Why McLellan's Red Wings Prize "Directness"

One word that Todd McLellan has returned to more than a few times in his now month-long tenure Detroit is "directness," expressing a desire for his Red Wings to play a "direct" game.  On the surface it sounds simple, but I caught up with Christian Fischer about how that directness actually shows up and why it's been so beneficial.

At it's most basic, 'directness' is a call for simplicity.  As Fischer told The Hockey News after Monday morning's pre-game skate, to play direct is to "just keep it really simple, North-South."  "I think probably the biggest thing Todd...changed [was adding] a lot of net focus," he continued.  "You can see our shot totals are obviously up a lot.  I think that's a perfect example.  You get in the zone early in the game, you probably want to put one off the [goalie's] pads before you try that East-West play, and they go with a three-on-two."  He also mentioned that directness is a reflection of "overall sharpness too."

You could see the benefits of a direct, shot first style in Detroit's win Saturday night over the Lightning.  Tampa posed a reasonably consistent counter-attacking threat in that game, but the Red Wings controlled play and built confidence with that simple, direct style and a free willingness to fire the puck.

"I think playing direct is, you see a guy and move the puck and just move yourself up the ice, rather than slow it down and take it back and do a lot of stuff," Fischer said. "When everybody's on the same page and playing direct, I think our team is at its best. That's when you see everybody forechecking and we're getting pucks back, and it's pretty easy to play that way."  That's an idea that can apply just as easily to playing in the offensive zone as breaking the puck out or defending.

"Probably when we've been playing our best is on breakouts or in the O zone, you just know where your partner is gonna be or your line-mate is gonna be," Fischer observed.  "You don't have to thnk really.  When you go back in the D zone, you know that we're coming up the strong side every time in a certain scenario, everybody's gonna be in position.  You don't have to look because...you trust he's gonna be there.  That starts benefitting our team and pace of play, and we have the puck more."

In the featured video above, I spoke in a bit more detail about the value of Detroit's direct game under McLellan.

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