Month: August 2019

The Athletic’s Dom Luszczyszyn discussed fans’ confidence in each and every one of the NHL’s 31 teams’ front offices yesterday, and here’s what he had to say after surveying the 18th-place Red Wings fans’ takes:

While both the public and Wings fans have grown much more confident in the Red Wings’s front office since the team brought in Steve Yzerman as the new GM, they differ in just how confident.

The fan base is rightfully excited for the man in charge, especially given his on-ice history to go with his off-ice prowess heading one of the league’s best run teams, but the public is much more hesitant, recalling the failures of the team’s past. Can one man really change everything?

Yzerman’s tenure has been short, so it’s difficult to judge his efforts so far, but some initial moves have been suspect like signing Valtteri Filppula, a replacement-level center, to a two-year deal and going off the board at the draft taking defender Moritz Seider at sixth overall. As the commenter above noted, both are moves that would’ve been condemned if Holland’s name was attached instead.

The Red Wings are not an easy fix with the team’s abundance of cap issues and lack of a competent roster. There are plenty of holes to fill and Yzerman will be granted plenty of leeway to fill them in Detroit. We’ll see if he can build here what he was able to build in Detroit.

Continued; I wasn’t overwhelmed with warm, fuzzy feelings regarding the Wings’ signings of Filppula, Patrik Nemeth or Calvin Pickard as free agents, but I was pleasantly surprised by Yzerman’s decision to pick Seider where he did, and I do know this–Yzerman doesn’t give a flying flurk what fans or media think about his moves, and that’s a good thing.

DetroitRedWings.com’s Dana Wakiji discusses the “draft year” seasons of forwards Albin Grewe and Elmer Soderblom this morning. Wakiji examines both players’ 2018-2019 season stats, and she hearkens back to Hakan Andersson’s post-draft comments regarding both players:

Quotable III: “Albin Grewe is a very outstanding competitor. I can see how he pictures himself after Brad Marchand. He’s very competitive. Out of the Europeans, probably the most competitive player in the whole draft. And in many years, I would say. One interesting story with him. The senior coach in Djurgårdens, they are a top team in the senior league, one of the better ones. He said, ‘I didn’t realize it until I started to look around but every time this kid came up and practiced with the men’s team, the whole intensity of the practice, the physical part of the practice, would go up.’ At first, he didn’t know why. Then he realized every time this kid came up, he just brought the whole pace up.” — Hakan Andersson, Red Wings director of European scouting

Wakiji continues…

MLive’s Ansar Khan continues his Red Wings player profiles with a discussion of Mike Green’s injury-plagued 2018-19 season and his 2019-2020 season outlook. Khan suggests that Green will be healthy enough to play regularly, and I’m not sure whether that’s going to be the case:

2019-20 outlook: Green is expected to be healthy and ready to go in training camp after an injury-riddled, illness-plagued stretch during which he also missed the final nine games of 2017-18 due to a neck injury.

If healthy, he’ll be one of the team’s few scoring threats from the blue line, man the point on one of the power-play units and be among the club’s leaders in ice time. He is likely to be paired with either Danny DeKeyser or newly acquired Patrik Nemeth (and Filip Hronek paired with the other), giving the team righty-lefty, offensive-minded/defensive-minded combinations with its top two pairs.

If the Red Wings are out of the playoff picture in late February, they’ll look to trade Green for a draft pick, assuming he’s healthy. He has a limited no-trade clause (can veto a move to 10 teams).

Continued, and at this point, I’m still crossing my fingers that Green will be fully recovered from the virus that sapped his strength last year.

Red Wings alumnus Darren McCarty spent his Tuesday at the Lions’ training camp in Allen Park, MI, and Red Wings TV chronicled McCarty’s day:

The Free Press’s Joe Seidel and Eric Seals report some disturbing details regarding former Red Wings #1 overall pick Joe Murphy, who is homeless again in the Northwestern Ontario city of Kenora:

Dozens of people have tried to get Murphy off the streets of this small tourist town the past two years, including the NHL Alumni Association, members of the local police department, former teammates, his lawyer and an entire team of mental health experts and social workers. He refuses almost all of it.

Murphy stayed in an extended-stay motel paid by the NHL Alumni Association for several months last winter but moved out, although he can’t offer a coherent reason. He spent time at a hospital in Thunder Bay, Ontario, on the banks of Lake Superior, for a court-ordered mental-health evaluation. But he’s back in Kenora. He slept in a tent but he says it ripped. And now, he is back sleeping on benches, in doorways, inside a tunnel and under a gas station sign at the edge of this town of about 15,000, about 340 miles north of Minneapolis.

