The Malik Report

The Grand Rapids Griffins spent New Year’s Eve on a bus, driving from Grand Rapids to Milwaukee to face the Admirals on Saturday night, and the Griffins defeated Milwaukee for the second time in two nights on Saturday, riding a 4-goal 2nd period to a 4-2 victory.

Taro Hirose had 2 goals and an assist, Riley Barber had 2 assists, Kyle Criscuolo had 2 assists and Donovan Sebrango scored his first AHL goal, with Calvin Pickard pitching a 33-save effort.

The Griffins’ website posted a recap:

GRAND RAPIDS GRIFFINS 4 at Milwaukee Admirals 2

Jan. 1, 2022

MILWAUKEE – A four-goal second period highlighted by Donovan Sebrango’s first AHL tally and Taro Hirose’s two-goal frame helped propel the Grand Rapids Griffins past the Milwaukee Admirals 4-2 on New Year’s Day at Panther Arena.

The Griffins were undermanned for the second consecutive contest, as the team suited up with just 16 skaters due to COVID-19 protocols and injuries. Hirose led all players with a career-tying three-point (2-1—3) outing while Riley Barber (0-2—2) and Kyle Criscuolo (0-2—2) joined the forward with multiple scores. Grand Rapids now has points in the past five contests against Milwaukee (4-0-1-0).

Continue reading Recap: Griffins double up Admirals, sweep weekend home-and-home series

The Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan filed a notebook article on Saturday afternoon discussing the Red Wings’ ability to at least stay in difficult-to-win games, like Friday’s narrow-margin loss to Washington:

The Red Wings were right there at the end Friday against a Stanley Cup contender, and saw the Washington Capitals make the big plays to win the game. More specifically, Alex Ovechkin with two late goals. Regardless, it was a reminder of how it’s done and how a good team closes out games.

The Wings have been better in such situations this season. They’ve beaten quality teams such as the Boston Bruins, New York Islanders and Washington, making key plays late and taking a good team’s best punch. As long as the Wings continue to be in those kind of positions, coach Jeff Blashill will be satisfied.

“You’re talking about razor thin margins when you’re in these tight games, and ultimately it’s the greatest power-play scorer of all time that scores a power-play goal (Friday, to give Washington the late lead),” Blashill said. “I’ll take that game over and over again. We had the chances about exactly equal. They have one of the better records in the league and it’s a team that’s considered to be a contender for the Stanley Cup. We just have to keep playing good hockey and the more you’re in those spots, the more position you’re in to win. It’s a large part of the process but you want to be in those spots as much as possible.”

Forward Pius Suter said t took an elite shot from Ovechkin to put the Wings away.

“We’ve shown we can win those games,” Suter said. “They get a power play and it was a great shot, last second of the penalty kill, and otherwise we had a good game. It can happen the same way with us, we can score and it’s a tie game.  It’s close, small things that make a difference.”

Continued, with discussions of the importance of Sunday’s matinee vs. Boston, and Pius Suter’s surprisingly scrappy side…

MLive’s Ansar Khan posted a Saturday notebook article discussing the increasingly physical presence provided by one Moritz Seider:

“He’s got a definite toughness to him, a physicality side to him would be the way I would describe it,” coach Jeff Blashill said. “If you search the Internet, you’ll see a loop of huge kind of (Niklas) Kronwall-type hits last year in the Swedish Hockey League. I think he’s got to get stronger and thicker to do that in the National Hockey League, but he’s got that edge to him for sure and he can punish people from a physical standpoint.”

Seider knows how to utilize his 6-foot-4, 207-pound frame.

“I thought he was somebody who had an edge and was physical in the American League (with the Grand Rapids Griffins in 2019-20),” Blashill said. “I watched him in the Swedish Hockey League (last season), and he had definite physicality. So that led me to believe he’d have an opportunity to do that at our level. I think it’s coming, and I also think it’s going to come even more as he continues to build that 20-year-old body into a 22-year-old body. I think he’s ultimately going to put on more mass and add power and put on more strength. As he does that it’ll be an even bigger factor.”

