The Detroit Red Wings hope to solve two problems with a single remedy during the 2026-27 season.<\/p>\n
They believe if they can be harder to play against, to be more belligerent, particularly in the offensive zone, it can not only disrupt and wear down the opposition but may lead to more scoring. The Red Wings took a step toward that objective by trading a third-round pick and a seventh to the Vegas Golden Knights this summer for Keenan Kolesar. He finished seventh in the league with 270 hits last season.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow we\u2019ve got to get some other guys that are on our roster that can provide us that and become heavier and harder to play against,\u201d Detroit coach Todd McLellan said. \u201cThen collectively we might score more by doing that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kolesar 7th in Hit Parade<\/p>\n
The Red Wings ranked 22nd in the league in scoring last season and 29th at just over 17 hits per game. More hitting also creates a mental edge, undermines an opponent\u2019s puck-moving and forces turnovers. Turnovers brought about by a heavy forecheck can lead to goals. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf I can do what I can do and bring that role, I think guys can feed
off it well,\u201d Kolesar said.<\/p>\n
Kolesar has averaged 262 hits per season for the past five season. Physical play has always seemed contagious<\/p>\n
\u201cI would hope so,\u201d Kolesar said. \u201cI think there\u2019s a room full of proud guys in here that want to turn things around. Maybe the first step is bringing what I can, and see who wants to follow along. The Red Wings do have some young hitters, like Marco Kasper<\/a> (who led the team in hits), Moritz Seider, Simon Edvinsson<\/a>, Emmitt Finnie, plus veteran Ben Chiarot.<\/p>\n Prospects Carter Mazur and particularly Michael Brandsegg-Nygard could both add prickliness to the lineup.<\/p>\n \u201cNygaard\u2019s going to make our team harder, assuming he makes doing that. So it\u2019s easy to look at what left and do the math and then NHL teams want to be \u201charder to play against\u201d because it directly disrupts the opponent\u2019s strategy, forces turnovers, wears down players physically, and creates a mental edge<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Detroit Red Wings hope to solve two problems with a single remedy during the 2026-27 season. They…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":665750,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5101],"tags":[599,1511,93,5137,1546,5,3710,4588,4,3358,5138],"class_list":["post-665749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-detroit-red-wings","tag-detroit","tag-detroit-hockey-now","tag-detroit-red-wings","tag-detroitredwings","tag-grand-rapids-griffins","tag-hockey","tag-keegan-kolesar","tag-michael-brandsegg-nygard","tag-nhl","tag-red-wings","tag-redwings"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/117294217553623121","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=665749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665749\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/665750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=665749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=665749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=665749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
the team, which I think he can,\u201d McLellan said. \u201cHe\u2019s going to make our team play a little harder.\u201d<\/p>\n
look at what came in. But we think collectively we can be harder to
play against, which will put us in the offensive zone longer and in
our zone less.<\/p>\n