‘FINISH WHAT YOU START’

to end college under the circumstances. He was proud that I had graduated in four years while playing a sport.”

Eager to start his pro career, Newpower was eyeing a deal with the Rockford IceHogs. “Stan Bowman came to watch me at one of our tournaments, so he was orchestrating the whole thing, which had a heavy impact on everything coming from the organization,” he said. “I was pretty locked into taking that deal.”

Before he could sign, his college coach connected with the Cleveland Monsters, who signed him to a one-year AHL contract. “It seemed like I would be in a better depth situation in Cleveland,” he said. “I was just happy to get a deal.”

Unsure of when the 2020-21 season would start in the face of the coronavirus, Newpower moved back home for the first time in four years. He went back to his old gym and spent weekends at his cabin in northern Minnesota, where he usually spends 90 percent of his summer.

In early October 2020, Newpower opted to pack his bags for Ohio, where he was able to work out with Nathan Gerbe, a veteran of 435 NHL games despite his diminutive 5-foot-4 frame. “We don’t even play the same position, but he had a million tips and tricks,” Newpower said. “He’s also a really good skater, which is something I’ve always had to work on, plus he’s a workhorse, almost like he was built in a lab.”

During the season, Newpower was mostly paired with another veteran, Dillon Simpson, a former fourth-round draft pick of the Edmonton Oilers who had played nearly 400 AHL games. As a rookie, Newpower ended up playing 24 games with Cleveland, recording three goals and seven assists.

“I started to figure out my role in pro hockey and what could make me successful,” he said. “They gave me every chance to have success and although I didn’t know what to expect, I thought my first season went really well.”

Apparently so. Following the season, the Red Wings inked Newpower to a two-year entrylevel NHL contract. The signing was a stamp of approval for his rookie showing.

“I guess I played well enough against the Griffins to catch their eye,” said Newpower, who appeared in nine of the 10 games between the Monsters and Grand Rapids, tallying two goals and two assists in the process.

He was in a Washington, D.C., airport

Newpower signed a two-year contract with the Red Wings after the 2020-21 season.

during a layover on his way to Florida when he got the news that he was now a member of the Red Wings organization. “It was a dreamcome-true,” he said. “I knew it would be a good fit because Grand Rapids plays the kind of hockey I like to play.”

Although he had been to development camps with the Carolina Hurricanes and San Jose Sharks during college, last fall marked his first NHL training camp. He saw action in three preseason games with the Red Wings, which helped his adjustment to the organization.

In the Griffins’ dressing room, Newpower’s stall is between those of Luke Witkowski and Brian Lashoff.

“Sitting between those guys is definitely helpful because they play a similar style to me – big, two-way defensemen who kill penalties,” he said. “It’s been a pleasure and a huge help to learn from those guys. It doesn’t even have to involve asking them questions. It can be simply watching them and taking in what they do from a day-to-day basis.”

Newpower wants to keep his game simple.

“Playing steady defense is the first thing for me, matching the top two lines of the opposing team and preventing them from scoring,” he said. “I try to play heavy and physical, stirring up emotions and getting guys frustrated. I contribute when I can in the offensive zone. I’ll try to make plays so other guys can score, but once we leave the zone, that’s when I feel I can play the solid, shutdown style of hockey that will frustrate the other team’s forwards.”

He appeared in 39 games before his season was interrupted by a broken hand suffered after a hit-from-behind sent him crashing into the boards. “I’ve broken two different fingers on the same hand from blocked shots earlier in the season,” he said. “It’s been a long year for my left hand.”

Newcomer was hoping to return to the Griffins’ lineup by early April. He is eager to not only get back on the blue line but also to rejoin the team’s penalty-killing unit. “I take a lot of pride in penalty killing, which is a huge aspect of my game,” he said. “And throughout the season, I’ve gained a lot more confidence as I’ve settled into my role.”

Looking at the hard cast on his hand, Newpower insists that he is going to be back sooner than later. There is no way that he isn’t going to finish what he started.

His dad made sure of that long ago.

Newpower spent four seasons at the University of Connecticut, becoming a captain during his senior year.

Newpower was familiar with the style of hockey played by the Griffins after facing them nine times last season as a member of the Cleveland Monsters.

EVERYTHING AND MORE

Jeff Blashill continues to be invigorated by the challenge of helping to rebuild the Red Wings.

In his job as head coach of the Detroit Red Wings, Jeff Blashill can attest to the word stew that might be used to describe his position.

