Month: July 2019

Today, Elite Prospects’ Christoffer Hedlund profiles Red Wings prospect and 2019 draft pick Albin Grewe, going in-depth and using video to highlight Grewe’s strengths:

The aspects of Grewe’s game that really jump off of the screen are his aggression, high-end competitiveness, and strength. He’s a fierce competitor that brings a lot of energy to his team, bringing a full effort on every shift — Grewe will run himself through a wall (or an opponent, preferably) without thinking twice.

Grewe’s nose is always dirty, and he wouldn’t have it any other way. When the game gets tough, Grewe gets tougher. He doesn’t hesitate to use his body to block a shot or take a hit if it helps his team out. When play is headed in the wrong direction, Grewe is a determined back-checker. He fights hard along the boards in his own zone and puts in a lot of effort when he is looking to win the puck back for his team.

Grewe’s competitiveness is not limited to his own zone; he is a hard worker around the opposing net and along the boards in the offensive zone as well. He can throw big hits to punish his opponents or to open up space for his teammates. Even when he has the puck himself; he can be the one to initiate the contact for a hit. He is not shy in his physical game and almost instantly presented himself with a big hit when he got the chance to play in the SHL.

Continued

Per Edmonton Oilers radio analyst Bob Stauffer:

The @EdmontonOilers officially name Tyler Wright Director of Amateur Scouting and Archie Henderson Director of Pro Scouting— Bob Stauffer (@Bob_Stauffer) July 12, 2019

Here’s part of the Oilers’ press release:

Continue reading Tyler Wright named Oilers’ director of amateur scouting

Here’s an FYI from Centre Ice Arena’s “Detroit Red Wings Events in Traverse City” Facebook page:

Or, in text form:

Prepare to order your tickets for Detroit Red Wings Training Camp and NHL Prospect Tournament on TUESDAY, JULY 16 starting at 10 am. Online ticket sales only – no calls, no walk-ins during the first two days of ticket sales. When the order site goes live, you’ll have the chance to fill in your ticket preferences. We number all incoming orders and fill them first come, first served and try to fill requests as best we can. Here’s the link for details and to order tickets: https://www.centreice.org/drwtickets.

Grand Rapids Griffins forward Wade Megan hails from upstate New York, and North Country Now reports that Megan and several of his colleagues are holding a hockey camp for kids from July 29 to August 9th in Canton, New York:

Canton natives Wade Megan, Kyle Flanagan and Mark Phalon are preparing once again to bring their advanced hockey knowledge to the young players of the North Country at NoCo Hockey Camp at SUNY Canton beginning July 29.

They each bring knowledge of the game from the professional ranks to share with youth players at the camp. Megan spent 11 games this past season in the National Hockey League with the Detroit Red Wings, while also recording 48 games with Detroit’s American Hockey League affiliate, Grand Rapids.

…

Megan was recently a guest on the Blue Line Hockey Club, a hockey podcast run by local hockey buffs Pat Sullivan, Derek Hetu, Marc Morley and Rob Peters.

“We have just tried to step it up every year. We try to get better and better,” Megan said on the podcast. “This year is going to be a huge step forward. We really put a lot of time into the practice plan and we really just try to teach some of those skills that maybe you don’t get a chance to work on all the time throughout the season and throughout regular practice time.”

Continued

Not good news here: Red Wings prospect defenseman Alec Regula (knee injury) is going to miss the World Junior Summer Showcase in Plymouth at the end of this month, per a press release from USA Hockey:

Continue reading Alec Regula will not take part in the World Junior Summer Showcase due to injury

DetroitRedWings.com’s Dana Wakiji examines Red Wings prospect Jesper Eliasson’s 2018-19 campaign “By the Numbers” this morning. Wakiji discusses Eliasson’s 2018-19 campaign, and Red Wings goaltending coach Brian Mahoney-Wilson also weighs in on Eliasson’s progress:

Quotable: “He’s going to be contending for the world junior team this year in the Czech (Republic) for Team Sweden. His development has drastically improved. I think it was a shock to him that he was drafted in the third round last year. It exceeded his expectations. But we thought highly of him and we set up a plan for him last year that he would improve specifically his lateral mobility and his secondary movement after rebounds and he did so. That’s very, very noticeable. Like most Swedish goalies, he’s structured but the one element that he has that separates him from his counterparts in Sweden is his ability to react and live those situations, react a little bit cleaner rather than have a little bit of a technical structure you can’t break. That’s one thing that Jesper is very, very good at is again, like Filip [Larsson], he has great hockey IQ and awareness, great reads, it’s just a matter of improving body control and that’s going to come over time, just like anything.

