Gang,
Aunt Annie has been admitted to the hospital due to a UTI, diverticulitis and some injuries accumulated while attempting to go to the hospital via car. We had to call an ambulance and we’re at Novi Providence. TMR will resume activities when her test orders accumulate and we get a free minute.
Red Wings prospects and Team USA members JP Hurlbert, Victor Plante and Brent Solomon will take part in next week’s World Junior Summer Showcase as they represent the U.S. in a week-long tournament to be held at Windsor’s WFCU Centre.
Detroit Hockey Now’s Max Smith reports that the trio of American World Junior Championship hopefuls will engage in something of a pre-camp at Little Caesars Arena’s BELFOR Training Center beginning on Wednesday:
JP Hurlbert leads the Red Wings contingent in draft pedigree as their first round pick from the latest Entry Draft. The University of Michigan commit has been spent most of his summer here already as he gears up for a spot in Ann Arbor with the Wolverines forward corps.
Victor Plante, drafted 47th overall this year by the Red Wings just as his brother Max Plante was two years ago, will be attending as well. Plante has committed to the same college as his two brothers, Zam and the aforementioned Max, University of Minnesota Duluth. Whether the three play on the same line is still yet to be seen.
Finally, Brent Solomon, who the Red Wings drafted in the fourth round in 2025 joins the team after a stellar campaign in the USHL. Solomon had 53 points (24 goals, 29 assists) in 54 regular season games with the Sioux Falls Stampede.
Continued
The Hockey News’s Adam Proteau’s working his way through ranking the NHL’s top 32 coaches, and today, Proteau suggests that Red Wings coach Todd McLellan is “on the hot seat” because the Red Wings have underachieved over the course of McLellan’s 1.5 year tenure behind Detroit’s bench:
17 – Todd McLellan, Detroit Red Wings
McLellan has more NHL experience than virtually anyone, and he’s ranked this high in part because he has 1,274 regular-season games of experience under his belt. He’s returned to the Red Wings organization he won a Stanley Cup with as an assistant in 2007-08, and McLellan would be rated higher on this list if it weren’t for Detroit’s struggles since he took over the reins in December of 2024.
The Red Wings finished sixth in the Atlantic Division in both of the past two seasons, but this year’s abysmal late-season collapse really hurts McLellan’s stock on this list. McLellan has coached four different teams – the Wings, Kings, Edmonton Oilers and San Jose Sharks – and he’s under the gun to turn things around in Detroit, especially now that Detroit GM Steve Yzerman has been fired.
McLellan is a name-brand coach, but that won’t save him if the Wings don’t get into the playoffs next season.
Continued; I would suggest that coach McLellan does not exist in a vacuum, and that the Red Wings’ consecutive late-season flops are not simply “on the coach.” The Red Wings’ players did not deliver, nor did management sufficiently address the organization’s shortcomings through mid-season moves.
Everybody pulls their rope, so to speak, but over-assessing blame on a coach who’s worked his ass off to turn the Red Wings’ ship around feels a little “on the nose.”
DetroitRedWings.com’s Jonathan Mills posted an article regarding Red Wings trade acquisition Keegan Kolesar, a 29-year-old checking forward who hopes to institute something of a culture change after being acquired from the Vegas Golden Knights:
“Really excited to join a group that, playing against them for years now, they have a tremendous amount of skill and talent in their lineup,” Kolesar said in his introductory Zoom call with the media on July 2. “Just talking to guys now, they felt that there was a missing piece, maybe an identity of just having that — not the fighting aspect, but more of the toughness and being hard to play against, being a veteran presence on the front end, bringing guys into the fight. I think that’s something I can provide.”
Kolesar was acquired in a trade with the Vegas Golden Knights on July 1 for Detroit’s third-round pick in the 2029 NHL Entry Draft and seventh-round selection in the 2027 NHL Entry Draft. He appeared in all 82 regular-season games for Vegas in 2025-26, recording 17 points (six goals, 11 assists) before tallying one goal in 21 Stanley Cup Playoff matchups.
