Month: February 2018

Dominic Turgeon scored his first professional hat trick in the Grand Rapids Griffins’ 5-0 win over the Manitoba Moose this past Saturday, and the Griffins posted a highlight clip spotlighting Turgeon’s natural hat trick:

 

Red Wings captain Henrik Zetterberg hit a milestone marker last night…

Henrik Zetterberg scored his 334th career goal (all w/ DET) to move within one of tying Ted Lindsay for fifth place on the @DetroitRedWings all-time list. #NHLStats pic.twitter.com/LxlAjqnSLd

— NHL Public Relations (@PR_NHL) February 19, 2018

But Zetterberg was not happy after last night’s loss to Toronto, as the Free Press’s George Sipple noted:

“It’s hard to figure it out right now why they won,” Zetterberg said. “They scored three. We scored two. But we had enough chances to win. They probably felt the same. Thought Petr (Mrazek) was really good in net.

“It’s frustrating for us as a team when we played a good game in Nashville and then we don’t get anything out of this one, when we played pretty good. But (there’s) a lot of things behind that.”

Asked what that meant, Zetterberg refused to say anything more: “No, no…. Thank you.”

Zetterberg, 37, is one of two players on the Wings to reach the 40-point plateau this season. Zetterberg has eight goals and 32 assists in 58 games.

You can hear Zetterberg make that last remark at the end of Fox Sports Detroit’s clip of “Z’s” post-game remarks:

I believe that Zetterberg’s simply getting worn out by having to answer the same questions over and over again, but that’s just me.

 

From The Athletic’s Craig Custance:

Setting the Red Wings’ deadline trades over/under: 2.5

There are a lot of irons in the fire for GM Ken Holland but varying degrees of heat. He doesn’t seem especially motivated to move anyone with term on their contract who he believes can keep the team competitive during the rebuild. The Red Wings have a lot of those players, which we’ll get at in a second.

So let’s start with the low-hanging fruit. Barring an injury, and it’s not believed his current upper-body injury is serious, Mike Green will get traded. There’s one. The Philadelphia Flyers goalie situation ups the likelihood that Petr Mrazek gets dealt, with TSN’s Darren Dreger first reporting that there are ongoing discussions between the Red Wings and Flyers on that front. There has been interest in both Red Wings goalies, with Detroit more eager to move Mrazek than starter Jimmy Howard. That gets you to two trades. Then it becomes about trading a player with term on his contract, which brings us to our next area of analysis.

Continued (paywall)

Fox 2’s Sportsworks crew discussed the Red Wings on Sunday night, with the Detroit News’s John Niyo and Bob Wojnowski speaking with Fox 2 sports director Dan Miller regarding the Wings’ loss to Toronto, possible trade deadline moves and Ken Holland’s possible exit from the scene. They talk about the Wings for the first 3 minutes of the clip:

 

Author Keith Gave appeared on 97.1 the Ticket’s Jamie and Stoney show this morning, discussing Gave’s new book about The Russian Five and the upcoming movie of the same name, which will premiere at the Free Press’s Film Festival at the Filmore Detroit on April 11th.

Here’s Gave’s interview in SoundCloud form:

The Athletic’s Corey Pronman examined the prospect pools of this year’s trade deadline “buyers,” discussing possible trade deadline chips, and as Mike Green is probably headed to the Tampa Bay Lightning, here’s what Pronman had to say about the Bolts’ prospect pool:

Tampa is in an interesting spot. They have a deep system of solid prospects but don’t have one true high-end guy outside the NHL. Teams looking to their system will have plenty of options and different kinds of players. Want a skilled playmaker with size? Alexander Volkov is your man and is the top guy in their system for me right now. Want a hard-worker with some touch? Boris Katchouk. A reliable two-way center? Brett Howden, Mitchell Stephens and Anthony Cirelli. A winger with great speed and solid skill? Mathieu Joseph. A big winger with good sense and goal-scoring ability? Taylor Raddysh. A big puck-moving defenseman? Cal Foote. A solid two-way defender? Libor Hajek. Connor Ingram is a nice goalie too. There were others I didn’t mention as well, but the point is selling teams have a lot to pick from here depending on what they value and/or need.

