Injured Red Wings forward Henrik Zetterberg skated for 15 minutes on Thursday as Detroit gets a two-day break from their first round playoff series with Phoenix, but he’s nowhere near a return according to Ansar Khan of MLive:
Publicly, the team continues to list him as day-to-day. Privately, the club has ruled him out for the first five games of the opening-round playoff series against the Phoenix Coyotes.
Zetterberg got leveled last week in a 3-0 loss to Carolina and apparently sprained his knee. The team is hoping they can beat the Coyotes without him and have him fully healthy when the conference semifinals start. Zetterberg said he felt better, but didn’t do anything overzealous during the 15-minute session:
“I feel better today than I did yesterday,‘’ Zetteberg said. "It was fun to be out there, feel the puck again. I didn’t do any serious stuff, just go out and stick-handle a little bit and have some shots.
Detroit got off to a slow start against Phoenix on Wednesday but eventually turned the game around and dominated from about the second period on. Pavel Datsyuk, Johan Franzen and Todd Bertuzzi all had stellar games and it will be vital they continue that trend if Zetterberg is in fact out for the series.