“You can call me an old-school type of player,” he said. “Forecheck, backcheck, paycheck. I just want to help the team win. I’ve always felt the team comes first in every scenario. If there is any way I can help the team win, that’s what I’ll do.”
Few players have imposed themselves physically more consistently over the past few seasons than Kolesar, who piled up 270 hits in 2025-26 — the seventh-most in the NHL.
“It can be a pretty big toll on the body,” Kolesar said. “I’ve been fortunate enough to be pretty healthy throughout my career. I mean, knock on wood, nothing too bad…That’s an aspect that I try to bring. I think when you have that in your lineup, it makes everyone play a little bit tougher. You can play a little bit more confident when you have someone that is going to go into the trenches and do all the dirty work like that.”
Continued; Kolesar told Mills that some adjustment period will be necessary after playing for one organization during his playing career:
“You play your entire career in one spot, it’s very rare,” said Kolesar, who was originally selected by the Columbus Blue Jackets in the third round (No. 69 overall) of the 2015 NHL Entry Draft. “It’ll take some time to get over it because I’ve made so many great relationships in [Las Vegas]. It’ll take some time to turn the page, but that’s just the human side of it.”
It’s been almost a week since I revealed that Aunt Annie and I are trying to raise funds to defray the cost of paying our property taxes for this upcoming year.
I’ve tried to not whack y’all over the head with this one, but we’re in a tricky situation right now.
Aunt Annie and I make “subsistence wages”–i.e. we make just enough money to pay our bills, but every dollar that comes in the door goes out the door despite our relatively spartan lifestyle.
That’s what happens when we have to live on AA’s Social Security and my very meager wages as a State of Michigan-employed caregiver, and that’s okay, but the property taxes make our situation particularly complicated.
Continue reading Summertime fundraising for property taxesBleacher Report’s Hannah Stuart “checks in” on every NHL team’s 2025 1st round pick some 13 months after the 2025 NHL Draft, and, in the Red Wings’ case, Everett Silvertips graduate and 13th overall pick Carter Bear has recovered well from a partially torn Achilles tendon suffered toward the end of the 2024-2025 campaign.
Bear’s turning pro this upcoming season with a WHL title in tow, preparing for his first full campaign with the Grand Rapids Griffins:
13. Detroit Red Wings: Carter Bear, LW
How He Performed During 2025-26 Season:
At first glance, it would be easy to assume that Carter Bear had a worse season with the Everett Silvertips than his draft year. This is why we don’t judge at first glance, and instead look further for context. Bear’s point totals this season were lower, with 77 points in 53 games compared to 82 points in 56 the year before, and he got off to a slow start.
But his point-per-game pace wasn’t really different; last year’s was 1.46 points-per-game, where this year’s was 1.45. He also tallied 22 points in 18 postseason games with the Silvertips. Add to that the fact that Bear was in the middle of overhauling certain aspects of his game, and you have a different viewpoint from which to judge. He really focused on improving the physical side of his game this year, clearly working with an eye toward his professional hockey future as he became more of a net-front presence while also developing other physical aspects of his game.
Future Outlook:
He probably needs more seasoning, so don’t take this as a 100 percent pronouncement, but it would not be surprising to see Carter Bear make the Red Wings next season. The organization is undergoing changes at the top, and captain Dylan Larkin’s trade request has been all over the news, so it’s hard to project anything firmly right now.
But Bear would benefit from the challenge of professional hockey, and the Red Wings would benefit from his intensity and never-quit motor. It’s not really something they have in large amounts right now.
Continued; Bear is not overly big at 6′ and 187 pounds, but he’s stocky, he’s plucky, and he’s got a lot of take-no-shit grit to his game.
I don’t expect him to make the Red Wings out of training camp, but he does have a bright future, not only due to his skill set, but also because he’s got a hell of a work ethic and “compete level.”
