Max Osgood’s arrived in Medicine Hat, Alberta to begin his rise to major junior hockey

Things you don’t expect to read in late summer: a story from the Medicine Hat News’s James Tubb, titled, “Osgood enjoying time in Medicine Hat, first Tigers camp.”

Max Osgood, a 5’9,” 141-pound forward, is all of 15 years old, and he’s attending the WHL’s Medicine Hat Tigers’ training camp, even though the Little Caesars Hockey graduate is too young to play in the WHL right now, and Tubb reports that all is well for the son of Red Wings color commentator Christopher John Osgood:

After a 34-year hiatus, an Osgood is back on the ice with the Medicine Hat Tigers. Max Osgood, son of former Tiger and Stanley Cup-winning goaltender Chris Osgood, is taking in his first WHL training camp after being selected 21st overall by Medicine Hat in May’s WHL Prospects Draft.

It’s a familiar home away from home for Max, Chris’s mom Joy still lives in the city and after a week of captain’s skates and the start of training camp, he’s already enjoying Medicine Hat.

“I love it so, so much,” Max said. “The city is awesome, the rink is awesome, the fans are awesome, everyone’s awesome.”

The 5-foot-9 15-year-old Osgood had 15 goals and 43 points in 20 games this season with the U14AAA Little Caesars. He’s enjoyed the first couple scrimmages of training camp, embracing the pace and, even more, the competitiveness. He got caught up in a scrum in his first game, a moment he says “fires him up” more.

“The compete level is next level, the pace, the boys are awesome. I just love it,” Osgood said. “I love it, it was funny when I was in the chokehold, I was laughing. It was awesome.”

Continued; according to Tubb, Max will play for the “South Alberta Hockey Academy” this upcoming season, and after this season, he plans on trying to earn a spot on Medicine Hat’s roster as a 16 (or 17) year-old.

Tweet of note: Raymond, Dower Nilsson and Lagesson take part in skate with Frolunda HC yesterday

Rakapuckar.com’s Henrik Leman reports that Red Wings forward Lucas Raymond, prospect Noah Dower Nilsson and Grand Rapids Griffins defenseman William Lagesson all took part in Frolunda HC’s practice on Friday:

In his blog, Leman posted a picture of the trio taking part in Friday’s skate at the Frolundaborg Arena in Gothenburg.

A bit about Brett Peterson, candidate for the Red Wings GM’s position

In this past week’s episode of “32 Thoughts,” Elliotte Friedman discussed several potential candidates for the Red Wings’ GM and/or president of hockey operations job, and the Hockey News’s Julian Gaudio took note of Florida assistant GM Brett Peterson’s name being mentioned…

Brett Peterson’s name has once again circulated among NHL GM vacancies, as trusted insider Elliotte Friedman revealed on his podcast, 32 Thoughts, that the Detroit Red Wings have potentially engaged in discussions with the Florida Panthers’ assistant GM. 

Peterson was in the running for several job openings this summer, highlighted by the Toronto Maple Leafs job, which was eventually taken by John Chayka, and the Nashville Predators job, which Chris MacFarland took.

Peterson has worked with the Panthers since the 2020-21 season as their assistant GM. During this time, Peterson has served as a GM for Team USA at the World Championship twice. 

…

Alongside Peterson, Friedman mentioned Jeff Keatly, a San Jose Sharks assistant GM, as an option for the Panthers GM job. Keatly has worked in the NHL since the 2001-02 season, holding multiple roles with the Predators, including amateur scout, director of amateur scouting, director of scouting, and assistant GM. 

While Keatly has superior NHL experience to Peterson, Peterson has had plenty of success in his short time in the NHL. 

As did Detroit Hockey Now’s Kevin Allen, who noted that Peterson has a small tie to the Red Wings organization:

Continue reading A bit about Brett Peterson, candidate for the Red Wings GM’s position

Talking about Jesse Kiiskinen

Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff discusses Red Wings prospect Jesse Kiiskinen this morning, offering pluses and minuses about the 21-year-old right wing who stands at 6’1″ and 190 pounds:

Three Reasons Why Kiiskinen Will Play in the NHL

  1. Kiiskinen is a natural goal scorer. And he gets hard-working goals by driving the net.
  2. He likes to play the game in the dirty areas. You’ll usually find Kiiskinen battling for loose pucks along the boards and in the corners, or at the net-front in the offensive zone.
  3. Kiiskinen gets on people’s nerves. He’s an agitating presence. He rarely has an uneventful shift.

