Detroit Red Wings coach Todd McLellan wanted to make sure he didn’t see a repeat of the start of Saturday’s game, so he practiced the team long and hard for two days this week. There was a lot of teaching and a lot of yelling.

It seemed to yield results on Tuesday as the Red Wings turned in one of their better defensive performances in a 5-2 victory at St. Louis to start a five-game trip.

“We spent two full practices working on some of our sorts coming into our end up ice responsibilities and we saw massive improvement in that area,” McLellan said in his postgame address. “So those practices were valuable. The players paid attention. They applied the lesson, if you will, in the game. Now can we maintain it? We’ll see when we get to California.”

The Red Wings visit the Los Angeles Kin

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