Month: September 2020

The Red Wings are in quite the pickle with one Frans Nielsen. The 36-year-old center is signed for 2 more years at a cap hit of $5.25 million, with his no-movement clause switching to (per CapFriendly) a modified no-trade clause this and next season.

Nielsen had a rough 2019-2020 season for the Wings, posting only 4 goals and 5 assists in 60 games, down from 35 points during the 2018-2019 season. There’s been a little bit of chatter from Denmark regarding Nielsen heading home to play for his hometown Herning Blue Fox of the Dansk Metal League, but it doesn’t appear that Nielsen wants to retire just yet.

Instead, Nielsen tells the Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan (via a subscriber-only article) that he’s dedicating himself to bouncing back from the worst season of his career:

“My mindset this summer has been one of putting it all out there,” said Nielsen, who compared the situation as if he was training as a 25-year-old again. “I haven’t been burying my head. I’ve been working. I’m pushing myself, and the body is feeling good. I’m putting the work in. Hopefully that’ll carry over into the season. I had to work even harder.”

Nielsen has been working out with Timra of the Swedish Elite League, along with Danish teams in his native Denmark, where he and his family have been living since about late April. Nielsen has been skating three times a week — rinks in Sweden and Denmark have generally remained open during the pandemic — and feels it has done him, and will continue to do him, good.

“Absolutely, because these guys I am skating with, they’re fighting for jobs and to get into the lineup, so it’s a high pace, and people are competing out there,” Nielsen said. “So I’m getting that right now. I’m back to that mindset, a little bit, of I’m 25 again. I went all in this summer. I don’t know how long I’m going to play and I’ll see where it takes me. But I’m training as hard as I can. I needed to do something and this has been a different type of summer. I knew this would be a long break, so I’m building up over a longer period of time.”

Continued (paywall); Nielsen also tells Kulfan that he believes the Wings won’t be as woefully bad as they were last season:

Continue reading Kulfan speaks with Frans Nielsen regarding rebounding from the 2019-2020 season

Of prospect-related note today, from Sweden’s SHL:

Wings prospect and Farjestad BK defenseman Albert Johansson scored a goal, added an assist and finished at +1 in 13:13 of ice time as Farjestad beat Lulea 4-2.

The Athletic’s Max Bultman found a clip of Johansson’s goal…

Continue reading Prospect round-up: Johansson scores a goal, Berggren 1+1 in SHL action

This isn’t Red Wings-related, but it’s a “good read”: one William Scott “Scotty” Bowman spoke with NHL.com’s Dave Stubbs regarding the Stanley Cup Final.

As Bowman is generally based in Sarasota, Florida, he sees most Tampa Bay Lightning home games, but he’s been at home in Buffalo since the regular season was cancelled due to the pandemic. He tells Stubbs that he expects the final to live up to its billing:

“I think we’re going to see spectacular hockey,” the legendary coach said of the series between the Tampa Bay Lightning and Dallas Stars, which starts Saturday at Rogers Place in Edmonton (7:30 p.m. ET, NBC, CBC, SN, TVAS). “We never knew what was going to happen with the pandemic, but now the end is in sight.”

Bowman, who turned 87 on Friday, might have a winner picked, but he’s not sharing it publicly out of respect for each organization. Based near Tampa during the winter, he scouts for the Chicago Blackhawks as senior adviser of hockey operations at almost every home game of the Lightning and is friendly with their front office and coaching staff and familiar with their roster.

He includes Dallas CEO Jim Lites and general manager Jim Nill, each of whom he worked with in the Detroit Red Wings organization, and Stars coach Rick Bowness among his friends.

But Bowman, who has won the Stanley Cup 14 times — a record nine as a coach with the Montreal Canadiens (1973, 1976-79), Pittsburgh Penguins (1992) and Red Wings (1997-98, 2002), then five more as an executive with the Penguins (1991), Red Wings (2008) and Blackhawks (2010, 2013, 2015) — has advice for each team.

