Red Wings appear to demote Zadina, Lindstrom in Monday’s practice

After allowing 10 goals to the Toronto Maple Leafs in their last game, it seems the Detroit Red Wings are intent upon making some changes to their lineup.

At Monday’s practice, the Red Wings skated with significantly different lines and pairings than the ones they deployed during Saturday’s loss to the Maple Leafs.

According to MLive‘s Ansar Khan, the Red Wings elected to shift @Filip Zadina away from his previous spot on the team’s top line in favour of a new assignment in the bottom six.

Zadina has spent the last six games playing alongside @Dylan Larkin and @Lucas Raymond on Detroit’s first line, scoring two goals. He has 16 points (seven goals, nine assists) in 51 games this season.

@Vladislav Namestnikov moved up to the first unit in Zadina’s place.

Additionally, the Red Wings moved @Troy Stecher up to @Marc Staal’s defense pairing and demoted @Filip Hronek to skate with @Jordan Oesterle.

With Stecher and Oesterle skating alongside the likes of Staal and Hronek, the Danny DeKeyser – Gustav Lindstrom pairing appeared to be the odd one out at Monday’s practice.

Lindstrom, 42, has appeared in 41 of the Red Wings’ 53 games this season, scoring one goal and 10 points while averaging 16:14 of ice-time.

It remains to be seen whether the Red Wings’ coaching staff actually plans to use these new combinations in a game situation or if Monday’s configurations were purely experimental. We’ll see which of those is true when the Red Wings return to action against the Carolina Hurricanes on Mar. 1.

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