Detroit City Wire

The Detroit Red Wings are set to host the Toronto Maple Leafs at Little Caesars Arena on Saturday night, marking the first game of a home-and-home series between the two Original Six teams. The matchup begins at 7 p.m., with coverage available on FanDuel Sports Network Detroit and the Red Wings Radio Network (97.1 The Ticket in Detroit). The series will continue with a rematch at Scotiabank Arena on Monday afternoon, which was recently rescheduled to 2 p.m.

Detroit enters the game after a 5-1 loss to the Montreal Canadiens in their season opener on Thursday. Captain Dylan Larkin scored early for the Red Wings with a power-play goal, but Montreal responded with five unanswered goals by the end of the second period.

Detroit head coach Todd McLellan addressed his team’s need to recover quickly from the opening defeat. “We can address the problems and the issues that we had, and we certainly did,” McLellan said. “But it’s the bounce back and the mentality of our team that we’re going to be somewhat resilient. We’re getting tested early in the year right off the bat. No one chose it, but we’ve fallen into it already. Can we be resilient? Can we bounce back? Can we fix things and still be an aggressive hockey club without backing off? That’ll be real important, and then we’ll go from there.”

Forward Andrew Copp expressed confidence that Detroit could correct its mistakes from Thursday’s game and improve moving forward. “The mistakes we made were just big mistakes,” Copp said. “I think that was the issue and I think that was kind of the issue in the last preseason game as well. A lot of stuff to clean up, but those mistakes should be relatively easy to clean up. It’s Game 1. Can’t ruin our confidence just because of one game. We had a good meeting and practice on [Friday] to hopefully flush those thoughts, then come to the rink [on Saturday] excited and ready to go.”

Copp also emphasized not overreacting to a single result: “I’ve been on teams where the first game goes like that, then you go on and finish second in the League and go to the Conference Final,” he said. “It’s an interesting game; there’s a lot going on between the ceremony and red carpet. We got to get it fixed fast and there’s no excuse for the mistakes, but it’s one out of 82…We’re going to come expecting to win [on Saturday].”

Ahead of Saturday's skate, Detroit activated James van Riemsdyk from injured/non-roster status while assigning Erik Gustafsson to their AHL affiliate, Grand Rapids Griffins. Van Riemsdyk has practiced with Detroit for over a week after missing time due to family matters during preseason but will not play Saturday.

“Usually, there’s that general build up that you get when you start on Day 1,” van Riemsdyk said about returning after time away from competition. “Obviously, you’re kind of jumping on a little bit of a moving train here when you come a little bit later. But I think with my experience, I’ve been through this sort of thing before. It’s almost like coming back from an injury in a way, where you’re just trying to build yourself back up and that you’re ready to go. I think it’s all about, especially when you first get back in, whenever that may be, mentally just being sharp with your details and things like that.”

Toronto arrives following a 5-2 win over Montreal on Wednesday night led by William Nylander who tallied three points (one goal, two assists). Morgan Rielly contributed both a goal and an assist; John Tavares added two assists; Steven Lorentz recorded two assists as well; goalie Anthony Stolarz stopped 31 shots for Toronto.

“They’re offensively gifted,” McLellan said regarding Toronto's roster depth even if Mitch Marner is unavailable for selection. “Mitch Marner or no Mitch Marner, they can score goals. They pushed the Stanley Cup champs to the brink last year. It didn’t go their way, but that’s the quality and type of team they have. Our task is getting harder, the gauntlet, day by day, so we will look a little bit at some of the exhibition stuff and certainly, the Montreal game that they played.”