Month: September 2020

Off-topic: vote!

Fifteen hockey-related posts today. That’s not bad by “re-starting a blog” standards, so:

Detroit’s pro sports teams, including the Red Wings, posted Tweets promoting voter participation in the upcoming election earlier today, and I’m gonna “RT in blog form” here.

Regardless of what party, parties or candidates you support, do not support, or despise, I believe that voting is absolutely essential in our representative republic. In my opinion, it’s a civic duty and the responsibility of every citizen–at least if you want to complain about the schmucks we’ve elected–and I want you and every person who is eligible to vote to do so in November’s election.

From the Presidential election down to your county drain commissioner, your vote matters in determining who works for you in governance, so if you are not registered to vote yet, please get out there and get ‘er done. It’s easy in Michigan and you can vote in a variety of ways:

Summarizing the Red Wings website’s recent content offerings

The Red Wings’ website and Twitter account have posted several articles and/or Tweets of note lately, and here’s a roundup thereof:

  1. The Wings posted a “Throwback Thursday” set of highlights from the Winter Classic’s Alumni game at Comerica Park:

2. The Word on Woodward included a 2:25 profile of Cole Perfetti and Marco Rossi today:

3. DetroitRedWings.com’s Dana Wakiji profiled Jake Sanderson…

Continue reading Summarizing the Red Wings website’s recent content offerings

Via A2Y: Matheson ponders whether the Wings might take Askarov at #4

Via Paul Kukla at Abel to Yzerman comes this Tweet from the Edmonton Journal’s Jim Matheson:

Nothing that Yzerman will do in a week-and-a-half will surprise me, but taking Yaroslav Askarov at #4 would be a little off the beaten path.

Prospect round-up: Brome registers assist for Orebro

Of Red Wings-related note in Europe:

In the SHL, Albert Johansson finished “even” in 15:46 of ice time as Farjestads BK won 3-2 over Vaxjo in a shootout;

And Matias Brome had an assist, won 33% of his faceoffs and took 1 shot in 17:04 of ice time as Orebro HK won 5-4 over HV71. This highlight comes via Red Wings Prospects on Twitter:

The NHL’s announced ‘protocols for offseason training’

Per the NHL:

NHL announces protocols for offseason training

Start dates for training camp, 2020-21 regular season not set

NEW YORK — The National Hockey League announced today the Protocol for Off-Season Training ahead of the 2020-21 season, which is effective for each Club at the conclusion of the 2020 Stanley Cup Final. Start dates for both Training Camp and the 2020-21 regular season have not yet been set.

The health and safety of all Players and Club personnel continue to be of top priority, and will dictate how the Protocol for Off-Season Training, and any progression thereafter, may evolve.

The Protocol, which is similar to the Phase 2 Protocol from the 2019-20 Return to Play plan, was agreed to by the NHL and National Hockey League Players’ Association. It was also developed with the input of both the NHL and the NHLPA’s respective medical, epidemiology and infectious disease experts as well as Club medical personnel.

As outlined in the attached Protocol for Off-Season Training, each Club can open its training facility in the Club’s home city or allow gatherings of small groups of Players to engage in individualized training activities on a volunteer basis.

Toledo Walleye re-sign TJ Hensick

The Toledo Blade’s Mark Monroe reports that the Toledo Walleye have re-signed last year’s team captain, one TJ Hensick:

The end of the 2019-20 ECHL season was supposed to be the cherry on top of a tremendous 13-year career for Toledo Walleye forward T.J. Hensick.

The former NHL center envisioned hanging up the skates after guiding the Walleye to the Kelly Cup title. But then coronavirus spoiled those plans.

Thursday, Hensick re-signed with the Walleye as the veteran aims to take one more shot at bringing a championship to Toledo. Hensick, who has played in 900 games in his pro career, served as Toledo’s captain last season.

“I’m excited,” the 34-year-old said. “Mentally, I thought last year would be my last season. I wanted to go out with a playoff experience and an opportunity to win a championship. But obviously, with COVID, we weren’t able to experience that. Obviously, the Walleye have had a rich history of playoff teams with a chance to win it every year. I think it will be the same situation this year.”

Continued

Press release: Seider, Stuetzle to engage in German pre-World Junior Championship evaluation camp

Per a press release from the DEL’s Adler Mannheim, Red Wings prospect Moritz Seider, top draft prospect Tim Stuetzle and three other Mannheim players will be among a 23-man roster of German World Junior Championship hopefuls to be evaluated by the German Ice Hockey Association from September 27 to September 30th.

The event will be closed to the public, and this camp is seen as a precursor to the Deutschland Cup mini-tournament in November, as well as the laying of groundwork for building the 2022 German Olympic ice hockey team.

Would you weaponize the Wings’ cap space?

I kind of shrugged at this take on the Red Wings’ salary cap situation from TSN’s Frank Seravalli, who suggests that the Wings are in the “Easy Livin'” bracket of salary-capped teams, but I’m not expecting Yzerman to weaponize too much of his $34.675 million in CapFriendly-estimated cap space this offseason:

Detroit Red Wings: Expect GM Steve Yzerman to use his cap space potentially as an escape ramp for troubled teams as he continues to collect assets in the Red Wings’ rebuild.

Continued with an analysis of all 31 teams’ cap situations…What would you do in terms of taking on “bad contracts” to acquire assets given that the cap will stand at a flat $81.5 million for the next two-to-three seasons?

ESPN’s Peters asks Sanderson, Drysdale to scout…Sanderson and Drysdale

ESPN’s Chris Peters asked Jake Sanderson and Jamie Drysdale to break down anonymous scouts‘ reports on Sanderson and Drysdale’s games themselves, with input from the respective players’ coaches, in a really superb story for ESPN+.

The subscriber-only story is excellent, and as the Wings have been linked a little more extensively to Drysdale than Sanderson, I’ll share some of Drysdale’s takes on his own game with you this morning:

Anonymous scout: I don’t know if it’s going to be Erik Karlsson-type offense, but he might fit more into that secondary offensive group.

Drysdale: I think you’re going to see offense. My goal is, I want to be a power-play guy, I want to be a guy to help produce for the team. That’s what I want to be at the next level. I’m confident in my style and my play, and it all works. I think it will translate. I just need to take what I have and challenge myself to continue to make a difference on the ice in that offensive role and help be a producer on the back end.

Chris Hartsburg, Erie Otters head coach: The thing that comes up with him a lot is what’s his ceiling going to be as a high-end offensive defenseman. He’s almost over-the-top responsible because he wants to win so badly. I challenged him earlier in the year to be a difference-maker every time he’s on the ice. I didn’t want him to fall into the trap of being a safe player. There may have been a few games where he was a little quieter, but there were more where he completely took over the game in the last five or 10 minutes. He’s just so competitive and wants to win so badly, he’s willing to sacrifice for the team. It may have hurt his offensive totals a little bit because he won’t cheat for his points, which a coach has to respect.

Continued (paywall)