Continued

The Red Wings own 11 picks in the upcoming 2020 draft, and Sportsnet’s Luke Fox brings up an interesting point in this morning’s “Quick Shifts“: a significant portion of marquee free agents-to-be have been traded by their rights-holding teams approximately at or around the time of the NHL draft (October 6th and 7th, 2020, ahead of free agency on October 9th).

So, should the Red Wings truly have some interest in signing Torey Krug or any other marquee free agent, would it not make sense for the team to pony up one of those draft picks in order to obtain their rights prior to the free agent period?

Fox notes that the price for acquiring UFA’s-to-be isn’t cost prohibitive:

Continue reading When free agency nears, should the Wings utilize their draft picks to snag UFA’s ‘early?’

File this one under “a timely video”: Alex Wood, a.k.a. AWood40 on YouTube, posted an 18-minute highlight clip spotlighting Filip Hronek’s 2019-2020 season:

The Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan filed a Stanley Cup Final preview on Friday evening, and as part of his article, he notes that Dallas Stars GM Jim Nill is still grateful for his time spent as the Detroit Red Wings’ assistant GM:

“Every day you came to work and learned something new,” said Nill during Stanley Cup Final Media Day on Friday, mentioning being able to work and learn from the likes of Jimmy Devellano, Ken Holland and Steve Yzerman, along with players such as Nicklas Lidstrom. “It prepared me for where I am now and I owe so much to those people. The way the Ilitch family operates their franchise, everything was first class. You respect people and we played the game the right way.

“I was very fortunate and happy to be associated with those people.”

Continued; Kulfan discusses the Wings’ ties to both the Stars and Lightning.

DetroitRedWings.com’s Dana Wakiji posted an article profiling 20-year-old Wings prospect Ryan O’Reilly, who will begin his college career with the Arizona State University Sun Devils sometime this fall. Red Wings director of player development Shawn Horcoff weighs in on O’Reilly’s outlook:

Quotable: “He’s committed to Arizona State University next year. I think he’s excited to leave junior and go do that. He’s a guy that’s a scorer. When Ryan’s playing his game, he’s putting the puck in the net and he’s using his size to get in on the forecheck and turn pucks over and be a good, physical presence, get to the hard areas, get to the front of the net. We’re excited to see. I think for him, it’s just another step in his development, going to ASU, going to a good program down there. We’re going to look forward to seeing what he can do in college.” — Shawn Horcoff, director of player development and assistant director of player personnel

Continued.

In a subscriber-only story, the Detroit News’s Mark Falkner penned a profile of Buffalo Sabres director of player development Matt Ellis, who played for the Red Wings and Grand Rapids Griffins, regarding the Wings-and-Griffins-learned lessons the AHL veteran will apply to developing Sabres prospects:

“On some teams, a lot of guys do a lot of talking but they don’t walk the walk,” Ellis said. “They get labelled as heroes because they turn it on and off when the time is right. In Detroit, the guys just did it and it wasn’t broadcast all over the place. This is what we do, our habits, our preparation. They aren’t necessarily the sexy things, the work, the sacrifice but when it’s driven internally like that, you have a really good thing going because the people who come in are either on board or they don’t last long.”

Ellis spent six years in the Red Wings’ organization, starting with a 27-goal season with the ECHL Toledo Storm and then another four straight years of improved point production with the AHL Grand Rapids Griffins.

Named the youngest captain in Griffins’ history at age 24 in 2005-06, the 6-foot, 210-pound forward went on to become captain with the Portland Pirates and Rochester Americans and registered 21 goals and 28 assists in 356 career NHL games.

“Being a leader and being counted on in Grand Rapids allowed me to grow and gave me the very, very solid foundation and great lessons to draw on to this day,” Ellis said. “The beauty of the organization was the great mentors to look up to, the great players and great staff to look to, to learn from. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Continued (paywall); this article’s about Ellis’ journey as much as anything else, and Griffins fans will tell you that Ellis is easy to root for.

