Month: September 2018

Via Kukla’s Korner, Sidney Crosby spoke with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Jason Mackey regarding the end of Henrik Zetterberg’s playing career:

Crosby and Zetterberg did battle on the ice many times, never more heated than in the 2008 and 2009 Cup finals, but Crosby always had a healthy respect for the Red Wings captain and shared his thoughts Sunday on Zetterberg walking away from the NHL.

“It’s too bad,” Crosby said after Day 3 of Penguins training camp at the UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex. “He’s a great player. He’s been good for a really long time. You think of the Red Wings, he’s a guy who comes to mind. [Nicklas] Lidstrom, [Pavel] Datsyuk, Zetterberg, all those guys who played for so long together.

“[Zetterberg] had an amazing career. He was a tough guy to go against every single night. You knew what you were going to get from him. Just a great competitor.”

Zetterberg will turn 38 on Oct. 19. He had been Detroit’s captain since 2012-13, ranking fifth in the Original Six franchise’s record books for goals (337), assists (623) and points (960).

Continued

ESPN’s Chris Peters ranked each and every one of the NHL’s 31 teams’ “prospect pipelines” as part of an Insider story…

5. Detroit Red Wings

Top prospect: Filip Zadina, RW

A strong 2018 draft that saw Zadina, Joseph Veleno and Jonatan Berggren fall into Detroit’s lap bolstered a prospect core that has taken dramatic steps forward in recent years. Michael Rasmussen is another forward the club can be excited about, while defenseman Filip Hronek may be ready to take the next step. This system is starting to look more like that of a team committed to rebuilding.

And here’s what Peters said about the Wings’ prospects in his Atlantic Division prospect round-up:

Continue reading ESPN’s Peters discusses the Red Wings’ ‘prospect pipeline’

Of Red Wings-related note this morning:

1. The Traverse City Record-Eagle’s James Cook wrote a recap of the Red vs. White Game:

Filip Zadina called it “one of the best days of my life.” The Detroit Red Wings hope it’s just the beginning.

Zadina, the sixth overall pick in this summer’s NHL Entry Draft, scored the second period’s only goal to help the much younger Team Red beat the veteran Team White in Sunday’s Red & White Game at Centre Ice Arena in Traverse City.

The 18-year-old Czech played on a line with Thomas Vanek and Andreas Athanasiou that produced the last two Red goals.

“It was such an awesome day for me,” Zadina said. “I was a little nervous before the game, because they are huge players. … It was one of the best days of my life.”

Athanasiou, Vanek, Luke Glendening and goalie Jimmy Howard were the only full-time NHL players on Red, while White was heavily populated by the bulk of Detroit’s 2017-18 NHL club.

Darren Helm, who scored White’s only two goals, came away impressed with the first-round pick.

“He skates really well and handles the puck even better,” Helm said. “That’s a pretty nice combination. It’d be nice to see him get things going. I think he’s going to be a player to watch in the future.”

Cook continues…

2. And WDIV’s David Bartkowiak Jr. took note of the fact that the Red Wings’ jam-packed, 8-game exhibition schedule begins on Wednesday:

Continue reading Morning news: On Zadina’s Red vs. White Game performance and the exhibition schedule to come

Red Wings goaltender Jimmy Howard started training camp wearing a white mask, but he’s sporting this one, painted by Ray Bishop, today. It includes the new “Hockeytown” font on both sides of the chin:

 

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A modernized “bold & classic” design is what we have created for @jimmyhowardofficial @detroitredwings making sure to include the new “HOCKEYTOWN” brand as well! ??? • Bish-it-up!™ @bishopdesigns • #bishopdesigns #bishitup #grateful #goaliemask #airbrush #art #design #graphics #nhl #detroitredwings #detroit #lgrw #puremichigan #hockeytown

A post shared by Bishop Designs™ (@bishopdesigns) on Sep 16, 2018 at 6:12am PDT

Continue reading Jimmy Howard’s new mask embodies the ‘new Hockeytown’

Centre ICE Arena has seemed a little less grumpy without Charlie Inman there, and that’s a shame. For those of us who knew the Centre ICE volunteer in one form or another, the grumpy old man who wasn’t so grumpy once he got to know you–and Charlie was everywhere at Centre ICE, so you were bound to get to be known–was in fact a kind man who treated everyone like they were the star of the show.

Charlie was literally at Centre ICE on Sunday the urn of his ashes, a sand-colored jar with the word “Believe” on it and the autographs of Red Wings players on the stand below it, was at the rink along with his family, who dropped the puck for the Red vs. White Game, and then held a memorial service at Charlie’s place of work.

The Traverse City Record-Eagle’s James Cook paid tribute to Inman, and I can only say, “Me too, me too” when it comes to Cook’s admiration for the man who wielded a cane with a silver skull on its top:

Charlie had a gruff exterior, especially when first meeting him.

That eroded a little at a time, piece by piece each time you crossed paths.

The “curmudgeon” slowly morphed into someone who greeted you with a smile, opened doors. It took years of covering Red Wings events for that to happen, but it did. It was a process. After all, I didn’t have the instant credibility of being on skates as his adopted family of Red Wings did.

