In the current playoff race and beyond, the Red Wings want more consist, mistake-limiting hockey from Joe Veleno as he is cast in a smaller role
In one of the bigger moments this season, all Joe Veleno could do was watch.
In their pursuit of a playoff spot that will require every point they can manage, the Red Wings couldn’t afford a loss to Tampa Bay. Halfway through the game with the score knotted at one, a win was right there for Detroit to grab.
Veleno wasn’t going to be the one to snatch it. Stuck on the bench as Detroit found a rhythm without him, he had to sit there and watch, playing just three shifts through the first 40 minutes.
No, Veleno wasn’t benched — at least Detroit coach Derek Lalonde won’t call it that. After all, Veleno played three shifts in the third period, including the response shift right after his Red Wings took a 3-2 lead. That’s not a role given to someone in the doghouse. Instead, this lack of ice time came from Veleno’s inconsistency. Whereas Lalonde and his staff found repeatable results from the top nine, Veleno and the fourth line took the back seat due to some mistakes early on.
“You’re seeking consistency from him,” Lalonde said Wednesday. “... Last game, it kind of got away from us a little bit in that he only had a handful of minutes. But it was just (because) Tampa’s a different animal on the road. Every time I was ready to have him up, (Brayden) Point and (Nikita) Kucherov were coming out and then the special teams started rolling. And then we just kind of got into a little rhythm — I wouldn’t say survival, but we want to get through as many minutes as we could.”
In the minutes he did play, Veleno didn’t show the type of consistency that lent itself to winning hockey. He turned over a puck early in the game that extended a shift, Lalonde noted, an example of the kind of mistake that Veleno has to avoid. That small misstep was enough for Lalonde and his staff to scheme elsewhere in the lineup, shortening the bench for better results.
“He probably lost some minutes in that game,” Lalonde said. “There’s other times it’s maybe a hard one-on-one. The guys — we watch shift tape ad nauseam, like every game, coach will have 10 to 15 clips and then all the guys get annoyed by it, but they grow from it. So part of it now becomes habit for them.”
These winning habits are the kind Veleno needs to work on, repeating success as a pro and avoiding mistakes that could cost the game.
It’s a lot easier to ignore mistakes when Veleno is playing more, but the mistakes are harder to move on from when he is cast in a smaller fourth line role. An effective fourth line is one that can crunch minutes without giving up control of the game, but turnovers and other errors jeopardize that control. When Veleno sat on the bench to avoid a matchup with Tampa Bay’s top line, some of that came from the nightmare of what could happen if the Lightning caught him making a mistake.
Applying lessons learned in film study can help avoid mistakes and increase consistency. This is a common issue that many prospects and even established players face. Veleno can certainly make an impact, as he showed in a top-line role when Dylan Larkin was injured in December. But whereas 20-plus shifts back then gave him more runway to make positive contributions, playing in eight to 10 magnifies any errors. Consistency matters on all lines, but it really matters in smaller roles where there’s less of a chance to make up for gaffes.
The Red Wings are looking for clean hockey from Veleno, more so keeping the game in check than taking it over. Although Veleno has shown flashes of brilliance throughout the season, it’s this bottom six control that shows more of the rough patches.
Veleno will have more runway to launch from this Friday against the New York Rangers, getting a promotion to the third line against the New York Rangers on Friday, taking the place of injured Michael Rasmussen. In that role, the same as his fourth line gig and the same as when he was on the first line, Lalonde wants to see Veleno bring consistency.
“He’s showing flashes of some elite hockey and then there’s some flashes of his game where it’s not where I think any of us want it to be,” Lalonde said. “So I just think it’s consistency in his game because it's all there — the tools, he can skate. There’s a lot there.”
If he develops a consistent result from his game, Veleno might get the chance to show those skills. The next time in a crunch-time situation like in Tampa, he might find himself on the ice using that consistency to help win.
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