The Malik Report

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.”

With training camp approaching, @TonyLuftman, @mike_p_johnson and @Rupper17 discuss what could be next for the Detroit Red Wings and Dylan Larkin.

📺: #NHLTonight on NHL Network pic.twitter.com/V3GnKAAkIf

— NHL Media (@NHLMedia) August 28, 2026

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

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.

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.

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:

Tabula Rasa Magazine’s Markus Hofmann spoke with German-born players during the NHL/NHLPA Player Media Tour last week, and he asked Red Wings defenseman Moritz Seider about his off-ice entertainment activities. This is a little fluffy, but I figured that you might want to read it anyway.

Here’s a rough translation from German:

Moritz Seider (Detroit Red Wings)

Among other things, I talked to Moritz Seider about his leisure activities off the ice – he used to like to play or gamble for a round. Today it’s different, as he revealed: He rarely plays poker, mostly on long flights on extended road trips with the team, he might treat himself to a game. He hasn’t touched his PlayStation for a long time, however – where the device has stopped completely, he doesn’t know exactly. For him, it’s a sign that you grow out of such things at some point.

However, a game could appeal him to get back in: the long-awaited successor to GTA 5. Should GTA 6 actually appear, he would even get a new console for it. When asked if he would be on time to watch the German NHL game on November 19th, Seider joked that on that day he would probably find him in his basement in front of the TV screen after the NHL game. After all, GTA 5 was the biggest game ever – and its successor has been announced after about six years, after which time fans are impatiently eager.

DobberHockey.com’s Alexander MacLean examines the Red Wings’ off-season moves from a fantasy hockey perspective today, giving the Red Wings an interim C+ until Dylan Larkin is moved:

Fantasy Outlook

This is a team that finished in the bottom-third for goals scored last season, and lost more offensive talent than they gained. There might be a bit of internal growth to help them hold steady, but at best this would be a 20th overall team in the league on offence, with an average power play. If and when Larkin is traded, that offence won’t be replaced right away, and there will be a gaping hole up the middle. There is still value in Lucas Raymond and others further down the draft board, but there is no high-end piece here, and Detroit is suddenly lacking in both the middle of the lineup and in the quality of their depth pieces. 

For those worried about the key remaining piece in Lucas Raymond losing some value after a Larkin trade, you probably don’t have to worry. Larkin was Raymond’s linemate about 80% of the time in 2025-26, and Raymond scored 75-78% of his points with Larkin on his line (depending on how you include the points from penalty shots or times when it was Raymond and two defensemen on the ice). In a smaller sample size, being separated from Larkin doesn’t seem to affect Raymond’s scoring.

On defence, Mortiz Seider is the team MVP, and with both scoring and peripheral numbers, he’s a huge fantasy value player too. After Justin Faulk joined the team, Seider’s SOG and scoring rates both increased. If he can keep that up for more of the season next year he jumps into the top-five in terms of fantasy value quite easily. However, with Seider leeching all of the value, it holds others like Axel Sandin-Pellikka back, who would need a heavy dose of PP time to be relevant in standard leagues. 

In net, Gibson and Tarasov are entrenched in the starter and backup roles, and should be able to provide similar numbers to last year, though maybe with a handful less wins for Gibson. With a full year of Faulk it could be that the goals against numbers drop a bit as well, especially since the team may need to focus a bit more on defence to win games this year. 

Continued; regardless of whether and/or when and/or if Larkin is traded, Detroit’s got to improve defensively to win more games.

The Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan discusses the Red Wings’ lack of depth at center behind disgruntled forward Dylan Larkin, and Kulfan ponders who might have the best opportunity to succeed Larkin as the Red Wings’ #1 center:

Andrew Copp, J.T. Compher, Marco Kasper and Michael Rasmussen are options to center the next three lines, with Nate Danielson a possibility to move up from Grand Rapids. Copp had a good season while centering Alex DeBrincat and Patrick Kane for much of the schedule. But Copp is best suited as more of a second- or third-line center and would have extreme difficulty matching the 30-goal outputs that Larkin has produced the last five consecutive seasons.

Kasper is an intriguing wild card. Kasper scored 19 goals his rookie season playing on a wing on a line with Larkin and Lucas Raymond. Coach Todd McLellan placed Kasper at center between DeBrincat and Kane last season but Kasper faltered quickly and barely resembled the player from his rookie season.

Kasper’s production fell to nine goals and 19 points while playing through a knee injury and being shuttled between wing and center. McLellan said after the season the Wings must decide at some point where they feel Kasper is most suited for.

Continue reading Is this season Marco Kasper’s time to shine?

The Jamie Daniels Foundation will hold the Roast of Chris Osgood at the MotorCity Casino this Saturday (there’s a silent auction attached to the Roast that has some really tremendous items), and both Ken Daniels and Lisa Daniels-Goldman conducted an 8-minute interview with WXYZ this noon.

They discussed both the Roast of Chris Osgood and the mission of the Jamie Daniels Foundation as a whole.

I can’t embed the video, but you can watch it here.

Per DetroitHockey.net’s Clark Rasmussen:

The Detroit Red Wings didn’t announce jersey numbers for their summer acquisitions in a social media post this year. Instead they simply updated the roster on their website with the changes on Thursday morning.

Viktor Arvidsson has been assigned the #33 he has worn for most of his career, with the number now available do to the trade of Sebastian Cossa to Utah.

Backup netminder Daniil Tarasov takes #80 – as I had guessed he might – with his usual #40 at least informally out of circulation.

Summer trade acquisition Keegan Kolesar takes the #55 that he wore with the Vegas Golden Knights, becoming the first Red Wing to wear it since Niklas Kronwall.

Continued with prospect and AHL signings’ numbers…