The Athletic’s Max Bultman does some heavy lifting this morning, wondering aloud what the Red Wings’ new management group should do given that Dylan Larkin has not rescinded his trade request nearly two months after the disgruntled captain asked the outgoing GM for a trade.
Bultman argues that it’s a little too early to be planning a warm, fuzzy reunion between Larkin and the new management group, given that we still don’t know who the hell the new management group will consist of, so, for the present moment, it’s about examining what options are open between the estranged captain and a general manager who’s about to assist in the selection of his replacement.
Bultman wonders aloud whether the Red Wings really could convince Larkin to remain a Red Wing somehow, and whether that would even matter given that the rest of the Atlantic Division improved, while the Red Wings…
Waited for a Dylan Larkin trade that did not materialize, treading water otherwise:
The Red Wings made some targeted additions in Viktor Arvidsson and Keegan Kolesar, but appear to be losing veteran scorers Patrick Kane and James van Riemsdyk. They look like they’ll mainly be relying on internal improvement to compete for a wild-card spot.
In other words, even if Larkin does stay, it’s entirely possible the Red Wings are looking at another year outside the playoffs. Is that worth all the boos [Larkin will receive from Red Wings fans]?
From the Red Wings’ standpoint, it may well be. Larkin is a No. 1 center, and it’s likely they’ll “lose” any trade for him. That’s what tends to happen when you’re giving up the best player in a deal. Even if they miss the playoffs again, having him would mean a chance to compete.
There’s no doubt in my mind that any trade in which Larkin is the best player in the trade is a “loss,” which is why I’ve argued that the Red Wings may need to “lose the Larkin trade with dignity” in order to move forward…
Continue reading Making educated guesses for the post-Yzerman Red Wings and the Dylan Larkin impasseBleacher Report’s Adam Gretz discusses “5 teams that need a game-changing trade after missing out during the 2026 offseason,” and Gretz includes the Red Wings on his list:
Detroit Red Wings: Whether Steve Yzerman stepped away from the Detroit Red Wings general manager role on his own, or if he was forced out of it does not really matter. It is irrelevant to the reality that something needed to change here.
(Yes, it does matter…But not necessarily for Gretz’s point)…
Continue reading Are Red Wings fans ‘owed’ an aggressive offseason trade (or two) by the new management group, even if Dylan Larkin remains in Detroit?The team is on a 10-year playoff drought, seven under Yzerman’s watch, with some absolutely appalling late-season meltdowns to blame for it. Even worse, his longest-tenured player and team captain, Dylan Larkin, requested a trade this offseason.
Does that request still stand with a new GM? Possibly. Whether it does or does not, and whether the Red Wings trade him or play hardball with him, this is still a team desperately needing something to give it a spark.
Especially given the fact they still have $19.5 million in unused salary cap space and only restricted free agent defenseman Simon Edvinsson left to re-sign.
Potentially moving Larkin out would likely open up more salary cap space.
Of Red Wings-related note this morning:
I’ve mentioned twice now that Marco Kasper took part in some intense on-ice skills camps held by Yanick and Samuel Dube in Lausanne, Switzerland and then in Kasper’s hometown of Klagenfurt, Austria, working alongside fellow NHL’er J.J. Peterka (among other NHL and European pro players).
It didn’t occur to me until Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff wrote as much that Kasper’s status as back on the ice after suffering a knee injury that forced #92 onto crutches and out of the World Championship mix this spring = good news for Kasper’s overall health:
Continue reading Two things: on a healthy Marco Kasper and Michal Orsulak’s summertime activitiesThe NHL Network’s E.J. Hradek discusses two important topics in a “quickie” clip from Monday’s episode of the NHL Tonight on the NHL Network, wondering aloud whether the Red Wings’ next GM can mend fences with Dylan Larkin, and then discussing what restricted free agent defenseman Simon Edvinsson’s next salary might entail:
How does the change in the @DetroitRedWings' front office impact the Dylan Larkin situation?
— NHL Media (@NHLMedia) July 20, 2026
📺: #NHLTonight on NHL Network pic.twitter.com/cjQGI8QsMI