Coaching the current occupants of Hockeytown can be challenging, frustrating, exhilarating, and often humbling. In other words, it is a job that offers everything you might expect and more. But Blashill insists that no matter what adjective might apply to the experience, he will always consider it a supreme honor and a privilege.

“Every day that you get to coach for a living is a good day and it’s pretty special when you get to coach in the National Hockey League in your home state and the town you were born in,” said Blashill, a Detroit native who was raised in Sault Ste. Marie, Mich. “I always recognize how special that is.”

Blashill is now in his seventh season behind the Red Wings’ bench, assuming the hot seat that Mike Babcock held for a decade before he left the Motor City for Toronto. The Red Wings, who made the playoffs during Blashill’s first season as head coach, have been in a complete rebuild ever since.

“In any job, there are going to be highs and lows,” said Blashill, who had been an assistant coach in Detroit for one season under Babcock before getting the head coaching job in Grand Rapids (2012-15). “There will be times when you have to work through difficult situations to get to the spot where you can enjoy the fruits of your labor.”

Blashill, who guided the Griffins to their first Calder Cup championship during his first season in Grand Rapids, acknowledges that Detroit fans have had to endure some lean times. It has not been easy watching the organization say goodbye to its past as the new regime tries to return the team to its days of dominance.

“As we’ve gone through the journey here, certainly we’ve gone through some hard times. There’s no doubt about that,” he said. “But that’s OK. That’s what it’s all about. Ultimately, you grow from the experience and, organizationally, we’ve grown from the situation and we’re working toward a better tomorrow. That’s what we’re trying to do.”

The Red Wings have flirted with the .500 mark this season as the team has shown improvement since hitting rock bottom three seasons ago, when it finished with a league-worst record of 17-49-5 record.

“I never envisioned that this would be easy – by any stretch,” Blashill said. “I always knew there would be unique and difficult challenges that would lie ahead. Certainly, I have enjoyed the journey in terms of tackling those challenges.”

The difficult 2019-20 season was the first under the direction of general manager Steve Yzerman, the long-time Red Wings captain who was a three-time Stanley Cup winner as a player before he embarked on a managerial career that saw him build the Tampa Bay Lightning into reigning two-time NHL champions.

Blashill said he and Yzerman have been largely on the same page as they continue to work together on the long, uphill battle to push the team back to its rightful position as one of the top organizations in the sport of hockey.

Yzerman, of course, witnessed an earlier revival of the Red Wings during his playing days.

Detroit finished with a dismal 17-57-6 record during Yzerman’s third season as a player in 1985-86, a full decade before the Red Wings would set the NHL record for most wins in a regular season with a 62-13-7 campaign, and 11 years before Detroit would win its first Stanley Cup in 42 years.

“I think I’m very fortunate that I get an opportunity to learn from someone who’s gone through so many experiences, both as a player and a manager as we’re trying to build this back to where everybody in our organization wants it to be,” Blashill said.

“We both have our opinions – maybe they’re the same and maybe they’re different, and that’s OK for both. I’m not someone who sugarcoats things and I know that Steve doesn’t either. Our conversations are honest. We’re not here to protect each other’s feelings. We’re here to try to win, so we better be honest with each other if we’re going to try to get to that level.

“We’ve had conversations where we’ve had differences of opinion, but ultimately, Steve’s the boss.”

Blashill is content to let others voice their opinion, but he is confident that he is a more experienced coach than he was seven years ago when he left the AHL and Grand Rapids for the NHL and Detroit.

“Every level is unique and you face different challenges at different levels,” he said. “In the NHL, there are some unique challenges in coaching that are different from any other level that I have coached at. You have to grow through

those learning experiences. When you do, you grow as a person and you grow as a coach.”

Blashill would be the first to admit that he has made mistakes. He is human, after all.

“Every day you get a chance to execute and, for a coach, that execution comes down to the decisions you make or the messaging you have,” he said. “You’re going to go through stretches where you make lots of the right decisions and your messaging is super clear and there are going to be stretches when it’s not. That’s just the reality of coaching over a long period of time.

“Without a doubt, I believe you grow through your experiences, both the good times and the tough times. You have to go through experiences in order to learn and sometimes when you do that, you’re able to execute enough to win and sometimes you’re not, and there are a lot of factors that go into that.

“The great part of life is when you go after things and you challenge yourself, you’re going to go through things you’ve never experienced and you’re going to have to learn. That’s part of life. I certainly think I’m better prepared and more experienced, and because of that, I believe I’m a better coach today than I was when I left Grand Rapids.”