Continued, and the Free Press also posted a video of Murphy’s struggles:

DetroitRedWings.com’s Dana Wakiji spoke with Red Wings director of player development Shawn Horcoff regarding the progress made by the Red Wings’ prospects who participated in the World Junior Summer Showcase in Plymouth last week:

Joe Veleno, the Wings’ first-round pick, 30th overall in the 2018 NHL Entry Draft, had remained in metro Detroit after development camp to train with some of the other prospects, so he did not have far to go.

Veleno, 19, played for Team Canada, recording two goals and an assist in just two games.

“Joe played great,” Horcoff said. “I think he only played two games. He played the first one, sat out the next two, played in the last one, scored in both games. He played a little bit of center, a little bit of wing in both, which I like. I like his versatility, he’s starting to be able to learn to do that. We’d love for him to learn all those positions and turn into a guy that you could play anywhere in the lineup, up and down, both center and both wings, even though we view him as a center. It never hurts to learn to play every position.

“He looked good. He came into Detroit, stayed after development camp, knows that there’s some work to be done there in terms of physical conditioning and strength and explosiveness but he’s putting the work in and we’re looking forward to see how he looks in prospect tournament.”

Continued

MLive’s Ansar Khan continues his series of player profiles this morning, examining Michael Rasmussen’s 2018-2019 campaign before issuing a 2019-2020 season outlook:

2019-20 outlook: The Red Wings decided after the preseason that Rasmussen wouldn’t gain much from returning for his final junior season at Tri-City (WHL), so they kept him in Detroit. He was not eligible to play in the AHL, but he will be this season, so Rasmussen will be competing for a roster spot in training camp and the preseason.

He needs to convince the front office/coaching staff that he can be a fairly consistent scoring threat. The best way to do that is to utilize his big frame as a net presence, particularly on the power play.

Skating will never be Rasmussen’s strength, but he must move his feet to find space near the net and use his hands to score in tight spaces.

Rasmussen needs to play regularly on one of the top three lines to stay in Detroit. He’ll be competing with other young, waiver-exempt forwards like Taro Hirose, Filip Zadina and Ryan Kuffner. Chances are, no more than two will start the season in Detroit, barring injuries to others.

Continued, and at this point in his career, I believe that Rasmussen would benefit from some AHL games.

Via Kukla’s Korner: In a TSN video, Carlo Colaiacovo took part in Thursday’s Power Edge Pro camp while speaking with Warren Foegele, Vince Dunn, Andy Andreoff and somebody named Dylan Larkin (at the 25-second mark and 1:30 mark), Connor Brown and Evan Bouchard, among others, between drills.

Colaiacovo and Larkin talk about Ken Holland, Colaiacovo alludes to Larkin inheriting the captaincy, and they talk about Little Caesars Arena, veteran leadership, Larkin hitting 40 goals and giving the fans something to watch.

The Athletic’s Max Bultman offers a “question to consider” for each and every one of the Red Wings’ players expected to make the 2019-2020 season roster:

Dylan Larkin: Can he repeat the production … but rein in the penalties?

Of all the question marks on the Red Wings roster, Larkin’s not one of them. He’s the unquestioned best player on the team, a two-way center who led the team in points while playing against other teams’ top lines. And considering the steps he’s taken in each of the last two seasons, plus how much he’s on the ice (he played the ninth-most minutes per game in the league last season among forwards), the first part of this question should be simple enough for him.

The real curiosity, then, is whether Larkin can do so while cutting back on his 75 penalty minutes from a year ago. That number placed him with the 20th-most penalty minutes among all forwards last year, more than Vegas enforcer Ryan Reaves. Some of that is probably due to Larkin’s general playing style — he certainly hustles back on defense but can occasionally get overly aggressive when stick-checking, for example — but there’s still there’s room to shave, say, 15-20 of those minutes off next season. That may not seem like a ton over an 82-game season, but this is a Red Wings team that needs every edge it can get. And it’s not just about keeping opponents off the power play; Larkin’s speed can make him a weapon on the penalty kill, but not if he’s the one in the box.

Continued (paywall)

From the Detroit Red Wings:

Detroit Red Wings, Labatt Blue commit to renovate Clark Park Hockey Rink

In conjunction with the Detroit Red Wings’ Hockeytown Cares platform, the Red Wings, in partnership with Labatt Blue, will invest $15,000 and 300 volunteer hours to renovate Clark Park hockey rink in Southwest Detroit on Friday, August 9.

DETROIT – In conjunction with the Detroit Red Wings’ Hockeytown Cares platform, the Red Wings, in partnership with Labatt Blue, will invest $15,000 and 300 volunteer hours to renovate Clark Park hockey rink in Southwest Detroit on Friday, August 9. Volunteers from both organizations, along with Labatt Blue Distributor Partner, Fabiano Brothers Inc., will spend the day painting, landscaping and rebuilding the rental skate area.

Continue reading Red Wings and Labatt Blue to help renovate Clark Park