"If He Earns Extra Minutes, He'll Get Extra Minutes": Crimson Wings Prepared for Massive Yr from Edvinsson

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September 21, 2024

In his first press availability of the season, Simon Edvinsson began out with a easy query to reply: what’s it like to enter coaching camp assured of a roster spot? Edvinsson paused for a second, then politely contradicted the preliminary assertion. “I do not suppose like that, truly,” he stated. “It is a coaching camp the place we come from a season the place we did not attain playoffs by one level, and I believe my principal focus has been simply to be nearly as good as doable and as prepared as doable for the beginning of the season. Nothing has modified with my focus from there.” Edvinsson is perhaps simply 21 years outdated with 25 NHL video games below his belt, however his phrases recommend an method to camp and a readability of goal past his years.

Apr 15, 2024; Detroit, Michigan, USA; Detroit Red Wings defenseman Simon Edvinsson (77) skates with the puck in the first period against the Montreal Canadiens at Little Caesars Arena<p><button class= — Apr 15, 2024; Detroit, Michigan, USA; Detroit Crimson Wings defenseman Simon Edvinsson (77) skates with the puck within the first interval towards the Montreal Canadiens at Little Caesars Area

© Rick Osentoski-Imagn Photos

“So much occurred,” Edvinsson stated of the ultimate two months of the season. “I understand how exhausting it’s to seize a playoff spot,” he added. “I do know what is required from the entire crew and me personally to seize that further level [in the standings]…That is the largest takeaway.”

So far as particular person classes from the Crimson Wings painfully shut playoff push, Edvinsson defined, “Do not attempt to be the hero of the sport,” Edvinsson stated of what he took from final season. “Alternatives will come to you. As a defenseman, I’ve to play sturdy protection and if the chance to go ahead and [be] offensive, I’ll take it. That was the primary factor I took [from last season].”

It was that propensity for heroism that Detroit coach Derek Lalonde noticed Edvinsson overcome on his strategy to incomes supreme belief, and Lalonde expects that to choose straight up the place it left off a yr in the past. “I foresee him being in our prime 4 to start out the season,” Lalonde stated of Edvinsson. “His general play from Grand Rapids final yr to what he gave us down the stretch, the place he slotted with our push on the finish of the yr, we foresee him in the same function and form of let it play out from there.” “We is perhaps somewhat fluid with our prime 4…If he earns extra minutes, he’ll get extra minutes,” he provides. If his phrases are any indicator, Edvinsson himself is extra centered on the collective than his personal particular person progress. He makes plain that he felt a profound sting on the finish of final season, and he desires to method the contemporary yr with a mindset geared toward rectifying that.

Per the lanky younger Swede, lacking the playoffs “was painful, however there may be motivation once you go on the ice and you consider that further level there [in the standings]. Quite a lot of guys did that. I practice with [Lucas Raymond] and he had the identical feeling about that. It stunk but it surely was a very good factor to have that behind your head if you find yourself doing these further exercise issues.” “This one, simply the depth of the practices,” he provides, when requested what stands out about this coaching camp versus his earlier two. “You possibly can see it. It harm for lots of people final yr to not attain the playoffs. That is the distinction, the depth we deliver out to this coaching camp.

In response to a query about whether or not he units statistical targets for himself heading into the brand new season, Edvinsson makes even clearer the place his focus lies, if there might be any doubt, once more betraying a maturity past his years.

“After all, I wish to keep wholesome,” Edvinsson says. “I attempt to be as skilled on the ice as off the ice, not get injured and attempt to play as many video games as doable. With the factors, in fact I wish to have a very good season, however nothing that feels this can be a[n individual] aim that I’ve. Reaching playoffs that will be it, and that is a reasonably good aim to have I believe.”