Traverse City — The Red Wings opened their training camp Thursday in quick and intense fashion.
Coach Todd McLellan, who took over the Wings on Dec. 26 last season, never had the benefit of training camp with his team. So McLellan is introducing more of his concepts this week, and one nuance is a hard, tough intra-squad scrimmage that awaited the Wings at Centre Ice Arena.
“I really enjoyed the new format,” captain Dylan Larkin said. “It’s new to me. The scrimmages every day (scheduled this week), it was good to be back competing. I enjoyed it. I was nervous, and this is my 11th cap, but with the new coach and the very first skate, it went well.”
The Wings would scrimmage in previous years, but not to the extent they did Thursday, with more hitting and live contact.
“Like I said, a new format from what I’ve been used to,” Larkin said. “Talking to Kaner (Patrick Kane), he had this in Chicago where they scrimmaged. For a Day One scrimmage, it was very tight checking and intense, and Todd set the tone with that.”
Lucas Raymond felt the scrimmage did a good job getting players acclimated to camp, and took skating from the summer scrimmages a level up.
“You kind of get into game shape pretty quick,” Raymond said. “You bump into each other, and the speed, and the scrimmage really helped.”
McLellan was as vocal as usual, with the Wings.
“Very intense, like normally he is,” Larkin said. “A lot of attention to detail, which should be no surprise to one. He stopped it (practice) and corrected it, and taught. I really feel like we went out there and did what we wanted to accomplish in practice.”
tkulfan@detroitnews.com
@tkulfan
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