By Helene St. James/Detroit Free Press

Jimmy Howard went out to lunch with new Detroit Red Wings coach Jeff Blashill, which shed some light on how Blashill is different than the man he succeeded, Mike Babcock.
“With Mike,” Howard said Tuesday, after an informal skate at Joe Louis Arena, “it was a lot of ‘A’ conversations. It wasn’t really ‘A-B.’ So it was weird actually sitting down and actually having a discussion with Blash. But it was great, at the same time, to be able to bounce things off of him.
“Both are very demanding. It’s going to be great. It’s going to be a lot of fun.”
Having fun will be a nice change for Howard, who spent the first part of the calendar year having anything but that. Howard’s 2014-15 season has been dissected and analyzed since January, when he suffered a groin injury an hour after being named to the NHL All-Star Game. He never recovered his first-half form, eventually losing the starting job to Petr Mrazek.
Howard spent the summer, as he always does, training physically - and letting go mentally. “I learned from it,” he said, “and am just getting ready for this year now. I pretty much just used it as motivation throughout the summer, to get back out there and play. Everything was going great up to the point of the injury, and then it was just tough to get back out there and continue to play the way I was before.”
Asked whether he is the No. 1 netminder in his mind, Howard said, “There’s been discussions over the summer. Blash and I sat down and went to lunch together and had a great conversation. It’s going to be an open battle, the way it should be. “It was not the way I pictured last year ending, but it’s the way it happened, and everyone goes through something through the course of their career where you’ve got to cross that hurdle.”
Blashill told Howard, 31, to seize the opportunity. Mrazek, 23, has been told the same thing. Much more will become clear when training camp starts Sept. 18. After a decade with Babcock behind the bench, players are excited to have a new boss.
“Mike did a great job during his tenure here,” Howard said. “Winning a Stanley Cup, getting to the conference finals several times. But I think Mike was ready for a new challenge, and having a fresh voice in here will help.”