Month: May 2018

International hockey correspondent Julie Robenhymer spoke with Red Wings center Frans Nielsen regarding his country’s hosting of the World Championship. It turns out that Nielsen’s family is a substantial force in Danish hockey:

At the World Championship in Denmark:

Gustav Nyquist and Team Sweden defeated Latvia 3-2, affording Sweden a spot in Saturday’s semifinal vs. Team USA.

Nyquist finished even with 5 shots in 13:49 played.

 

Dylan Larkin, Nick Jensen and Team USA have advanced to the World Championship’s semifinal round via a 3-2 win over the Czech Republic.

The U.S. will play the winner of the Sweden-Latvia game on Saturday;

Larkin finished even with 2 shots in 21:05 played; Jensen finished even in 11:43 played;

Libor Sulak finished at +1 with 2 shots in 21:11 played for the Czechs, and Filip Hronek had an assist and finished at -1 in 19:19 played.

Update: Here’s IIHF.com’s John Sanful’s sans-quotes recap:

Both teams spent the first half of the opening period feeling each other out while getting some scoring opportunities. At times, Team USA seemed a bit tentative but at the midway point of the first, they would get their legs under them.

Cam Atkinson hit the crossbar two and half minutes into the game. Later, Charlie McAvoy cut backdoor to the net, taking an Alec Martinez pass but could not uncork a shot.

The Czech Republic went on a power play when Alec Martinez was called for tripping in the offensive zone. The Czechs moved the puck around but kept to low percentage chances. Team USA would have their own opportunity down a man. Thanks to work by Derek Ryan in the neutral zone to force a turnover, Dylan Larkin transitioned to offence and getting in for a shot that Pavel Francouz saved.

Just as penalty ended, Patrick Kane took the puck from his own zone, raced up the ice on the right wing into the Czech zone sending a shot far side that beat Francouz at 10:36. As he has done the entire tournament, Kane provided the offensive spark that his team needed. It was the captain’s seventh goal of the tournament and his first scored at even strength. All six of his previous goals were scored on the power play. Derek Ryan added an assist.

Team USA struck again at 12:19 when Johnny Gaudreau brought the puck into the Czech zone, curled at the blue line then handing off to Nick Bonino. Bonino spotted Cam Atkinson, who accepted a pass in front all alone with time to make a move.

Continued…

Update #2: Here’s more from MLive’s Ansar Khan:

Patrick Kane snapped a tie at 6:58 of the third period Thursday with his second goal of the game to lift the United States to a 3-2 victory over the Czech Republic in the quarterfinals of the World Championship in Herning, Denmark.

The U.S. advances to Saturday’s semifinals, when it will face of the winner of today’s game between Sweden and Latvia (2:15 p.m.). The Americans improved to 5-2-0-1 (W-OTW-OTL-L).

Kane skated the puck into the offensive zone and got by Detroit Red Wings defense prospect Filip Hronek, who stumbled, before firing a low shot past goaltender Pavel Francouz. Kane has eight goals and 11 assists in eight games.

Red Wings center Dylan Larkin had no points, three shots on goal and an even plus-minus rating in 21:05. Detroit defenseman Nick Jensen had no points, no shots and an even rating in 11:43.

Hronek had one assist for the Czech Republic, while registering two shots and a minus-2 rating in 19:19. Fellow Detroit defense prospect Libor Sulak had no points, two shots and a plus-1 rating in 21:11. The Czechs finished the tournament at 3-4-0-1.

Update #3: Here’s even more from the Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan:

Continue reading Red Wings at the World Championship: Team USA advances to semifinals via win over Czechs

The Athletic’s Julie Robenhymer penned an article discussing Team USA’s desire to earn a World Championship title to honor the legacy of long-time Team USA executive Jim Johannsson:

On January 21st, the international hockey community was rocked by the news of Jim Johannson’s sudden death.

Officially, he was USA Hockey’s assistant executive director in charge the various responsibilities associated with international competitions and was in charge of selecting teams for most of those events including the past ten world championships at the U18, U20 and men’s levels and was even the general manager for Team USA at the 2018 Winter Olympics.

Unofficially, he was the heart and soul of USA Hockey.

As Team USA faces Czech Republic in the quarterfinals of the 2018 IIHF World Championship on Thursday in Denmark, the players, coaches and staff of USA Hockey are doing their best to honor the man known as JJ by all who knew him with USA’s first gold medal at this tournament since 1933.

“Every one of us has some sort of a relationship with JJ and the impact he’s had on each of our careers and our lives has been significant whether it was playing for a world junior team or at the NTDP or the USHL or going to festivals or simply growing up as an American hockey player,” said Jeff Blashill, head coach of the Detroit Red Wings and Team USA. “JJ pushed the envelope for USA Hockey and he allowed for USA Hockey to reach greater heights.”

Robenhymer continues…

The Athletic’s Craig Custance spoke with Red Wings/Team USA coach Jeff Blashill and Wings director of player recruitment/Czech team GM Jiri Fischer about the impressions made by Dylan Larkin and Filip Hronek (respectively) at the World Championship.

According to Custance, Hronek has continued to take steps forward at the Worlds:

Defenseman Filip Hronek, one of the Red Wings’ three top prospects, has emerged as an important player for the Czechs, a team that features another Detroit prospect on defense in Libor Sulak. Fischer, as the Red Wings’ director of player evaluation, talks often to team management, but after Grand Rapids was eliminated from the AHL playoffs, he called Ken Holland and Ryan Martin to get formal permission to add Hronek to the Czech national team.