What May Hold Him Back

Kiiskinen is far from a polished skater. He lacks explosive speed or high-end mobility to be able to easily separate from defenders. And he’s not much of a playmaker. He’ll need to upgrade in one of these areas to be considered a legit NHL prospect.

Continued; Kiiskinen remains a “project prospect,” but he’s got grit and a little “piss and vinegar” to his game.

If the Red Wings move forward as-is, at least the youth movement will be served?

MLive’s Ansar Khan reports that the Red Wings’ lack of summertime moves to reinforce their roster will involve at least one positive–the Wings’ youth movement will be well-served if the team moves forward as-is:

The Detroit Red Wings had 12 players in their 30s on their roster at the end of last season. At least five of them – all 36 and older – won’t be back. As a result, they have gone from having the ninth-oldest roster in the NHL (28.61 average age) to the 10th-youngest (27.36 average age), according to roster projections by eliteprospects.com.

As such, Khan offers a list of players who might “benefit” from increased opportunities:

Continue reading If the Red Wings move forward as-is, at least the youth movement will be served?

Tweet of note: The NHL Network’s Mike Johnson and Mike Rupp discuss Dylan Larkin’s situation

In a segment called “5 Burning Questions,” the NHL Network’s Mike Johnson believes that the Red Wings will trade disgruntled Red Wings forward Dylan Larkin to Montreal, and Mike Rupp says that “a lot of teams make sense,” though he and Johnson both agree that Montreal is a “fit.”

Roughly translated: Eddie Genborg won’t attend the Red Wings’ training camp due to rehabbing from an injury

Via Red Wings Prospects on Twitter, the Swedish press has been panicking rearding 19-year-old Red Wings prospect Eddie Genborg being recruited to come to North America since the 6’2,” 198-pound winger played in 11 regular season games and a playoff appearance for the Grand Rapids Griffins.

The Red Wings signed Genborg to an entry-level contract this past season, and it was expected that Genborg would attend Detroit’s training camp, but this morning, Genborg’s agent, Joakim Persson, tells ST.nu’s Nathalie Vinroth that Genborg will remain with Timra IK of the SHL this upcoming season.

Hockeysverige.se’s Robin Olausson provides us a peek behind ST.nu’s paywall in writing an article about Persson’s remarks:

Timrå’s joy message – the talent stays

Eddie Genborg doesn’t appear to be going over to North America.
As such, he is expected to start in Timrå and spend the entire season in SHL, the 19-year-old’s agent confirms to Sundsvalls Tidning.

There have been a few trips back and forth regarding Eddie Genborg.

He was a success last year, both with Timrå in SHL and during the World Junior Championship with Sweden, and then he signed an NHL contract with the Detroit Red Wings and went over to finish the season in North America. Despite histransition to the AHL, there came an early announcement that Genborg was expected to stay in Timrå and be loaned out [by the Red Wings] for the coming season in 2026/27.

However, Eddie Genborg was expected to head over to North America to participate in the Detroit Red Wings training camp and possibly join Timrå later in the fall. However, Genborg suffered an injury this spring, when he played in the AHL, from which he’s still rehabilitating. That has meantuncertainty about where the 19-year-old will start this year’s season.

“It’s been a bit unclear all summer. I may not have been quite a hundred percent and had some little flaws, but it still looks like I will start here, I think so anyway. It’s a bit unclear, so I can’t say too much, but it looks like that anyway,” Genborg told Sundsvalls Tidning last week.

Continue reading Roughly translated: Eddie Genborg won’t attend the Red Wings’ training camp due to rehabbing from an injury

Connor Hellebuyck to Detroit? I just don’t see it happening.

