Injured van Riemsdyk Looks Ready to Play

James van Riemsdyk’s ability to practice on Tuesday is giving the Detroit Red Wings hope he will be able to play the New Year’s Eve game against the Winnipeg Jets.

“He looked good in practice,” Detroit coach Todd McLellan said. ” I haven’t checked in with (trainer Piet Van Zandt) or (van Riemsdyk) after practice, but based on my eyeball test, it is. We’ll have to get a report from him and the medical team, but he looked good to me.”

Van Riemsdyk missed the first two games after Christmas break because of the lingering injury suffered when he was struck by a shot in the win against the Dallas Stars

“I’m feeling much better now,” van Riemsdyk said. “It was a little limited for sure, especially the last few days… Definitely much better today, training in the right direction.”

In practice, van Riemsdyk was alternating with John Leonard for a wing position on a line with Marco Kasper and Nate Danielson. Elmer Soderblom and Mason Appleton were sharing a spot on a line with J.T. Compher and Michael Rasmussen.

Van Riemsdyk, 36, has endeared himself to Detroit Red Wings fans over the past month. Since Nov. 26, he has scored eight goals in 14 games to give him nine goals on the season. That ties him with Emmitt Finnie for fourth on the team. Van Riemsdyk has scored most of his goals on the fourth line, although he has earned power play time.

When you start talking about Detroit’s secondary scoring, van Riemsdyk is really the most dependable scorer outside of the top two lines. His surge helped Detroit earn a 10-3-1 record in December. With the help of van Riemsdyk, this is now a team that has some resiliency.

“I think that’s part of any good team is not letting those kinds of things linger,” van Riemsdyk said. “When you have a bad game or it doesn’t go your way, you just get ready and ready for the next one. So that’s the mark of a good team, I think, is just having that consistent approach and you’re not always going to get the result that you want, but I think if you have that consistent approach, it’ll even itself out over the course of a long season.