In Red Wings Land

Red Wings’ Anthony Mantha ready to get physical during this sprint of a season – The Detroit News

Injuries because of fighting have cut short Mantha’s last three seasons. But it didn’t sound as if Mantha was going to totally leave the physical part of his game behind anytime soon.

“It’s going to be physical games, you’re playing teams seven or eight games this season (in the new schedule format), you can’t be on your heels, you have to put pressure on them,” Mantha said. “That’s the mentality I have to go with.”

As long as he can avoid being cheaply slewfooted by Jake Muzzin, I like his chances.

Around the NHL

Hall, Staal with Sabres for first time as NHL training camps open – NHL

“It definitely changed the confidence level of the group,” he said. “It was an extremely important decision from our side and from Taylor’s combined to be able to show that what we’re building here, the culture that we’ve put into place, is one that wants to be competitive with the top level of the National Hockey League.”

There is no reason to suspect from the title that this article is about all seven teams that are getting ready to open camps and the Sabres’ portion is a relatively small part of a larger read.