Month: August 2020

Red Wings forward Darren Helm is teaming up with Humble Design, a non-profit agency that helps people exiting domestic violence shelters and homeless shelters furnish their places of residence, to hold a “Virtual 5K” to raise funds for the organization. Here’s a press release regarding Helm’s involvement with the charity…

Local Red Wings Player Darren Helm and his family want to share their support for a local nonprofit, Humble Design.

Several years ago the Detroit Red Wings and the Lady Wings, teamed up to completely furnish the home of the Finleys, who had been staying in a homeless shelter until they could transition to permanent housing. After learning that the Finleys had nothing but an air mattress, a few camp chairs, and not much else, they volunteered to work for a day putting together all the things the Humble Design team had curated from their warehouse.

It was an unforgettable experience for Darren and his wife, Devon. When they heard that Humble Design was hosting a Virtual 5K August 31-September 7, they wanted to help. Darren told us, “It’s important to me, my wife, and our kids that we do what we can during this time.”

The press release continues, and Humble Design‘s YouTube channel posted a short video in which Helm’s family promotes the Virtual 5K:

The Red Wings lost an assistant coach to the United States National Team Development Program this past week as Adam Nightingale headed to Plymouth to coach the U.S. Under-17 team. WXYZ’s Brad Galli posted a video report on Nightingale and Adam Muse’s hiring as the U-17 and Under-18 teams’ head coaches, respectively:

The Athletic posts its daily crop of articles around 7 AM each morning, so I’m probably going to post whatever they discuss regarding the Red Wings in a single post most mornings. I don’t want to lean on their paywalls too heavily, and I simply feel that posting separate entries for multiple articles is a little…Spammy.

So:

1. This morning, Red Wings beat writer Max Bultman examines the possible “fits” of this year’s unrestricted free agents on defense (click for CapFriendly’s list of UFA defensemen), including Livonia native Torey Krug, who’s been linked to the Red Wings by every Red Wings fan and every Red Wings pundit as a possible Hometown Hero:

Continue reading The Athletic morning round-up: Bultman discusses Wings’ UFA options on defense; DGB plays roster Sudoku

My Waffle House Hot Takes regarding the 2020 NHL Draft involve: (1) lot of complaining about the draft lottery being stupid (I don’t believe that the NHL should reward mediocre teams with a 50% chance of earning a top 3 draft pick at the expense of teams that really need help); and (2) the belief that the Red Wings should use their 4th overall pick to snag the player with the highest developmental ceiling, regardless of whom that player might be.

If I were to “show my hand,” I’d suggest that the Wings take Erie Otters defenseman Jamie Drysdale on October 9th and run for the hills, but one never knows what GM Steve Yzerman or director of amateur scouting Kris Draper are thinking.

That being said, there’s been a lot of buzz about the Wings snagging Ottawa 67’s center Marco Rossi, Frolunda Indians winger Lucas Raymond, and, more and more regularly, the Wings are tied to Saginaw Spirit forward Cole Perfetti over Drysdale thanks to the “local ties” (see: Draper and company have probably seen a lot of Perfetti as he’s in the Wings’ backyard, and both Chris Osgood and Jimmy Devellano have ownership stakes in the Spirit) and the Wings’ build-up-the-middle philosophy.

Chris Peters posted a mock draft for ESPN+ this morning, and he’s on the Perfetti train:

Continue reading ESPN’s Peters suggests that Wings should go for the Perfetti fit in the 2020 draft

The Detroit Red Wings’ salary cap situation looks pretty good heading into the 2020-2021 season. Per CapFriendly and PuckPedia, the Wings have somewhere between $32 and $34 million in cap space (under what will be a $81.5 million “flat cap” for the next two seasons) after having re-signed Robby Fabbri to a 2-year, $5.9 million contract.

The Wings have two more big priorities on the restricted free agent market: Tyler Bertuzzi will be looking for a big raise over his $1.4 million salary this past season thanks to a 21-goal, 48-point 2019-2020 campaign, and Anthony Mantha posted 38 points in a 43-game, injury-abbreviated season, so he’ll be looking for more than his $3.3 million salary this past season as well.

In terms of the team’s unrestricted free agents:

Continue reading Restricted free agent questions for the Wings: to qualify or not qualify?

The blog is back, up and running again, and there’s good news on the fundraising front: Day 1 of TMR, Take 3 produced $244 in funding, or just over half the $426 I need to cover the bills for this year’s Bluehost server bill, Jetpack’s web bill and Dlvr.it’s Twitter service.

