Sportsnet’s Luke Fox discusses the respective contractual situations of 16 restricted free agents of note this morning, including Red Wings RFA’s Tyler Bertuzzi and Anthony Mantha.
Here’s his take on Bertuzzi’s prospects for a contract upgrade…
Continue reading Sportsnet’s Fox talks restricted free agents, including Tyler Bertuzzi and Anthony ManthaOf draft-related note this morning, per The Athletic:
Detroit Red Wings: Talent
Detroit had 23 fewer points than the second-lowest team in the league. It had a strong albeit not incredible farm system. It has some good players, like Dylan Larkin, Anthony Mantha, Filip Hronek, Filip Zadina and Moritz Seider. Even though the Red Wings have some great pieces, they need a lot more – at every position. The pressing need for this organization is good players.
Continued (paywall)…
2. And Max Bultman posted an extensive article discussing the paths by which the Red Wings might take steps forward while drafting a center, a scoring winger and a defenseman.
Here’s Bultman’s take (or part of it) regarding the Red Wings’ organizational path forward should they draft a two-way center, such as Cole Perfetti:
If Perfetti can stick at center and play at a top-line level, it would check a major box for the Red Wings, giving them another high-end pivot to pair with Dylan Larkin.
The appeal of having multiple first-line centers is obvious when looking at recent championship teams, and with Perfetti’s offensive ability and Larkin’s two-way prowess topping its depth chart, Detroit may have the makings of a real 1-2 punch.
Add in recent first-round picks Joe Veleno and Michael Rasmussen behind them, and center could be a major area of strength for the Red Wings — so much so that they could consider flexing one of those latter two to the wing, to avoid relegating one to the fourth line.
Either way, though, Detroit will still have major questions to answer at nearly every other position, with the need for at least one more top-six (but ideally first-line caliber) winger, and potentially two more top-four defensemen (including a No. 1), depending on whether someone from deeper in its existing prospect pool emerges. And, of course, it needs a goaltender of the future.
Continued (paywall)…
The message from both Pronman and Bultman is clear and is accurate–that the Red Wings still need to bring more top prospects into the fold if they are to turn the team around over the course of multiple seasons to come.
I’m sure you already understood this, but it’s interesting to read two respected writers’ takes on the situation. At this point, some three-or-so weeks ahead of the draft, the exercise of examining multiple perspectives helps each and every one of us would-be-GM’s understand the how’s and why’s of Detroit’s possible draft choices.
The Ted Lindsay Foundation held its annual golf outing to raise funds for Autism research today at the Detroit Golf Club, and the Ted Lindsay Foundation’s Twitter account noted that several participants in the golf outing took part in interviews on WJR 760 AM this morning.
I headed over to the Frank Beckmann Show interview page, and therein you can find MP3’s of interviews with Darren McCarty, Mickey Redmond, former NHLPA executive director Bob Goodenow, and a combined clip in which Ken Daniels, Dylan Larkin and coach Jeff Blashill all speak with Beckmann.
The interviews represent approximately 34 minutes of audio content during a time in which we’ve barely heard from any members of the Red Wings’ organization, their broadcaster or alumni over the last six months, so give them a listen if you’re interested in their comments…
Alex Wood, a.k.a. AWood40 on YouTube, posted a 30-minute highlight clip from Tyler Bertuzzi’s consequential 2019-2020 season with the Detroit Red Wings on his YouTube channel:
The Jamie Daniels Foundation posted a Tweet today, as noted by the Detroit Red Wings’ Twitter account…
The Jamie Daniels Foundation Celebrity Roast of Scotty Bowman presented by @DeltaDentalMI is sure to be an evening full of laughs and entertainment. Tune in for star-studded appearances from your favorite professional athletes, celebrities, and comedians. https://t.co/p7y5STjOkn pic.twitter.com/73KbgnBPFt
— Jamie Daniels Foundation (@JDanielsFund) September 14, 2020
And the Tweet leads fans to the Jamie Daniels Foundation’s information page for the Celebrity Roast of Scotty Bowman, which will air on Fox Sports Detroit and will stream online Wednesday, October 14th at 8 PM EDT:
NHL Deutsch’s Stefan Herget spoke with Red Wings prospect Moritz Seider regarding his status as Seider skates with Adler Mannheim of the DEL, preparing for a November 1st opening of the German professional league’s ice hockey season. What follows is fairly faithfully translated from German:
Continue reading Roughly translated: Moritz Seider speaks with NHL.com/de regarding his summer and fall practicing with Adler MannheimSeider works hard in Mannheim for his NHL dream
The Detroit Red Wings junior player was officially loaned to the Eagles by his team
Due to the later start of the 2020-21 NHL season, NHL teams have loaned out some of their European players under contract, specifically younger players, to teams in Europe, in order to provide them with games and practices at earlier stages. In this weekly series, NHL.com/de will report on each of these players as they bridge their time before the start of the upcoming NHL season. Today’s subject is Moritz Seider.
I’m not keen on posting every rumor linking the Red Wings to Boston Bruins defenseman and unrestricted free agent-to-be Torey Krug. However, the Boston Globe’s Matt Porter did a good job of theorizing Krug’s “fits” with several teams around the league (via Kukla’s Korner), assuming that he should leave Boston via free agency or trade. I feel this little game of how-Krug-would-fit-here was interesting enough to post.
