Traverse City Record-Eagle

Grand Traverse County

September 14, 2009

Babcock: Defense is a big focus

Detroit gave up 61 more goals last year than '07-08

BY DENNIS CHASE

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TRAVERSE CITY -- To illustrate his point, Mike Babcock recites the numbers.

In his first four seasons as head coach, Detroit's allowed 206, 191, 179 and 240 goals.

"One of those is not like the others," he said, referring to last season's dramatic rise. "We've got to get that fixed.

As a new season begins, Babcock is putting a renewed emphasis on defense, especially the penalty kill. The Red Wings went from allowing the fewest amount of goals in 2007-08 to 19th last season. And the penalty kill? The team ranked 25th in the 30-team National Hockey League.

So, as training camp opened Sunday at Centre ICE, Babcock and his staff went about addressing that issue.

"A big part of it is just deciding you want to do it," he said. "Last year we scored goals so easy in the first half of the season it wasn't a big deal when we gave them up.

"But the best two regular seasons we've had since I've been here were the two prior to last season when we didn't give up many goals. We've got to do better."

Detroit allowed 2.93 goals a game last season.

"That's something we've been good at in the past," All-Star defenseman Nicklas Lidstrom said. "Last season we got away from it. We scored a lot of goals, but we also let in a lot. To win at the end, you have to play good team defense. I thought we did play better in the playoffs, but we have to cut down on goals against in the regular season."

Players who did not compete in Sunday's scrimmage spent part of their practice time working on the penalty kill.

"Our penalty kill was not as good last year as it needs to be," Babcock said. "That's a major emphasis for us. We've been in the top five (in the league). I think our lowest was 84 percent. We dropped to 78.3 percent last year. That's just not acceptable. Those are the details we have to work on. Paying the price on defense is so important to having success."

Babcock plans changes. For starters, expect the Wings to be more aggressive in short-handed situations.

"We're going to apply more pressure on the puck instead of backing off," Lidstrom said. "We're going to be more aggressive. That's going to be our approach."

It will take a team effort, Babcock said.

"We need to do a better job in goal, a better job in the shooting lanes, a better job in the faceoff circle, a better job clearing the puck," he said. "We have to do better as a four-man unit. We have lots to work on."

Part of the need to improve defensively is because the team lost 82 goals with the departures of Marian Hossa, Mikael Samuelsson and Jiri Hudler. The Wings often just outscored teams.

"Thank God we had a lot of offense last season," forward Dan Cleary said. "It bailed us out of a lot of games and got us a lot of points early and put us in good position in the West.

"We've obviously lost some of those goals so defense is a key. But I think we knew we had to get better defensively regardless of whether we lost those players (to free agency) or not. We've always been known as a good offensive and defensive team. We need to get that identity back. I really sense we'll be better this season."

Like Babcock, goalie Chris Osgood believes the team needs to be more focused on that end.

"I think we got lackadaisical and took things for granted in the regular season, after winning the year before," he said. "I think this year will be different. I think we'll be ready from the onset to play good, tough hockey. We were too easy to play against some nights last season. But we definitely played like we're capable of in the playoffs."

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