Seider doesn’t seek out jarring hits like Kronwall did, but he doesn’t avoid opportunities to deliver a hit.

“It’s just being at the right spot,” Seider said earlier in the week. “Sometimes if you do things well, you don’t even have to kill a guy or even make the big hit, because you can just outskate him and take the puck. I think we all agree we would always like to have the puck on our stick than chasing it. That’s just a timing thing and I’m just trying to figure that out day by day.”

Seider knew the NHL would be much more physical than the Swedish Hockey League, where he was named defenseman of the year with Rogle BK.

Continued

The Detroit Red Wings practiced at Little Caesars Arena’s Belfor Training Center on Saturday, and the one bit of news we received was that Nick Leddy will remain on unavailable due to COVID protocols when the Red Wings host the Boston Bruins on Sunday afternoon (1 PM EST start on Bally Sports Detroit/NESN/Sportsnet/97.1 FM).

Still smarting from Friday’s 3-1 loss to Washington, and while the aforementioned Bruins hosted the Buffalo Sabres in a matinee game in Boston, Pius Suter and coach Jeff Blashill spoke with the media today:

The Detroit Red Wings hit the ice at Little Caesars Arena’s Belfor Training Center 12 hours after New Year’s hit, and some 14 hours after their 3-1 loss to the Washington Capitals:

First skate of 2️⃣0️⃣2️⃣2️⃣‼️ pic.twitter.com/fR41feMpw6— Detroit Red Wings (@DetroitRedWings) January 1, 2022

The Wings will host the Boston Bruins tomorrow for a matinee game (1 PM EST start on Bally Sports Detroit/NESN/Sportsnet/97.1 FM), with Boston sitting 3 points back with 6 games in hand ahead of today’s 1 PM game vs. the Sabres, at TD Garden in Boston.

To state the obvious, winning tomorrow’s game vs. the Bruins is essential for the Wings to nurse their slim lead over the Bruins in the Wild Card and Atlantic Division standings for as long as possible.

Today, the players are going to want to get out of Dodge…I mean Detroit…by mid-afternoon, as we have a winter storm coming that’s supposed to dump 4-6 inches of snow on Southeastern Michigan. Nobody wants to drive on the roads during a rain-turns-to-sleet-turns-to-snow fest.

Anyway, the Wings’ beat writers have been conspicuously silent over the course of the last couple of practices, though they’ve been around for the Zoom calls. That’s been a little strange.

Speaking of Tweets from Zoom calls, we got one! And it’s not great news:

Jeff Blashill said he does not anticipate Nick Leddy being available tomorrow. #LGRW— Daniella Bruce (@daniellabruce_) January 1, 2022

The Hockey News’s Tony Ferrari examined which World Junior Championship-participating players from the 2022 tournament in Edmonton and Red Deer can return for the 2023 tournament, in both Group A and Group B, and he notes that the Swedes’ defense has a big, Simon Edvinsson-sized question mark:

Sweden returns the fewest members of this year’s squad with just six players eligible to return. The wildcard will be defenseman Simon Edvinsson. The Red Wings prospect has been great in the SHL this year and was arguably the tournament’s best defenseman through two games at this year’s World Juniors. Could he be in Detroit next year at this time, preventing him from participating in the annual holiday U20 event? That’s certainly a possibility with the way the young Swede has tracked thus far.

Continued; Edvinsson may be in Detroit at this time next season, or he may be in Grand Rapids. In the latter case, the Wings would lend him to Team Sweden.

Per the Red Wings:

UPDATE: The Detroit #RedWings today reassigned defenseman Dan Renouf to the AHL’s Grand Rapids Griffins from the team’s taxi squad.

?: https://t.co/OD2dOCYDt4 pic.twitter.com/KR6rd3B4fX— Detroit Red Wings (@DetroitRedWings) January 1, 2022

The Detroit Red Wings lost a disappointing and frustrating 3-1 decision to the Washington Capitals last night, beginning a stretch of 32 days in which the team plays on an average of once every other day.

