we come back next shift and find a way to score, get a point and get the extra point. All those add up. I think that’s happened a lot throughout the first half of the year.”

Asked about the growth Detroit has shown since the start of this campaign, head coach Todd McLellan noted that it can’t be measured by statistics alone.

“When you improve two percent in one area, one percent in another and you start putting it all together, the curve goes up,” McLellan said. “It’s not a steep curve, but we’ve slowly been getting better. I think the stuff that’s not measurable -- the mental part of it and the game management stuff that doesn’t show up on a stat sheet. Analytics are really hard to evaluate, so probably in those areas more than anything.”

Along that line of trying to assess the intangibles, McLellan said that there’s a shared sense of belief in Detroit’s dressing room that’s played a big part in the club’s success.

“Confidence is a real important word,” McLellan said. “We use it often, and don’t want to take it to the point of arrogance. I don’t believe we’ve even gotten close to that, nor should we ever. That’ll be our job to stop it, but we want to maintain confidence. Respect is important too. I think we’re starting to earn some respect from each other in the room and maybe around the League, but with respect comes responsibility. Once you get respected, you better be responsible and live up to it. That’s the next phase that we’re going to have to deal with -- we’re going to have to bring it every night now.”