Continued (paywall)…

MLive’s Ansar Khan addressed the Red Wings’ status as “leaving points on the table” in a Monday morning column:

Even with 24 games remaining, the playoffs are a longshot for the Detroit Red Wings. It is difficult to erase a seven-point deficit this late in the season and it’s even tougher to leapfrog four teams in between.

But the Red Wings could have been in the thick of the race by doing a better job closing games. Sunday’s 3-2 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs at Little Caesars Arena was the latest squandered opportunity. Auston Matthews scored with 30.2 seconds remaining in regulation to snap a tie.

They lost 3-2 at Florida on Feb. 2 when Jonathan Huberdeau scored with 7.7 seconds to play in the third period. They blew a three-goal lead with less than six minutes left in the third and lost 7-6 in overtime to the New York Islanders on Feb. 9.

That’s five potential five frittered away in those three games.

“I thought we did a good job in Nashville (3-1 victory Saturday). I thought we did a good job against Anaheim (2-1 win last Tuesday), but we’re leaving points out there in those tie games.”

Blashill, whose team fell to 24-25-9, said it’s a matter of players growing.

“Understanding that they got to dig deep in those little situations,” he said. “The Florida game was different, they were really leaning on us for two straight shifts. (Sunday) was not that case. I thought we had some good chances in the last 10 (minutes) of the third.”

Khan continues…

NHL.com’s Nicholas J. Cotsonika spoke with Red Wings GM Ken Holland regarding his team’s trade deadline outlook, and Holland insisted that his team will not “clear the decks” in search of a total rebuild:

“Am I open to making deals that I think are going to be better for us long term? Yeah,” general manager Ken Holland said before a 3-2 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs at Little Caesars Arena on Sunday. “But it’s got to make sense. We’re not a farm team.”

The Red Wings probably will miss the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the second straight year after making them for 25 straight seasons. They are 24-25-9. With 57 points, they’re seven behind the New York Islanders and Carolina Hurricanes in the race for the second wild card into the playoffs from the Eastern Conference.

Holland has not changed his philosophy. He does not want to tear down the roster to rebuild. He wants to win as much as possible while rebuilding on the fly through drafting and developing.

Clearing out contracts?

“Great to move somebody out,” Holland said. “At the end of the day, if you don’t have somebody to move in, you’ve got to go out and find somebody to move back in.”

Giving roster spots to young players?

“They’ve got to be ready,” Holland said.

Continued

From TSN:

TSN Hockey Insider Darren Dreger reports the Philadelphia Flyers are having ongoing discussions with the Detroit Red Wings regarding goaltender Petr Mrazek.

The Flyers, already without starter Brian Elliott, lost fill-in starter Michal Neuvirth to a lower-body injury in Sunday’s win over the New York Rangers.

Rookie Alex Lyon stopped 25 of 26 shots in relief as the Flyers improved to 30-19-10 on the season.

Lehner injury might narrow the options for the Philadelphia Flyers. Sources say ongoing discussions with Detroit on Petr Mrazek.

— Darren Dreger (@DarrenDreger) February 19, 2018

Update @ 2:33 PM: TSN also posted this:

Glendening has drawn interest from the Toronto Maple Leafs, as reported on Friday. Coach Mike Babcock said recently “the people that need to know, know” when asked about his trade wishes.

Well, now we know one of them. Glendening, 28, broke into the NHL under Babcock in 2014-15. The idea would be for Glendening to replace oft-scratched centre Dominic Moore on the fourth line.

The belief is the Maple Leafs offered a fifth-round pick for Glendening, while the Red Wings countered by asking for a second-round pick. Talks were tabled at that point, with the Leafs unwilling to pay that price. Glendening has three years left on his deal at $1.8 million and the Red Wings are amid a rebuild.

 

The Detroit Red Wings dropped a 3-2 decision to the Toronto Maple Leafs in the final seconds of Sunday night’s game, surrendering a goal to Auston Matthews’ with only 31 seconds remaining in regulation.

It was a disappointing defeat for a Wings team that played a tremendous game against Nashville on Saturday, but could not maintain its work ethic and resolve over the course of 120 minutes of play.

Our friends from Toronto were quite happy to leave Little Caesars Arena with two points, as they told the Toronto Sun’s Terry Koshan:

Continue reading Red Wings-Maple Leafs wrap-up: Leafs’ thievery yields another frustrating loss for Wings