Continued

NHL.com’s spending July checking in with all 31 teams as they stand after the NHL Draft in Vancouver, and this morning, Nicholas J. Cotsonika examines the state of the Red Wings. Cotsonika assesses the Wings’ additions, subtractions, and possible training camp jobs to be won by rookies, but his bottom line is blunt:

What they still need

Difference-makers. Now that Yzerman is back in Detroit as the GM, he needs to find the next … well, Yzerman. The Red Wings kept their window open for so long because they replaced Yzerman and Sergei Fedorov with Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg at center while they still had defenseman Nicklas Lidstrom, and they built around them. They have to draft and develop the next generation of stars.

Cotsonika continues, and this is a really good snapshot of where the Wings stand today–as a team that is in the process of getting better.

If you missed it, the Red Wings announced the details of their 2019 prospect tournament and main training camp in Traverse City this week, and the Traverse City Record-Eagle’s staff takes note of some of the details you might have skimmed over:

The eight-team Prospect event includes the Red Wings, as well as the Chicago Blackhawks, Columbus Blue Jackets, Dallas Stars, Minnesota Wild, New York Rangers, St. Louis Blues and Toronto Maple Leafs. Columbus won the tournament last year.

Over the tournament’s history, over 600 players have moved on to play in the NHL, including 23 of the 38 players who played for the Red Wings in 2018-19.

The tournament will be divided into two four-team divisions, and teams will play each team in their division in a round-robin format before a crossover on the final day of the tournament. The first-place finishers in each division will meet for the Matthew Wuest Memorial Cup on Sept. 10.

Continue reading A little bit of repetition regarding prospect tournament/training camp details

I’m a little hesitant to write the final word regarding the drafting record of Tyler Wright and his amateur scouting staff, which was in charge of the Detroit Red Wings’ drafting between 2014 and 2019, as the players from many of Wright’s drafts are still developing, but The Athletic’s Max Bultman gave it an educated stab, and his article is superb:

In hindsight, the final public comments of Tyler Wright’s tenure as the Detroit Red Wings’ amateur scouting director were fitting.

With the 2019 draft over and Wright speaking along the back wall of the draft floor in Vancouver, he was asked about the team’s development camp that would begin in a matter of days. He spoke about its value for the team’s new draftees in terms of learning and testing, but he eventually ended on a thought that sums up both the draft process and what comes next.

“You’ve gotta be able to draft right,” he said, “you’ve gotta be able to develop (and) you’ve gotta sit there and cross your fingers and hope the players turn out.”

Wright’s job, of course, was the first step. Drafting is the lifeblood of a healthy NHL organization, and for the last six years, he has overseen it for the Red Wings. When Wright selected Michael Rasmussen ninth overall in 2017, it was Detroit’s first top-10 pick since 1991. Then the Red Wings picked sixth overall each of the last two years.

Continued (paywall), and if you want me to weigh in with a way-premature assessment of the Wright administration’s work, please let me know.

Pursuant to the news that the Red Wings have let their chief of amateur scouting, two pro scouts and two amateur scouts go, with Tyler Wright leaving for the Edmonton Oilers (all thanks to hard work from the Winged Wheel Podcast’s Ryan Hana):

The Detroit News posted a staff report in which former Red Wings chief amateur scout Jeff Finley confirmed that he, Wright and amateur scout Andrew Dickson’s contracts were not renewed by the team:

“Our contracts were not renewed,” said Finley, who scouted for 10 years with the Wings. “Steve (Yzerman) said basically they had different plans. It’s the nature of the business, putting your own people in place. We’ve had a few high draft picks lately in Detroit and we feel we’ve made good picks.”

Finley, a former NHL defenseman whose three-year contract with the Wings expired this year, said he’s already had job discussions with a few other NHL teams and is “looking forward to other opportunities.”

Finley said Wright and former Detroit pro scout Archie Henderson were hired on Thursday by former Wings GM Ken Holland in Edmonton.

Finley also said amateur scout Andrew Dickson was let go by the Wings.

Update: According to the Edmonton Journal’s Jim Matheson, Jeff Finley is in talks with the St. Louis Blues, where he may become the director of amateur scouting.