Articles from Wings practice: On the captaincy, the in-flux blueline and multimedia of note

Updated at 7:02 PM: The Red Wings’ practice was quite busy today as the team clarified the statuses of Niklas Kronwall (out for Thursday’s opener vs. Columbus), Jonathan Ericsson (probably out) and Trevor Daley (probably playing) before announcing the team’s 23-man roster (Luke Witkowski, Filip Hronek and Joe Hicketts were assigned to Grand Rapids; Michael Rasmussen, Christoffer Ehn and Dennis Cholowski made the team, at least for now), and speaking with the media regarding several topics.

In her first post-practice article, the Free Press’s Helene St. James suggested that the Wings will go with three alternate captains this season, with Frans Nielsen and Dylan Larkin as the logical candidates for the third “A”…

The Detroit Red Wings are close to finalizing their decision on what to do regarding the leadership void.

Henrik Zetterberg’s decision to stop playing because of a bad back has left the Wings without a captain. Coach Jeff Blashill said Tuesday afternoon he and general manager Ken Holland have chatted about what to do, and “we feel like we have made a decision. We are going to circle back and make sure we feel good about it and then move on from there.”

The Wings are expected to going three alternates, naming a third to join Niklas Kronwall and Justin Abdelkader.

MLive’s Ansar Khan focused on the progress made by the Wings’ young blueliners (while also addressing the team’s lines and touching on the captaincy situation)…

Dennis Cholowski, the most impressive young defenseman in preseason, will play for sure. He practiced with Danny DeKeyser as the top pairing and he will man one of the power-play units.

Libor Sulak also appears likely to play Thursday. He was paired with Trevor Daley, who Blashill said is “very probable.”

The Red Wings assigned Filip Hronek and Joe Hicketts to the Grand Rapids Griffins to reduce their roster to 22, but one or both will be recalled Wednesday due to the injuries.

The Red Wings might want Hronek in the lineup because of his right-handed shot and power-play ability, which they’ll miss with Green.

“If he ends up running the power play, that’s one of the things he does very well,” Blashill said. “He’s an efficient power-play player. I had Will Butcher at World Championship, they’re somewhat similar in that they’re not super-elusive, they don’t look tons of guys off, they just make the right play at the right time, 98 percent of the time. They shoot when they’re supposed to shoot, pass when they’re supposed to pass. They’re good carrying the puck up the ice. I’d be confident in Fil’s ability to do that, no question.”

Khan continues, and the Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan also discussed the Wings’ defense…

Hicketts and Hronek’s situation could change quickly and they could return to Detroit if Ericsson and Kronwall aren’t ready to play.

“We have a lot of roster flux, we’ll figure out a roster over the next couple of days,” Blashill said. “But Thursday we’ll have figured it out. We’ll try to get the guys in there who’ll give us the best chance to win.

“We’ll see where everybody is at and who is healthy before potentially we call them back up if guys aren’t healthy. But I just don’t know that answer (who’ll be on the roster Thursday) until we get through (Wednesday’s) practice.”

One thing for sure: The Wings will have a new faces on defense.

“We’ll certainly have a number of young defensemen in the lineup on Thursday,” Blashill said.

Regarding Green, Blashill said, “He’s skating but we think it’ll be probably two more weeks before he’s really in full practices, which would leave him about two weeks after that before he’s ready to go. We’re looking at a timeline of a month before we’d have him fully available to us. That timeline is fluid, but that’s what we’re looking at right now.”

St. James posted a video regarding the same topic…

 

And if you missed ’em, the Wings posted post-practice videos of Frans Nielsen, Michael Rasmussen, Dylan Larkin and coach Jeff Blashill speaking with the media:

And meanwhile, in Grand Rapids, per the Grand Rapids Press’s Peter J. Wallner:

 

Update: Here’s more from St. James…

The defense prospects impressed in preseason. Now it looks like some of them will have the chance to follow up when the results matter.

As the Detroit Red Wings prepare for Thursday’s season opener, veteran defensemen Mike Green and Niklas Kronwall have been ruled out and Jonathan Ericsson is considered doubtful. That could mean opportunity for Filip Hronek, Joe Hicketts and Libor Sulak.

“We’ve seen all season the way they skate out of trouble,” Frans Nielsen said after Tuesday’s afternoon practice. “The way they join the rush, because they’re such good skaters. I think it is going to help us a lot offensively having strong-skating D in the lineup.”

Hronek and Hicketts were assigned to Grand Rapids before the 5 p.m. roster deadline, but given the injury situation, both are likely to be re-assigned to Detroit before the opener. Luke Witkowski was also assigned to Grand Rapids.

Based on practice, it looks like Sulak will play with Trevor Daley, Hronek with Hicketts, and Dennis Cholowski with Danny DeKeyser.  Sulak, Hronek, Hicketts and Cholowski all got lots of looks in preseason.

“The ones on the road, where we faced some real rosters — you play the game in Boston, you got lots of real forwards, you play the game in Chicago, you have almost their full forward lineup, you play in Toronto, almost their full forward lineup,” coach Jeff Blashill said. “When the young guys had the opportunity to play in those games, they can learn from that, and we got some real good evaluation and some looks.”

Continued, and here’s DetroitRedWings.com’s Dana Wakiji’s notebook:

In Tuesday’s practice, the forward lines looked a bit different from the preseason ones.

Dylan Larkin centered Anthony Mantha and Gustav Nyquist; Nielsen centered Tyler Bertuzzi and Michael Rasmussen; Andreas Athanasiou centered Thomas Vanek and Justin Abdelkader, with Martin Frk working in in Abdelkader’s spot; and Luke Glendening centered Darren Helm and rookie Christoffer Ehn.

“We haven’t tried Nyquie with Larks much,” Blashill said. “That hasn’t been a combo that in the three years Larkin has been here Nyquie has played with him much at all. Nyquie is a very good rush player and with Larks you get lots of rush opportunities. I think Nyquie arguably has been one of our best forwards, certainly one of our best wingers through training camp. He looked stronger, his competitive level is extremely high. He’s got a lot of offensive ability, so I think with Mantha, if he does a good job of going to the net, you got a net-presence guy, and line that can grind it down low and also score on the rush. We’re hoping it’s a good line. We’ll see.”

For Rasmussen, it was a little bit of a new experience with Nielsen.

“I played with Bert a little bit here and there,” Rasmussen said. “I didn’t play with Frans at all but they’re great players so it’s pretty easy being out there with Frans. It’s good.”

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George Malik

My name is George Malik, and I'm the Malik Report's editor/blogger/poster. I have been blogging about the Red Wings since 2006, and have worked with MLive and Kukla's Korner. Thank you for reading!