This one just baffles me. There’s some real trade buzz regarding the Red Wings and Winnipeg Jets goaltender Connor Hellebuyck right now…

Despite the fact that the Hellebuyck is 33, despite the fact that he wants to “win now,” and despite the fact that the Red Wings don’t need to ravage their team in order to (supposedly) placate Dylan Larkin. The logic here suggests that both placating Larkin and bringing a Michigan native “home” might sway Hellebuyck’s camp.

Bleacher Report’s Joe Yerdon names the Red Wings as one of 8 possible destinations for Hellebuyck, and he’s not kidding…

Detroit Red Wings

Of the issues the Red Wings need to address, fixing goaltending is suddenly much lower on the list, but once a new GM is hired in Detroit, adding Connor Hellebuyck, a Michigan native, to the roster could go a long way to fixing another big problem with Dylan Larkin.

Although Larkin is eager to find a new team of his own, bringing Hellebuyck in to calm the waters and convince Larkin, his Olympic gold medal-winning teammate, to stay while helping the Red Wings’ efforts to end the NHL’s longest playoff drought. It could also be the kind of addition that turns Detroit’s fortunes around 180-degrees after a quiet offseason of moves.

Although the Wings have John Gibson as their No. 1 goalie, he’s set to become a free agent next summer. Hellebuyck is signed for five more seasons with an $8.5 million cap hit. Even if Gibson blocked a trade to Winnipeg, the Wings could put together a trade package to win the Jets over offering prospect goalie Trey Augustine among other young prospects currently in the NHL. There’s a lot of wish-casting as well as “ifs and buts” to this, but Hellebuyck returning home to save the Red Wings would be a heck of a story.

Continued, and TSN’s Martin Biron names the Wings as a destination for Hellebuyck as well (check out the 1:48 mark):

Continue reading Connor Hellebuyck to Detroit? I just don’t see it happening.

Red Wings goaltender John Gibson faces a pivotal upcoming season

MLive’s Ansar Khan posted an article in which he surmises that the Red Wings will rely heavily upon goaltender John Gibson to make up for some of the team’s losses in terms of goal-scoring abilities. Khan isn’t wrong in presuming that, one way or another, the 33-year-old Gibson faces a pivotal season ahead in Detroit:

Gibson struggled through November, going 4-7-1 with a 3.59 GAA and .865 save percentage. He flourished since the start of December, going 25-15-3, with a 2.45 GAA and .912 save percentage.

“I think just for whatever reason, it took a little longer to kind of find my game this year and make sure that next year kind of put more emphasis on getting off the hot start,” Gibson said. “I’ve kind of taken pride in that throughout my career. Want to get off to a hot start and unfortunately, it wasn’t the case this year.”’

Gibson, 33, is entering the final year of his contract. He hasn’t appeared in a playoff game since 2018 with the Ducks.

The Red Wings haven’t reached the postseason since 2016, a drought that appeared would be ending when they were tied for the Eastern Conference lead in late January, only to collapse down the stretch again.

“I was just looking for a fresh start, new opportunity,” Gibson said. “Obviously, the last four weeks wasn’t what we hoped to be, but in general, I think there’s a good group of guys here. I had a lot of fun playing, playing a lot of games and that was what I wanted to do. It just ultimately came a little short but a lot of lessons to be learned a lot of things we can use to build off and hopefully come back better next year.”

The Red Wings ranked 22nd in goals and 30th in five-on-five scoring. They signed Viktor Arvidsson (25 goals with Boston) but lost Patrick Kane (16 goals) and James van Riemsdyk (15 goals) and Larkin (34 goals) has requested a trade.

Continued (paywall); whether we’re talking about Gibson, the unproven back-up in Daniil Tarasov, Grand Rapids Griffins starter Michal Postava or rookie Trey Augustine, there’s going to be flux in the Wings’ crease this upcoming season, and it would benefit from its eldest member (Gibson) leading the charge.

Video: 10 years of the Jamie Daniels Foundation

WDIV Local 4’s Erika Ericksson posted an article and conducted a lengthy interview for a 9:17 feature video in which Red Wings play-by-play broadcaster Ken Daniels and Lisa Daniels-Goldman discuss the 10th anniversary of the Jamie Daniels Foundation, which aims to reduce the stigma of and promote treatment for substance use disorder: