Wakiji discusses Matt Puempel’s potential

DetroitRedWings.com’s Dana Wakiji examines the 2017-18 season stats of a “dark horse” prospect in Grand Rapids Griffins forward Matt Puempel. Pumpel’s a bit older at 25, but he displayed a scorer’s form after being traded to Detroit from the Rangers.

Here’s what Wings assistant GM and Griffins GM Ryan Martin had to say to Wakiji about Puempel:

Quotable: “He’s a guy that we kind of watched from afar. He’s had a couple of stints in the NHL but hasn’t been able to stick as a full-time player so when we made the trade for Ryan Sproul for him, I think it was a win-win. It was a situation where the Rangers needed a depth defenseman and we had too many defense(men) in Grand Rapids and the chance to get a guy like Matt into the organization where he’s not in his entry-level contract, he’s not in the first couple of years pro, he’s sort of what we like to call a middle-tier prospect where he’s 25 years old and maybe a new organization and change of scenery gives him the opportunity to show what he can do and then try to sort of establish himself as a more consistent NHL player.”

Continued

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George Malik

My name is George Malik, and I'm the Malik Report's editor/blogger/poster. I have been blogging about the Red Wings since 2006, when MLive hired me to work their SlapShots blog, and I joined Kukla's Korner in 2011 as The Malik Report. I'm starting The Malik Report as a stand-alone site, hoping that having my readers fund the website is indeed the way to go to build a better community and create better content.