Jeff Blashill Echoes Holland, Elaborates On Athanasiou, Mantha
By: Will Burchfield
@burchie_kid
Earlier this week, Red Wings GM Ken Holland laid down a hardline philosophy on ice time. In short, veterans can have off nights but young players can't.
Coach Jeff Blashill elaborated on this on Thursday.
"I don't know (about) the word 'veteran,' because veteran can be murky. I don't know when you define yourself as a veteran," Blashill told the Jamie and Stoney Show on 97.1 The Ticket. "Here's what I'll say. When you play good hockey, you earn what I guess I'd call credit, you earn trust. Sometimes, then, when you don't play good hockey, that trust and credit that you've earned previously carries you through more ice time. But at some point, that trust and credit goes away and if you keep playing poor hockey then you end up in a spot where you are not playing. That's kind of how it works."
But it's not as simple as dolling out ice time based on sheer results.
"The other side of it," Blashill went on, "is the determination from me, who are our best players and will a benching by sending a message help that person? Is that person giving everything he has every day, anyways, and maybe it's a confidence thing and so the benching doesn't help? Does that person need a wake up call in a benching, whether it's in a game or from game to game?
"One thing you guys wouldn't see is times during games where I may sit a player to send a message, but you'd never really notice because it might be from one timeout to the next timeout. But that person gets the message. Those are all the little decisions that coaches have to make," he said.
Take Wednesday night's win over the Bruins, for example.
"A young player like Anthony Mantha right now has done a really good job of earning credit since he's been up here, so when he has a tough game or a tough shift, I put him back out there," Blashill said. "He had a tough shift the first shift of the game last night, but I kept playing him because he's earned that kind of credit and trust."
Nevertheless, Blashill has been criticized this season for being too heavy-handed with the organization's young players, none more so than Andreas Athanasiou. Despite proving to be the most efficient goal scorer on the team, Athanasiou ranks 12th among forwards in ice time (12:44 per game) and has been scratched or benched numerous times.
He was most recently left out of the lineup on Jan. 4 versus the Ducks. Since then, he's tallied five goals and eight points over seven contests and seen his ice time increase to 14:57 per game.
"For me, its just a simple thing with him -- when he's engaged and competing and skating, he's an excellent player," Blashill said. "His skating ability and skill set is outstanding and he has to make sure that his competition level matches that and that his skating matches that and the nights he's done that he's been great.
"I sat him to make sure he understood that when he doesn't do it, it's not good enough -- and that's my job. My job's to make sure I let our guys know what's good enough and what's not. I think he got that message. He's a good kid, he wants to be a good player, but it takes time sometimes. Certainly when he's playing his best hockey we're a better hockey team. I'll never question that, there's no doubt about that, I've told him that. We need him playing great hockey for us to be a real good team."
The same can be said of Mantha, who's emerging as one of the Wings' go-to players on offense. Watching him now, it's hard to fathom that he began the season in the AHL.
But Blashill believes that time in the minors was to Mantha's benefit. In fact, both he and Hollard are firm believers in nurturing players in the 'A' before exposing them to the rigors of the NHL.
"This is a hard league to learn in," Blashill said. "Other young payers that have had to go through that, where they're learning in this league, it's hard. You'd way rather learn those lessons in the American League. I think that's one thing that Kenny's done very, very well here for a long period of time. I think, in Anthony's case, it's paid off to be a good decision and I think he's been ready now to step in and be successful.
"I can tell you this: When you have to learn those lessons in this league its really, really easy to lose your confidence and he's been able to come in here and already have learned those lessons and keep that confidence at a real high level."
To Blashill's point, Mantha has played with swagger since being called up in November. The big rookie has 11 goals and 22 points in 30 games.
"He's starting to be a really consistently good player for us," said Blashill. "The hardest thing in this league, I think, is to do it night in, night out, and shift in, shift out and he's taking steps toward doing that."
