Trio of Red Wings ready to return from injury; Weiss to AHL on conditioning stint

Coming out of the Olympic break, the Detroit Red Wings are a revolving door - fortunately for them, there are more players on their way in than on their way out.

Amid fear that veteran winger Henrik Zetterberg will be lost for the season, the Red Wings have countered with news that forwards Johan Franzen and Stephen Weiss are ready to return from injury, as will defenseman Jakub Kindl - and when combined with the news that Pavel Datsyuk will soon return from Russia no worse for wear, the Red Wings are as healthy as they are going to get.

Franzen has been suffering from concussion-like symptoms while Weiss hasn't played for well over two months after having sports hernia surgery in early December.

“We were shooting for after this break to be ready to be available to play,” Weiss said on Thursday. “That’s obviously going to be up to the coaches whether or not they put me in the lineup, but that’s still the plan: to be ready and available for those first couple of games back.”

Weiss skated with the Plymouth Whalers - his Junior team - during the break, but a case of the flu cut down on his workload, so there will be a conditioning stint in store for him at the AHL level, Weiss reporting to the Red Wings' affiliate in Grand Rapids and will take the ice for them on Sunday.

Meanwhile, Red Wings assistant coaches also put Franzen and Kindl through a fast-paced workout and noticed nothing troubling.

“It was that type of skate where all we wanted to do was get their feet under them, get some activity again, nothing really competitive or combative,” assistant coach Tom Renney said. “We’ll crank it up a little more tomorrow and see how they do.”

Kindl is coming back from  from a sprained MCL, suffered just before the break.

“You watch how he’s doing with his pivots and sort of misdirection in terms of puck retrievals,” Renney said of Kindl. “He’s doing fine; I don’t think we’ve done anything to sort of exacerbate the problem. He would tell us if that was the case and we have not heard from him along those lines so I think everything’s fine.”

The Red Wings play their first game back from the break next Wednesday in Montreal.

http://www.sportsinjuryalert.com/2014/02/trio-of-red-wings-ready-to-return-from.html#.UwafR4Ucq58