He was added with modest expectations. Hronek joined the Czech Republic as a No. 7 defenseman but has quickly moved up the depth chart, where he now runs a power play that features Pastrnak and Krejci.

He’s averaging over 15 minutes per game in his first experience with the men’s national team and has impressed Fischer with his willingness to try and make plays as a young defenseman.

“The coaches are really getting to know him as a player and as the games went on, he performed and gained more ice time,” Fischer said. “Now, he’s running one of the power plays. We’re heading into the quarterfinals. He’s played with no fear of making plays. That’s the big thing for any young player, especially young defensemen really, for the first time, getting time with star players.”

Custance continues, discussing Larkin’s progress made at the Worlds…

 

While I was out at the dermatologist’s, the Free Press’s Helene St. James filed her weekly mailbag article, and she answered three questions, including a query about Andreas Athanasiou’s role and future with the Wings:

HSJ: Andreas Athanasiou intrigues with his ability to accelerate and find ways to score, but he has limited trade value at this time. He had 16 goals and 17 assists for 33 points  in 71 games in 2017-18. He began the season holding out only to settle for a lesser contract than he could have had mid-summer. He had a .46 points-per-game average in 2017-18, compared to .45 PPG in 2016-17, even though he averaged 1 minute 51 seconds more in playing time per game. He went spans for 15 games and 13 games without scoring a goal, and that shouldn’t happen with someone so skilled.

It was a pretty damming indictment when, at locker clean-out day on April 10, head coach Jeff Blashill spoke about what he’d said to Athanasiou at their year-end meeting: “My message to AA was as a coach you have to know what you’re getting every single shift and the growth in him is going to be to learn to work and compete every shift. If I’m guessing whether or not he’s going to work and compete, it’s hard to keep putting him out there because I don’t know what I’m getting. So that consistency level and work ethic and compete is going to be critical for AA.”

Now, learning to be consistent is a common theme among young players who have a skill level that allowed them to dominate at lower levels of hockey, only to find out how much harder it is to stand out regularly in the NHL. Athanasiou has the potential to be a big part of the rebuild, either as an in-house scorer or trade bait, but first he’ll have to put up better numbers.

I’m not usually a .gif poster, but a very important goal was scored today, as noted by the Red Wings’ Twitter account:

Here’s the legendary @KenKalDRW with the call. ??? (via: @PR_NHL) pic.twitter.com/6SR7xJLmbG

— Detroit Red Wings (@DetroitRedWings) May 16, 2018

May 16, 1996.

Chills every time. pic.twitter.com/4QzBrvymCd

— Detroit Red Wings (@DetroitRedWings) May 16, 2018

 

Red Wings prospect Reilly Webb projects as a hulking stay-at-home defenseman, and the 6’3″ defenseman with a massive wingspan is profiled today by DetroitRedWings.com’s Dana Wakiji, who examines Webb’s “numbers“:

164 — The Wings took Webb in the sixth round of the 2017 draft, 164th overall.

2 — Webb has played with two other Wings prospects this season. When he was in Hamilton, goaltender Kaden Fulcher was a teammate. Fulcher signed with the Wings as a free agent on Oct. 3, 2017. After his trade to Saginaw, Webb played with Brady Gilmour, who was taken in the same draft as Webb, but in the seventh round, 193rd overall.

Quotable: “I actually coached him in Hamilton, too, so I’ve known him a number of years now. I think he progressed extremely well. He didn’t have a great start to the season, being injured. Coming in, he developed into a great shutdown defenseman for us. He has to stay healthy – that’s the truth – and continue to play with an edge in his game and take a bigger role with our club and be the leader that we believe he can be.” — Troy Smith, Saginaw Spirit head coach

Wakiji continues…

The Athletic’s Joe Smith spoke with Tampa Bay Lightning GM Steve Yzerman and several other hockey luminaries regarding Yzerman’s background with Russian players in Detroit as it applies to his construction of the Bolts:

 

It should come as little surprise that some of the Lightning’s cornerstones are Russians, with All-Star winger Kucherov and goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy. Last summer, Yzerman traded former No. 3 pick Jonathan Drouin for another Russian, defenseman Mikhail Sergachev. If the Lightning advance from this Eastern Conference final against the Capitals and win the Stanley Cup, it’ll be largely due to their impact.

Yzerman saw past the perceptions, the misconceptions. He understood the people. He appreciated the talent.

“I learned the players from (Russia), they come from a very different culture than we do,” Yzerman told The Athletic. “How situations are handled are different. How they were treated are different. Right or wrong.

“But one thing playing with them, they were good guys, very successful athletes, very intelligent and strong-willed athletes. It wasn’t just Russians. On that team, we had players from all backgrounds. And it came down to good hockey players, good people. That’s the most important thing.”

Continued (paywall)…

Frans Nielsen’s hometown Danes didn’t advance to the Quarterfinals at the World Championship, but the tournament, held in Copenhagen and Herning, Denmark, has given Danish hockey a boost.

The Associated Press’s Karl Janicek spoke with Nielsen and his teammates regarding the effects of the World Chapionship upon the game they’re trying to promote:

Danish hockey is on the rise, even though the Danish hockey team has been knocked out of the world championships.

The national team’s early elimination at its first world championships on home ice can hardly overshadow the boost the tournament has given the sport in the country.

“I hope it spreads awareness of hockey in Denmark for a lot of families and hopefully they’ll try to get their kids to play hockey,” Columbus Blue Jackets forward Oliver Bjorkstrand said. “Hopefully it gets more hockey kids involved and more media attention on hockey, of course. It’s something we’re hoping for at this tournament.”

…