The Bruins will be a lesser team without Krug’s puck-moving ability, no question. It’s fair to wonder if he will be less effective without Brandon Carlo and Charlie McAvoy as his right-side partners. It’s also fair to wonder if Krug, whose capability as a defender is limited by his size and lack of high-end speed, is worth building a defense around. But some team with cap space will be obliged.
The most obvious fit is Detroit, which could easily sell fans on his playoff experience, production, and local roots. Krug could be the leader the Red Wings desire, replace Filip Hronek as the power-play quarterback, and bring along 19-year-old prospect Moritz Seider, whose game is similar to Carlo’s. Krug played for Wings coach Jeff Blashill in juniors, and grew up a fan of Steve Yzerman, Detroit’s GM.
Porter continues, listing Montreal, New Jersey, Buffalo, Ottawa, Los Angeles and Calgary (perhaps via a trade) as all potential landing spots for Krug.
Again, I don’t see him inking a long-term contract with a rebuilding Red Wings team–Krug has made it clear that he wants to pursue both a payday and a championship window–but stranger things have happened.
Hockeysverige.se’s Ronnie Ronnqvist has a new book coming out soon, and, as part of his “tease” for Old School Hockey 4, he shares part of an interview with Angelholm, Sweden’s most famous resident, one Henrik Zetterberg. What follows is a rough translation of Zetterberg’s comments per Ronnqvist’s Hockeysverige.se piece:
Continue reading Roughly translated: Henrik Zetterberg weighs in on the Red Wings’ struggles“The awful thing about the NHL is that you have to be really bad to be good [again].”
A few years ago, they were one of the NHL’s heavyweights. Now Detroit is the worst team in the league. Henrik Zetterberg tells hockeysverige.se about the difficult years, and why he believes that Detroit has a bright future ahead of it.
“They must hit in the draft and I think the last two seasons, they’ve drafted well. But it will, as I said, take time,” says the legend.
Preseason hockey lasts a somewhere between two weeks and a month in European leagues, so the respective leagues spice things up by awarding trophies and bonuses to players over the course of preseason tournaments.
Today, Filip Zadina had an assist as Ocelari Trinec rallied for a 3-3 tie with Dynamo Pardubice, winning the Generali Ceska Cup (on points), its trophy, medals, and an 800,000 Czech Koruna ($35,653.00, per Hokej.cz) bonus.
Zadina was pretty excited about the result, and he shared his enthusiasm on social media:
Continue reading Filip Zadina shares his excitement after Ocelari Trinec wins the ‘Generali Ceska Cup’The Free Press’s Helene St. James reviews the Detroit Red Wings’ last ten draft years, which span the end of the Jim Nill era and the Tyler Wright era of scouting.
You already know that the Wings did a shitty job of developing the next generation of Red Wings defensemen for a post-Lidstrom world (see: Brendan Smith, Ryan Sproul, Alexey Marchenko, Xavier Ouellet and Nick Jensen), though the Wings have rebounded fairly well over the last four years’ worth of blueline drafting; they haven’t found a starting goaltender, either, so both Nill’s late-career picks and some of Wright’s selections (especially when the Wings started to empahsize “size and strength” over potential) have been…spotty…
And as such, St. James makes the following declaration regarding the Wings’ 2020 first round pick:
In less than a month general manager Steve Yzerman is tasked with making a choice that hopefully moves the needle on the Detroit Red Wings’ rebuild.
He holds the fourth overall pick in the 2020 draft, as the Wings were bruised as much as possible by the lottery after finishing in 31st place. They were the only team not to reach 20 victories and lagged 30th-place Ottawa by 23 points.
A good player will be available: possible choices include defenseman Jamie Drysdale, and forwards Cole Perfetti, Marco Rossi, Lucas Raymond and Alexander Holtz. The Wings are in desperate need of a player who dominates and makes those around him better.
When they were competitive, the Wings at times used their first-round picks to acquire players who could help them continue their success. As they’ve declined over the past decade, there was a shift in approach. Now some of their recent first-rounders are the ones counted on as rebuilding blocks — and some are looking like busts.
St. James continues at length; as you probably know by now, I’m more bullish on the Wings’ prospects than most, biases included…
But I will readily admit that they have more players that need another year or two of development (see: Dennis Cholowski, Michael Rasmussen, Joe Veleno), if not more (see: every Wings goaltending prospect) than anything else at this point.
There are some players who are worth high hopes, like Filip Zadina, Moritz Seider, Filip Hronek, and the Big 3 up front (Larkin/Mantha/Bertuzzi), but the Wings are very much so a team in progress.
I’m very worried that the team’s inability to hold a summer development camp and/or fall prospect tournament will hurt the development of young players who would have benefited from two-to-three weeks working directly with the team’s development staff. By this time of the non-pandemic year, the Wings’ top prospects would be enacting the summertime recommendations of the Wings’ training staff and skill development coaches, skating among their peers during a fantastically competitive prospect tournament, and instead, they’re in the middle of what will be a ten-month break from hockey for a good chunk of the Wings’ most important prospects.
Shit happens in a pandemic world, and, as GM Steve Yzerman has suggested, we’ll see whether some of the Wings’ prospects have taken advantage of the opportunities that extended time training and working on their skills have been thrust upon them…sometime in December or January.
