Detroit — James van Riemsdyk finally arrived in Detroit Wednesday, got on the ice and practiced, and met his new teammates.
Even for a 17-year-veteran such as him, though, it had the feeling of anticipation and curiosity of the first day of school.
“You still kind of have those first-day jitters, especially when you’ve missed a bit of time,” said van Riemsdyk, whose arrival to the Wings was delayed by the birth of twin boys. “It’s always fun. It’s something I love to do, and any opportunity to go out there and play and get back to it is a lot of fun.”
Before answering questions from reporters, van Riemsdyk expressed his “appreciation and gratefulness” to the Wings organization.
“Particularly (general manager) Steve (Yzerman) and (coach) Todd (McLellan). You come to a new team and don’t really know everyone that well. But just how supportive they were, especially through the last few weeks, the last few months actually, of dealing with some stuff with the birth of our twins and some stuff related to that with the pregnancy, with my wife, just how great they were, I’ll always be grateful for that,” van Riemsdyk said.
The Wings have two exhibition games remaining before the regular season opens Oct. 9. It sounds as if it’ll be a close call as to whether van Riemsdyk will be ready for opening night.
“I’m just taking it one day at a time and getting my feet under me,” van Riemsdyk said. “We have some time. I’ve always approached it, you worry about the next day and do the best you can to get ready to go again.”
McLellan was pleased to have van Riemsdyk at practice.
“Quite a rushed day for him,” said McLellan, noting van Riemsdyk flew in from Minneapolis in the morning and got to Little Caesars Arena to get his physical, only to realize he needed some equipment. “He sat down with the coaches, put his gear on and had a quick practice. He’s been skating, but nowhere near what we’ve been doing. We’re aware of what he’s done and we have a good idea of what he needs to do, but we’re not sure how long that’ll take.
“We have a lot of work to do to catch him up on things, but we wouldn’t do anything differently. He deserved his time dealing with what he was dealing with.”
McLellan had essentially a full roster to work with Wednesday.
Defenseman Simon Edvinsson (knee) had a full practice and will play in his first preseason game Thursday in Toronto.
tkulfan@detroitnews.com
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