This morning, MLive’s Ansar Khan filed his game recap, which notes that the Wings were frustrated with their inability to close out Friday night’s game, but relatively satisfied with their overall play:

“I thought we played well enough to win the hockey game, put ourselves in position to win,” Blashill said. “You’re super-disappointed. You want to find a way to win the game. We’re sitting there with the game to be had. Unfortunately, they made the play late and we didn’t.”

The Red Wings (15-14-3) hadn’t played since Dec. 18, having had four games postponed due to an excessive number of COVID-19 cases. They had 11 players in protocol at one point; all except for Nick Leddy returned this week and played in this game.

The Capitals (20-6-7) returned to action in Thursday’s 5-3 victory over Nashville.

“It was physical, emotional, tight-checking,” Red Wings defenseman Marc Staal said. “We were right there. It’s a tough way to lose it at the end for sure. After that long of a break and with guys in and out of protocols, I liked our effort and our intensity and our emotion. It’s something that we’ve got to repeat.”

Staal likely wasn’t alone among Red Wings questioning why Fabbri was called for a penalty at that stage of the game.

“It’s five minutes left, and a lot of stuff was going on during the game. I thought it was a tough time to call a penalty,” Staal said. “But it is what it is, and we got to try to kill it, and we (essentially) didn’t.”

Continued; I’m still confused as to what Fabbri was called for, and as several of you noted on Twitter last night, it was a shame that the Capitals were given a center-ice faceoff after an intentional offside on their power play, ultimately facilitating the play that led to Ovechkin’s goal.

The Detroit Red Wings lost a 3-1 decision to the Washington Capitals on Friday night, losing what was a tighter game than the score, due to a penalty that was either needless and stupid by Robby Fabbri, needless and stupid by the refs, who’d been given a bee under their bonnet by the chirping Caps after Moritz Seider got off Scot free from hitting Nic Dowd (unsportsmanlike conduct penalties aside), or maybe it was a little bit of both.

In any case, it was a bitter way to end what was in fact a good half-season for 15-14-and-3 Detroit, and Seider put on a masterclass in terms of poise as fellow Super-Rookie Lucas Raymond struggled a bit coming off the COVID list.

It was a game where a little more sustained offense, a little more discipline, and a little more finish would have given the Red Wings at least a point, if not two, but there are still apparently lessons that this year’s team needs to learn, and, shit, man, if the Capitals aren’t a team that teaches you lessons the hard way, I don’t know what team is a sterner teacher out there.

All of that being said, this makes Sunday’s matinee game vs. the Boston Bruins, who sit 5 points behind the Wings with six games in hand, absolutely monumental in terms of shifting the balance of power for that Wild Card spot in the Eastern Conference standings, and even if you and I don’t believe that the Wings will make the playoffs (and I don’t), keeping the B’s off the Wings’ tails for a longer period of time would at least feel good.

That’s something that’s in short supply in Detroit sports these days.

Anyway, Friday’s “learning experience” for the Red Wings in terms of consistency of effort was yet another exclamation point upon a fantastic career for Alex Ovechkin, whose goal was–then wasn’t–then was again his 275th power play goal, breaking Dave Andreychuk’s record for the all-time power play goals record.

Continue reading Red Wings-Capitals wrap-up: Ovechkin’s milestone spoils Wings’ Rockin’ (Seider) New Year’s Eve show

Of Red Wings prospect-related note in North America on Friday:

In the ECHL, Billy Christopoulos stopped 34 of 36 shots as the Toledo Walleye won their “Winterfest” outdoor game, winning 7-2 over the Indy Fuel at Fifth Third Field. Here’s a highlight clip from the game:

Elsewhere, in the WHL, Cross Hanas missed the Portland Winterhawks’ 2-0 win over Seattle;

In NCAA Hockey, neither Robert Mastrosimone nor Chase Bradley played in the Boston University Terriers’ 5-1 win over Brown;

And in the University of Denver Pioneers’ 7-2 win over Alaska Anchorage:

Antti Tuomisto finished at +4 with 3 shots on goal;

Shai Buium finished at -1 with 3 shots on goal;

And Carter Mazur had an assist, finishing even with 2 shots on goal.