I still need help, however, so if you can lend a hand, please head over to https://paypal.me/TheMalikReport or Giftly.com (using my email address, rtxg@yahoo.com). I’ll also utilize other fundraising sources if that would make your part of the process easier and simpler.

Thank you for your time and your readership.

The Detroit News and Detroit Free Press have installed paywalls, offering would-be subscribers a $3-a-month rate for the first three months of a subscription that increases to $9.99 per month.

For the past two weeks, the News has posted lengthy hockey articles. Last week, Mark Falkner profiled agent Dan Milstein, and, this week, Red Wings beat writer Ted Kulfan engages in a lengthy Q and A session with Columbus Blue Jackets goaltending coach (and former Red Wing) Manny Legace.

Legace accompanied the Blue Jackets into the Toronto “Bubble” for round robin and playoff play, and he spoke with Kulfan regarding his experiences in Toronto:

“I wish I was still there,” said Legace, alluding to his team being eliminated.

“I’m glad I was a part of it. It was actually really, really cool, because how often do you see eight teams walking around a hotel, a hotel that’s closed down for just NHL teams, and your meeting rooms are right across the hall from the New York Rangers, and you have the Carolina Hurricanes and Toronto (Maple Leafs) downstairs. It was just real cool. It was amazing.”

For Legace, a hockey lifer who enjoys and appreciates every facet of the game, the entire bubble experience brought Legace back to when he was a youngster playing hockey.

“It reminded me of back when I was a kid,” Legace said. “Every hallway was set up with pingpong tables, so the guys are out in the hallways hanging out — you couldn’t go into anyone’s room — they’re hanging out and playing games in the hallways.

“It was a like big tournament, like the Quebec pee-wee tournament. You stay in the hotel, with everybody in the hallways, and it was just amazing to experience.

“The NHL has really done a great job with this.”

Kulfan continues (paywall)…

If you missed it, the Red Wings lost their [edit: one-time video and then assistant coach /end edit] on Friday, as Adam Nightingale was named a co-head-coach of the United States National Team Development Program (NTDP) in Plymouth. USA Hockey posted a press release regarding their hires:

Dan Muse (Canton, Mass.) and Adam Nightingale (Cheyboygan, Mich.) have been named the 14th and 15th head coaches in USA Hockey National Team Development Program history, it was announced today by USA Hockey. 

Muse brings 15 years of coaching experience to the NTDP and was an assistant coach for the Nashville Predators for the past three seasons. Nightingale has spent the last three years with the Detroit Red Wings, serving most recently as an assistant coach for the 2019-20 campaign. 

“We are very excited to bring in two coaches of this caliber,” said Scott Monaghan, senior director of operations for the NTDP. “Both Dan and Adam have great experience and success as head coaches working with the developmental age levels and have progressed to working at the highest level on NHL benches. We are fortunate to have these two leading the development of our young men at the NTDP.” 

The press release continues, highlighting Muse and Nightingale’s respective career achievements. USA Hockey also posted a 30-minute Zoom call in which Muse, Nightingale, and new USA Hockey goaltending coach David Lassonde introduced themselves to the media:

Yesterday, the Red Wings made their fifth loan of a player and/or prospect to a European team, with Filip Hronek being officially loaned to Mountfield Hradec Kralove of the Czech Extraliga.

Hronek joins Moritz Seider (Adler Mannheim, DEL), Filip Zadina (Ocelari Trinec, Czech Extraliga), Gustav Lindstrom (Almtuna IS, Swedish Allsvenskan) and Mattias Brome (Orebro, Swedish Hockey League) as the Wings’ players likely to play European hockey games before the Red Wings theoretically open camp in mid-November (Coronavirus recovery strategy willing).

MLive’s Ansar Khan, the Free Press’s Helene St. James and the Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan discussed the player loans on Friday, and I wanted to address some aspects of the Wings’ decision to allow said players to play in Europe.

Continue reading Talking about the Wings’ European-loaned players

The last two times, it was easier to come back.

In 2018, mom got very sick, but she got better, and when she recovered, I returned from a blogging hiatus.

In 2019, mom got really sick, but she eventually got better, and when she recovered, I returned from a blogging hiatus.

Last summer, after mom got better, I covered the draft, I went to the summer development camp, I went on vacation, came back, and went to the prospect tournament and main training camp.

I came back, and mom got very sick again, and I let you know that I would be off for a bit, again.

My mom didn’t get better. Five days after I returned home from training camp, she died.

I didn’t come back.

Continue reading As the blog’s bill comes due, I still want to believe