The Grand Rapids Griffins didn’t get back Tyler Bertuzzi and will have to go the rest of the way without Matt Lorito as well.
Lorito, tied for fourth on the team in scoring (23-26-49), will not return from a knee injury and is out for the rest of the season, coach Todd Nelson said.
Nelson said Lorito will undergo surgery. He has not played the past six games since injured in a March 24 game against Iowa. The left winger is in the last season of a two-year, two-way contract.
“It’s unfortunate because, obviously, he’s a big part of our hockey team,” Nelson said. “We just have to get it done without him.”
Wallner reports that the Griffins are OK with Tyler Bertuzzi working on his off-season training…
“Tyler was asked about that option and he wanted to play. But that was a while ago,” Nelson said. “Since that time, he’s played important minutes and he really hasn’t had a summer the past two years to really develop his body. So, I think that’s why the decision was made to start training and get ready for next season. And I totally respect that. Once again, we’re here to facilitate the Detroit Red Wings.
“Are we going to miss him? Absolutely. But it will give other players an opportunity to step up.”
And yes, the Griffins are eying Michael Rasmussen as he plays tremendous hockey for the WHL’s Tri-City Americans. If the Americans are eliminated from the WHL playoffs, Rasmussen can join the Griffins:
“He’s a player we can certainly use,” Nelson said. “He’s a big body and he’s having a monster playoff. But we’ll have to see how that plays out.”
1. I’ve tried to avoid reading lists of power rankings this season as the Wings’ record among their competitors, both real and perceived, has been ugly this season, and TSN’s Scott Cullen wraps up his regular-season power rankings with a big thud for his 29th-place-ranked Wings:
Since the trade deadline the Red Wings compiled a record of 4-13-3, worst in the NHL. The 72 points they earned on the season were their lowest in a full season since they had 70 in 1989-90.
Tuesday, when the Wings gather for the team photo and locker clean out day, expect that the club will announce that [Red Wings coach Jeff] Blashill is returning to finish out the fourth season of the contract he signed to coach Detroit in 2015.
ONE TO WATCH: Andreas Athanasiou, a 23-year-old center, was inconsistent after holding out for a bigger contract last fall. He is a restricted free agent, eligible for arbitration, and may want to be on the move.
Does he want to play for the Red Wings next season?
“I want to be an NHL player,” he said. “I want to be in this league. I’ve been very happy to wear a Red Wings wheel, but it’s a business so we’ll see what happens.”
4. One way or another, the Red Wings’ pre-locker-room-clean-out-day comments were most intriguing in regards to the team’s style of play. According to the players and coach, as noted by the Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan, the Wings are going to continue to transition to a faster-paced game–and by faster-paced, they mean a break-neck paced “speed game” (which also happens to be fun to watch):
“New Jersey was the best hardest forechecking team we probably saw and they don’t have big, strong forwards, they have quickness,” Blashill said. “It’s become a real forechecking, hounding league in a lot of ways.”
Blashill didn’t feel the Red Wings were fast enough to play against last season. But that’s changed this season.
“We tried to implement a much faster transition game, to try to make use of one of our assets — our speed,” Blashill said. “I don’t think enough coaches said last year we were fast. (But) I don’t know if there’s a coach now that doesn’t say our team is fast.
“Part of “fast” is playing fast, and we’ve learned to play way faster, and so part of that is willing to put pucks behind people and go forecheck a little bit more. We’ve done a pretty good job of that, trying to use our quickness, and that’s a positive.”
A young player like Bertuzzi, who seems well suited for this type of style, also gives the organization hope going forward.
“He’s a real good piece to a winning hockey team,” Blashill said. “He plays winning hockey. He’s extremely smart defensively, he has a very strong stick, he’s very strong on the puck. He’s hard and smart and has good skill and that’s a rare combination.”
Stylistically, I still believe in puck possession hockey over dump-and-chase, but you’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do, and today’s team speed is all about getting through the neutral zone fast and setting up on the cycle.