Blashill will always look back fondly on his Griffins experience.

“It was my first head coaching job in pro hockey and I learned a ton,” he said. “When I was in Grand Rapids, I was coaching a wide variety of ages, from a really young Tomas Jurco to a veteran like Jeff Hoggan who was a lot older. There are different ways that you handle not just different people but players at totally different ends of the perspective from age as well as their careers. Those were important lessons moving into the NHL.

“A lot gets made of the development side of the job when you’re in the American League, but I will be honest and say that development matters for every player, not just young players. And development matters at every level, not just the levels below the NHL.

“One of the promises that I try to make to our players is that I’m going to help develop them regardless of what their birth certificate says their age is.”

Not every player develops at the same rate – some players just take longer than others. There are examples in the NHL every season. This year has produced a pair of 24-year-old late bloomers in Anaheim’s Troy Terry, who had 29 goals after 57 games (his previous high was seven goals), and Buffalo’s Tage Thompson, who had 24 goals after 56 games (his previous best was eight). Michael Rasmussen, Joe Veleno and Filip Zadina are all still younger than 23 years old. “Some young players come in and they make an immediate impact, but most young players are going to take time,” Blashill said. “They’re going to take time in the American league and they’re going to take time once they

get to the NHL

“In a perfect world, you’re able to keep them in the American League longer than maybe needed so you know they’re absolutely ready when they get to the NHL. We haven’t necessarily lived in that perfect world, so some guys have been up earlier than we may have wanted. That means they’re growing as players while they’re here. As a coach, you’re living with that growth – and with that comes some positives and some negatives. You’ve got to be able to be OK with that as long as they’re meeting certain standards. That’s the approach you have to take when you’re coaching

Blashill is the second-longest tenured head coach in the NHL, trailing only Tampa Bay’s Jon Cooper.

a team that’s in a rebuild-type mode.”

Of course, the fan base – desiring to see success sooner than later – is often critical of coaching that stresses the importance of players being strong on the defensive side of the ice. In their opinion, coaches too often stifle creativity for the sake of developing two-way players.

“I know that to win, you have to have a bunch of players who play two-way hockey, and not only do I know that, but my boss, Steve Yzerman, also knows that. He constantly preaches that to us,” Blashill said, noting that Yzerman only won his three Stanley Cups after Red Wings head coach Scotty Bowman convinced Yzerman to concentrate on his defensive play.

“Our job is not to get our guys to produce as many points as possible. Our job is to help them become the very best winning hockey players they can become. Winning hockey means you’ve got to be able to defend. You can’t trade chance for chance. You have to be able to create offense in an efficient manner without unnecessary risk. None of those things are easy.”

Coaches usually agree that most young players need to improve their defensive play.

“A lot of players when they come into pro hockey haven’t had to (play defense) because they’ve been at levels where they’re so much better or their teams have been so much better than their opponents that they can trade chance for chance and they’re going to capitalize on their chances. That’s not the National Hockey League.

“Anybody that watched the Wings in the late ‘80s and into the early ‘90s understands that the team didn’t become Stanley Cup champions until they committed to playing the type of defense that you have to play in order to win. Again, my boss knows that better than anybody.

“We’re trying to create winning hockey players

here. And that is not judged on points alone by any stretch. That does not mean that points aren’t important, but it’s not points alone.” That means the Red Wings have endured their share of growing pains. At this point in the organization’s rebuild, Blashill professes to be less concerned with the team’s record than the overall progress of a team that is able to show that it can be competitive night in and night out. “The wins and losses are judged externally,” Blashill said. “Internally, you judge the team’s performance based Blashill is eager on where you think to return the Red Wings to the playoffs, but he won’t rush the your team is at. From a coaching perspective, are you helping your process. players maximize their potential and become the very best players they can be? “I won’t speak for Steve, but ultimately I think he’s going to judge on more than wins and losses right now. You’re judged based on – for the lack of a better phrase – how you maximize your group. That’s always open to opinion. Ultimately, the opinion that matters is what is voiced internally within our management team.” Blashill does not minimize the importance of winning hockey games, but he contends that the Red Wings are focused on the bigger picture, seeking incremental improvements that will serve the organization’s long-term interests rather than a few extra wins that might push the team closer to a playoff position now. “We certainly want to win each night but never at the sacrifice of long-term success,” he said. “Every once in a while, you can get lucky by signing an undrafted free agent or an NHL free agent, but the free agents who are really going to help your team usually happen when you are closer to winning.