“Charlie sometimes had a gruff exterior,” Becki Van Horn, a bookkeeper at Centre Ice for 18 years, said in a Record-Eagle article about Inman’s passing in July. “It was to mask his big heart on the inside. He did anything and everything he was asked to do. Rarely, if ever, said no to a challenge as a volunteer. He was truly one of a kind and will be sorely missed.”

Cook continues, and his article is worth your time…

Of MSM-related note from over the course of Sunday evening:

1. MLive’s Ansar Khan found out where the phrase on the backs of every Red Wings player came from, and Khan folded it into his recap of the Red vs. White Game:

Detroit Red Wings coach Jeff Blashill wants his team to be harder to play against, play with an edge, compete from the opening faceoff to the final horn.

He wants to see “Sixty Minutes of Hell” during the regular season.

That’s the motto Blashill has adopted during training camp, one that’s emblazoned on T-shirts players are wearing while working out.

It’s borrowed from former Arkansas basketball coach Nolan Richardson, who preached a “40 minutes of hell” playing style that pressured opponents all over the court and resulted in much success for the Razorbacks in the early 1990s.

Blashill has seen a higher compete level during the first three days of camp at Centre I.C.E., including Sunday’s Red and White intrasquad scrimmage.

“As competitive as a Red/White game as I’ve seen,” Blashill said. “Not much space. It was closer to a real game than just a scrimmage.”

Khan continues at length, and (2) the Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan picks it up from there, discussing Filip Zadina’s performance in the scrimmage. Zadina played on a line with Andreas Athanasiou and Thomas Vanek:

Continue reading MSM takes on the Red vs. White Game at the Red Wings’ training camp ’18

Team Red won the Red vs. White game 4-2, rallying from a 2-goal, Darren Helm-engineered deficit on goals by Evgeny Svechnikov, Christoffer Ehn, Andreas Athanasiou and Filip Zadina.

The game was fast-paced, about as physical a scrimmage as I’ve seen and intense as players jockeyed for roster positions and playing time, so the two 25-minute periods (which included 3-on-3 play for the final 5 minutes of each period, and penalty shots awarded for rule infractions) flew by, and afterward, Helm, Svechnikov, Zadina and coach Jeff Blashill, who watched his assistant coaches man the benches, spoke with the media.

In terms of player assessments for the day, on a team-by-team and line-by-line basis:

Continue reading Impressions from the Red vs. White game at the Red Wings’ training camp ’18

From the Detroit Red Wings:

Red Wings reduce training camp roster by 10

Sixty-one players remain in Traverse City for final two days of camp

Continue reading Red Wings reassign 10 players

The Detroit Red Wings appear to be leaning toward bringing in a skilled defenseman in either Filip Hronek or Dennis Cholowski to fill their #6 spot, but if the Wings were to choose a more physical player as their #6/7 defenseman, physical defender Joe Hicketts might fit the bill. Hockeybuzz’s Bob Duff spoke with Hicketts regarding his attempt to land a job on the Wings’ roster:

“This year there is that chance,” said Hicketts, 22, who had three assists and a plus-five rating in a five-game NHL audition last season. “Last year, you want to make an impression, but realistically, I was prepared with the contract situation and everything else going on that it was probably be another year in (AHL) Grand Rapids.

“But this year they’ve got spots open, they’re talking about getting young with guys earning jobs and I’m here with that in mind. It’s to earn a job and prove I can play a full 82-game schedule in the National Hockey League.”

Someone who’s always been reluctant to commit to a youth movement, even Detroit GM Ken Holland appears to be acknowledging that’s the direction this team must now take.

“Training camp, from my perspective, we’re going to give lots of kids an opportunity,” Holland said. “On the back end, there’s an opportunity for sure for one young defenseman to make our team. If a second one can make it then we’ll assess what we’ll do with our roster.”

Continued

Red Wings prospect Pavel Gogolev isn’t going to make the team out of training camp, but the 6,’ 168-pound Peterborough Petes forward is learning on the fly as a prospect tournament and main training camp try-out.

The Athletic’s Max Bultman spoke with Gogolev, his coach, Rob Wilson, and his agent, Randy Robitaille, about Gogolev not being drafted and his opportunity to increase his stead among teams that may be able to pick Gogolev in next year’s draft:

Working with Detroit’s development staff, including former NHLers Shawn Horcoff and Dan Cleary, he has a chance to not only get noticed, but to get better.

“They played in the NHL, so I’m trying to take everything that they tell me and try to take every good note from it,” Gogolev said at the prospect tournament. “There’s a lot of good players here — first-round picks from last year, from two years ago. I’m just trying to learn from them a little bit and take the step forward.”

Still, it would be naïve to think the evaluation side wasn’t in play here too.

Gogolev could, in theory, be selected in the draft next season, particularly if some improvement gets him over the hump. He already jumped from 11 points in his first OHL season to 47 last year.

Or, he could impress enough in Traverse City to earn a contract with Detroit. That’s still a wide open question, but Gogolev has at least made an impression on the Red Wings’ development staff.

“(He’s) a kid with a really good skill set,” Horcoff, the team’s director of player development, told The Athletic. “I’ve seen him play some really good games during the year. I just think like any other young kid it’s going to be consistency with him and trying to figure out that you don’t have to make a play every single time you have the puck. But I love his personality. He comes to the rink, he’s a happy kid, he wants to learn. We had him at development camp and he was great.”

Bultman continues…