MLive’s Ansar Khan happens to have posted a video in which Blashill spoke about the Wings’ harder-charging style, prior to Saturday’s game, and I’m just guessing that Khan will post a 6 AM-published column regarding this topic:
They still want to possess the puck, but when they don’t have it, they need to be more aggressive, coach Jeff Blashill said.
“More forechecking and a faster transition game,” Blashill said. “I think in the past it was bring it back and loop and do some things and it was awesome for a while. Some of that was with the number of Russian players that were here, that’s how they’d grown up playing. Some of that is the league was much different, there were huge disparities in talent from one team to the next.
“It’s not that way anymore. We’ve tried to implement a much faster transition game to try to make use of what I think is one of our best assets — our speed. I didn’t think enough coaches said to me last year that our team was fast. I don’t know if there’s a coach I talk to now that doesn’t say our team’s fast. I think we’ve learned to play way faster, and part of that is being willing to put pucks behind people and go forecheck a little bit more. This certainly wasn’t noted as a forechecking team in the past. I think everybody in here knows that you have to be that if you want to win.”
The Grand Rapids Griffins will wrap up their regular season with three games to be played over the course of four nights this week, and the Griffins will do so with something of an open competition for their playoff starting goalie’s spot.
“Tommy has been playing his best hockey right now; he played exceptional last game,” [Griffins coach Todd] Nelson said of a 4-1 win Saturday at Tucson. “Jared, obviously, he would have wanted things to go better but he was playing his best hockey when he left us. So, I have three games to figure it out.”
The Griffins practice in Austin on Tuesday and play against Texas on Wednesday. Then they are at San Antonio on Thursday and home Saturday for the regular-season finale against Cleveland. Within that, the Griffins (40-25-1-7) will finish between first or fourth in a tightly-contested Central Division.
Coreau will likely get one if not two starts to see if he can forget about what happened with the Red Wings. In seven games, he was winless with a 4.26 goals-against-average and .867 save percentage.
In 36 games with the Griffins, Coreau is 20-10-4 with a 2.47 GAA and .916 save percentage. His last two games with the Griffins (Feb. 15, 17) were shutouts and he earned the league’s monthly honor after a 1.46 GAA and .951 save percentage and two shutouts in six games before recalled.
When he left, McCollum stepped in and has played very well especially of late with two goals allowed in nine of his past 10 games (he allowed three the other game). Likewise, he also has appeared in 36 games, going 19-14-3 with a 2.56 GAA and .911 save percentage.
Wallner continues, and Nelson suggests that playoff starts will be earned on a winning basis…
The Toledo Blade’s Mark Monroe posted an article discussing the Toledo Walleye’s impending playoff series against the Indy Fuel, as well as Simon Denis’ return from the AHL’s Hartford Wolfpack. As Monroe notes, the Walleye are a heavy favorite in their first-round series:
The Fuel did not earn a spot in the playoffs until the season finale on Sunday. Toledo is 8-1-0 against Indy this season.
The best-of-7 series will follow a 2-3-2 format. Game 2 is Sunday at 5:15 p.m. before the series shifts to Indiana.
The Walleye have earned the No. 1 seed in the conference for the fourth straight season. They reached the conference finals last year and in 2014-15. They were ousted by Reading in the first round in 2015-16.
“Being the No. 1 seed comes with a lot of high expectations,” Watson said. “So there are several ways to handle it. I’m 100 percent excited to see how our guys respond. We are very deep at every position. We are built differently than the last few years. Everyone will have to play up to their potential for a long playoff run.”
I try to reserve my post-season observations regarding the Red Wings until the team takes part in its annual team picture and locker room clean-out day.
The Wings’ players, coach and GM engage in end-of-the-season press conferences and media scrums that can be very telling in terms of shedding light upon player performances and their mindsets going forward…
And in Ken Holland’s case, a 20-to-45-minute lecture in which he shares his philosophies and “game plan” for the offseason.
The Athletic’s Craig Custance doesn’t believe that it’s too early to 13 “Before the Locker cleanout” takeaways, however, and among them are the following takes on the Wings’ draft position:
5. Ultimately, in judging the Red Wings this season, there are a couple things to look at. First is draft position. It would have been a disaster for this team to finish closer to the playoff line, stuck in the middle. Whether it was by design or not, they didn’t. They’ve put themselves in position to grab a talented player at the top of a 2018 draft strong on defense — a major need. The worst they’ll be drafting is No. 8 overall and that’s if three teams leapfrog them into the top three. It takes a lot of clicks on tankathon to get that to happen.
6. Even if we go worst-case scenario with the lottery and drop the Red Wings to No. 8, it’s not hard to come up with a list of players they’re looking hard at who would vault to the top of their prospect list They’d still be selecting from a pool of these players, any of whom would be a nice addition to the organization (in no particular order): Rasmus Dahlin, Filip Zadina, Andrei Svechnikov, Noah Dobson, Evan Bouchard, Brady Tkachuk, Quinn Hughes, Adam Boqvist.
The Western Hockey League announced today that Tri-City Americans captain Michael Rasmussen has been named the WHL On the Run Player of the Week for the week ending April 8, 2018.
Rasmussen, who was selected by the Detroit Red Wings in the first round, ninth overall, of the 2017 NHL Draft, registered seven points (4G-3A) and a plus-five rating in two games as the Americans took a commanding 2-0 lead in their best-of-seven Round Two series against the Victoria Royals in the 2018 WHL Playoffs.
Congrats to Coach Blashill on being named #TeamUSA head coach for the 2018 IIHF Men’s World Championship for the second year in a row! #2018MWC ?? pic.twitter.com/fsOmFcDqwC
— Detroit Red Wings (@DetroitRedWings) April 9, 2018
The World Championships will be held in Copenhagen, Denmark this year, and Frans Nielsen (DEN), Martin Frk (CZE) and Dylan Larkin (USA) are going to play in the WC.
More than a few bloggers have posted their end-of-season, “Thank you” letters to their readers, and I offer nothing different today in terms of my main message:
Starting this blog has been a bumpy road, and I am incredibly, incredibly grateful for those of you who’ve read the blog, commented upon its content, and have spread the word about this slowly-growing blog. I’m indebted to you for your support this past season, and I know it was also no easy season in which to follow the Wings…
So, to those of you who are taking a break until September, I bid you a fond farewell, but I would also encourage you to stick around for the off-season, because I’m going to be a busy bee.
After tomorrow’s locker room clean-out, coverage will shift toward the Grand Rapids Griffins and Toledo Walleye’s playoff runs, with my goal being to attend as many Griffins playoff games as possible;
We already know that Dylan Larkin, Martin Frk and Frans Nielsen will be taking part in the World Championship in Denmark in May;
The draft lottery will be held at the end of this month, with the draft to follow in late June (11 Wings picks included);
And who knows what might happen in terms of free agency…
And in between, there’s going to be more than enough time to work on the blog’s design, logo, to fund-raise (sorry, but I’ve got to do it).
For me, this is going to be a busy spring and summer, full of hockey coverage both foreign and domestic, and I hope that you stick around for the ride.
Today, The Athletic’s Topher Scott wraps up a season of examining the Red Wings “on film” from a coach’s perspective, and Scott suggests that the Red Wings simply need more talent to compete for a playoff spot:
Let me be clear: I would take almost every player on the Red Wings’ roster on my team. I think they battled hard a majority of the year and got the most out of their potential. But it’s almost like they have a team of second, third and fourth lines. Good, honest, NHL players. But no superstars in their prime.
Larkin and Mantha can be those guys if they have a great offseason of training. I think they are ready to take that next step. Ken Holland and the management team have a stable of picks in the first few rounds of the draft. I think they can hit on one or two of those picks.
The foundation and culture are there. The difference-makers are not. But if Detroit can find a way to draft or develop a few of those guys, I think you’ll see a successful rebuild sooner rather than later.
