The sight of Pavel Datsyuk skating with teammates for a second straight day today had a lot of Red Wings fans hopeful that the star forward could be ahead of schedule in his return from a separated shoulder.
But those fans may need to dial back their optimism a bit.
“I feel good to be with the team, skate and I try to keep the pace but it’s still not ready,” Datsyuk said, per MLive. “It still bother me. ... Need more time healing and I’ll feel better. No contact yet either.”
The Wings open the regular season on Thursday versus Boston. When asked if playing in that game might be a possibility, Datsyuk would only say, “We’ll see. One week to go. Lots of things happen.”
Based on the original estimate of 4-5 weeks, the Wings were preparing for Datsyuk to miss up to eight games of the regular season.