Coach Todd McLellan has been tinkering with the Red Wings’ lines, and he is doing more shuffling ahead of Detroit’s home game against the San Jose Sharks on Friday.
Lucas Raymond is moving back to the first line to reunite with captain Dylan Larkin. James van Riemsdyk, who has been on a scoring tear, will join them.
van Riemsdyk, 36, signed a one-year contract last offseason as a free agent. After a slow start, he has made his $1 million deal seem like a huge bargain. He has 11 goals and six assists in the past 22 games, including two goals and five assists in the past five games.
“He knows who he is and what he does,” McLellan said. “He’s been there so many times, on the boards versus pressure back, checking, good reads, what’s going to happen. It’s not difficult to find him linemates, but we always look at what he might complement the best or vice versa.”
Playing the second game of a back-to-back, the Red Wings were blanked 3-0 by the host Boston Bruins on Tuesday. The result snapped Detroit’s three-game winning streak. Time for some more tinkering.
“We’ve gone four or five games and a couple of our lines are giving us some output both offensively and defensively and the others still aren’t getting a lot done, so we shook up the wingers a bit,” McLellan said. “That’s really all there is to it. There’s not a lot to read into it. (We) play another game and hopefully we get all four lines going.”
van Riemsdyk has played with Larkin and Raymond on the power-play unit.
“I think we got a little bit of that chemistry going on,” he said. “I’m excited to get a chance to get out there with them.”
Marco Kasper and Emmitt Finnie, who had auditioned as Larkin’s linemates on the first unit, will now join J.T. Compher.
The Sharks, who have won seven of their past nine games, will arrive in Detroit on Friday to play the second game of a back-to-back set.
San Jose held on for a 3-2 road win over the Washington Capitals on Thursday. The Sharks scored all of their goals in a three-minute span during the second period. Collin Graf and Pavol Regenda each had a goal and an assist in the opener of a four-game road swing.
“Did some really good things,” San Jose coach Ryan Warsofsky said. “I liked our second. That was one of our better second periods of the season.”
The Capitals scored midway through the third period to pull within a goal, but the Sharks held on despite being outshot 14-3 during the final frame. Alex Nedeljkovic made 21 saves for the victory.
“We’re winning in different ways, in a sense, and I think that’s what good teams do,” Warsofsky said. “Some of the younger guys are learning some lessons of how hard this league is to play for 60 minutes and we are as a team, as well.”
The Red Wings collected a 3-2 shootout victory at San Jose on Nov. 2. van Riemsdyk had the lone goal during the shootout.