Red Wings senior vice president Jimmy Devellano spoke with MLive’s Ansar Khan regarding the numerous ties between the Wings and the management of the Dallas Stars (see: GM Jim Nill, director of amateur scouting Joe McDonnell, assistant coach Todd Nelson) and Tampa Bay Lightning (see: Steve Yzerman helped build their roster; assistant GM Stacy Roest and assistant coach Derek Lalonde).

Khan illustrates said ties while discussing Nill and Yzerman’s respective managerial ascents but Devellano’s most interesting comments involve the team he still works for:

“I’m kind of proud because both teams have Red Wings-trained backgrounds,” Devellano said. “It’s nice to see.

“Now we have to figure out how to get our house in order. We’ll find a way. It’s just going to take some time. There is no easy way out of this. We need to get luckier in the draft.”

They weren’t lucky in the lottery, dropping to fourth overall despite finishing 23 points below anyone else.

“It’s unfortunate, but we got to do what we got to do,” Devellano said. “As I always say to Steve, ‘We got you at No. 4. Just find another you.’ “

Continued with Khan’s Cup Final pick…

This note from NHL.com’s John Kreiser, offering a, “This Date in NHL History” article, takes note of a significant birthday:

1933: Scotty Bowman, the most successful coach in NHL history, is born in Montreal.

After an injury ends his hopes of becoming an NHL player, Bowman turns to coaching and gets his first NHL job at age 34 in 1967 as an assistant with the expansion St. Louis Blues. He replaces Lynn Patrick as coach later that season and guides the Blues to the Stanley Cup Final in each of their first three seasons. Bowman moves to the Montreal Canadiens in 1971-72 and wins the Stanley Cup five times in eight seasons, including four in a row from 1976-79, before leaving to become coach and general manager of the Buffalo Sabres.

Bowman becomes director of player personnel for the Pittsburgh Penguins in 1990 and is inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame as a builder in 1991, but goes back behind the bench when coach Bob Johnson is diagnosed with brain cancer after leading the Penguins to the Cup in 1991. Johnson dies Nov. 26, 1991; the Penguins dedicate the season to him and Bowman guides them to a second straight Stanley Cup championship.

He takes over as coach of the Detroit Red Wings in 1993. They make the Final in 1995, win a regular season-record 62 games in 1995-96 and end a 42-year championship drought by sweeping the Philadelphia Flyers in the 1997 Cup Final. Under Bowman, the Red Wings win the Cup again in 1998 and 2002; after that, he retires with NHL records for games coached (2,141), wins in the regular season (1,244) and playoffs (223), and Stanley Cups (nine).

Bowman is part of another Cup-winning team with Detroit in 2008, as a special consultant. In July 2008 he is named a senior adviser with the Chicago Blackhawks, working with his son, GM Stan Bowman. He is part of Chicago’s championship teams in 2010, 2013 and 2015.

Happy Birthday, ?????? ‼️? pic.twitter.com/2EzeNdIjac— Detroit Red Wings (@DetroitRedWings) September 18, 2020

The man. The myth. The legend. Happy birthday Scotty Bowman! Join us as we roast and toast the man of the hour on October 14th at The Celebrity Roast of Scotty Bowman presented by @DeltaDentalMI For more info (including silent auction!) visit https://t.co/jj2XvGcmbP pic.twitter.com/zEdbrcjwjs— Jamie Daniels Foundation (@JDanielsFund) September 18, 2020

A happy 87th birthday to the one and only Scotty Bowman @coachwsb. One of my favourite people, Scotty has always been unafraid to make bold statements, like wearing these pants while coaching Montreal. pic.twitter.com/0nyW5rnKmO— Gord Miller (@GMillerTSN) September 18, 2020