Of Red Wings-related note this evening:
1. From Fox Sports Detroit, “The 313” offers puns over punditry regarding Alex Regula’s status as the son of a former Red Wings team dentist:
“I like his character a lot,” Wings director of player development Shawn Horcoff said. “Obviously, he’s got a fantastic shot, really good, quick release, and he’s very agile.”
The team also likes Zadina’s competitive streak. Rated to go third overall in the draft, Zadina slid to the Wings at No. 6 and vowed to “fill the nets” of the teams that passed on him, a group that includes two of Detroit’s Atlantic Division rivals, the Montreal Canadiens and Ottawa Senators, as well as the Arizona Coyotes.
Center Joe Veleno, Detroit’s other first round pick at No. 30, could relate to the fire in Zadina’s belly.
“For any player who slides in the draft, obviously, it kind of gets to you a little bit and you want to kind of shove it to the other teams that passed on you,” Veleno said. “I want to do the same thing. I want to be better than all those guys that went ahead of me and prove to all those teams that they shouldn’t have passed on me.”
Perhaps no one in Detroit’s camp knows Zadina’s strengths better than Wings second-round pick defenseman Jared McIsaac, who faced Zadina in practice every day as his teammate with the QMJHL Halifax Mooseheads.
“He challenges you,” McIsaac said. “I try to match up with him as much as possible. Being able to play and practice with him and (2017 first overall pick) Nico Hischier last year, it’s pretty tough but I enjoy the challenge.”
3. The Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan also weighs in with an article about David Pope’s developmental curve as a 23-year-old…
Because of his age, experience and maturity, and a great one-timer, there’s the chance Pope could ascend to the NHL.
“I definitely think so,” said Pope, of whether there’s an opportunity for him in the organization. “I’ve gotten a lot better over the last couple years. The opportunity is there for me. I have to have a good summer and fall.”
Some young players rather go the junior hockey route and play more than 70 games, while others prefer the college route with half the games but more practice time.
For Pope, going to Nebraska-Omaha was the best option.
“It’s less games and more practices, and an emphasis on the gym,” Pope said. “Being a tall, skinny kid, four years ago I don’t know if you saw me, but I was a very skinny, I needed time to spend in the gym and bulk up a little bit and get a little more strength.”
Prospects such as Michael Rasmussen and Filip Zadina, both first-round selections, are going to be given every opportunity to make the Opening Night roster, given their potential. It doesn’t leave many opportunities on the roster, but Pope is optimistic — though realistic.
4. And Kulfan also penned a profile of goal-scoring forward Ryan O’Reilly:
O’Reilly, a forward who was drafted in the fourth round by the Wings last week, is from suburban Dallas — Southlake — and hockey wasn’t exactly a way of life.
“That’s a football hotbed there,” O’Reilly said after Friday’s camp practice. “There was a stretch where they won the state championship five years in a row. That’s hard to do in 6A football down there.”
But in that glare of Friday Night Lights, O’Reilly preferred the din of a hockey rink. Ice, rather than a grass field. Sticks and pucks, rather than a football and cleats.
“Growing up with culture like that, in my school, it was pretty different playing hockey, especially in Dallas,” O’Reilly said. “I enjoyed it, though.”
Not that Southlake football coaches didn’t try to get him out of hockey equipment and into football pads.
“My freshman or sophomore years in high school I had a few classes where coaches were my teachers, and they were kind of always messing around with me,” O’Reilly said. “They would say, ‘When are you going to play with us?’ But I had a passion for hockey.”
5. And finally, rounding things out, DetroitRedWings.com’s Arthur J. Regner just posted his latest “Red and White Authority” podcast, which focuses on Joe Veleno, Jack Adams and Kasper Kotkansalo:
