Month: November 2020

Khan speaks with Shawn Horcoff regarding Filip Hronek

Both Filip Hronek and Filip Zadina scored 2 goals today in the Czech Extraliga. Afterward, the Free Press’s Helene St. James discussed Zadina’s performance; this evening, MLive’s Ansar Khan spoke with Red Wings director of player development Shawn Horcoff regarding Hronek’s play:

Hronek has four goals and five assists for a team-leading nine points in seven games for Mountfield HK.

Hronek, 22, led Red Wings defenseman with nine goals and 31 points in 65 games during his second NHL season. He led all player in average ice time (23:54).

“He just continued where he left off,” Red Wings director of player development Shawn Horcoff said. “The thing with Fil, he was almost forced to play too much hockey last year in too many situations, given where he’s at in his career and I think he did very well with it.

“But I think this summer he was able to train, get himself back in shape and looks ready to come in and take an even bigger step next year. Looks like he’ll be better suited and more physically mature and physically able to handle those larger minutes.”

Continued

Roughly Translated: Filip Zadina reflects on his 2-goal performance today

After Filip Zadina’s 2-goal performance for HC Ocelari Trinec today, both iDnes, iSport and Ocelari Trinec’s website spoke with Zadina, and Ocelari’s Martin Stebel’s conversation with Zadina provides the best text. What follows is roughly translated from Czech:

Filip Zadina: We do our best to win!

They entered the season at number one! The Steelmakers also took a valuable win in Liberec, and have registered fourteen out of fifteen possible points in five games. FILIP ZADINA is having an equally successful start to the Trinec loan, and he has scored in all three games so far. “We have an excellent team, quality goaltenders, everything works for us,” says the shooter, looking forward.

At the same time, after the first period, it did not look very promising for the Steelmakers. They collected at the last minute and only showed their true potential during the second period: “In the first period we were just starting, we had some heavy legs, the game was not very successful. In the locker room we said what we should improve, we did certain things. We entered the second period with a clear head, and showed what kind of team we have and it started to turn for us slowly, this was the type of game I love, it was intense, I would like to win like this all the time, but sometimes it doesn’t work out. Win maximum. “

Zadina’s equalizing goal was preceded by hints of the home team’s chances during the guests’ 5-on-3: “Liberec has fast skaters, they’re hard to defend. There was our inaccurate passes and they went to our zone. Fortunately Thanks to God, we scored the first goal,” smiles the Czech first-round draft pick from NHL draft in 2018.

Also, regarding his second goal, which turned out to be a difference-maker, was a bit unconventional: “That’s right. It was a real coincidence. I turned around, slapped myself and Kvac somehow failed [to stop it] there. To tell you the truth, I don’t even know how [it went in]. The main thing is that it went into the net, “he describes the Trinec 2-1 goal, and overall his fourth goal of the year.

According to the original mutual loan agreement, the stellar young man should work under coach Javorovy until about mid-November. So does he have any idea when he will go to the United States for an NHL training camp?

“I really don’t know yet. I’m waiting to see what will happen in America after the presidential election. I’d like to be here as much as possible to help the team, and then join the Red Wings. But now I really have Trinec in my head.”

Monroe: Toledo Walleye will open training camp on New Year’s Day

The Toledo Blade’s Mark Monroe reports that the Toledo Walleye’s 2020-2021 season has an unofficial start date:

The Toledo Walleye are slated to open training camp Jan. 1.

The ECHL announced its critical dates for the upcoming season Tuesday. The Walleye are among 12 teams in the league that will begin a 62-game season starting Jan. 15.

The Walleye players will be allowed to report for training camp Dec. 31, with on-ice sessions scheduled to begin the next day. Opening day rosters are due to the league office by Jan. 13 by 3 p.m.

On Oct. 9, the ECHL announced it would implement a staggered start to the season in which 13 teams will begin a 72-game season on Dec. 11. The other 12 clubs, including Toledo, will start in January.

A schedule of games has not yet been announced by the league.

Continued

Kulfan speaks with Shawn Horcoff regarding the Wings’ loaning of 9 prospects to European teams

The Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan spoke with Red Wings director of player development Shawn Horcoff regarding the team’s decision to loan 9 prospects out to European teams this season:

The Wings, Horcoff said, stay in contact with the different coaches and work in unison with them. There are no favors expected, or given, and Horcoff and his stable of assistants in player development (including Dan Cleary and Niklas Kronwall) are able to help in whatever way, if asked.

“We make certain that the same message is being replayed to the player,” Horcoff said. “If we’re telling them to do something, and the coach is saying completely different, you’re spinning your tires and getting nowhere. The good news is, we’ve always had good relationships with coaches, and they’ve welcomed our input. It’s always been important for us to establish relationships, first and foremost, with the coaches. I find when you do that, and gain their trust, they’re a lot more willing to have you involved.”

The matter of playing time is rarely, if ever, discussed. Horcoff trusts the different coaching staffs to utilize their rosters accordingly.

“We’re honest with our players,” Horcoff said. “If they’re not playing good, they’re going to know it. We’re not going to sugarcoat it. That’s not going to make them better. We don’t expect favors as an organization. We just expect the players to be treated well and equally as everyone else.

“And listen, it’s a business, and these coaches want to win. They will put the players out there who will help them win the most. If the coaches aren’t putting them out there, or putting them in situations, a lot of the reasons why is because they can’t do it at that level. What makes them think they’ll be able to do it in the NHL?”

Continued

HSJ on Zadina’s superb Czech Extraliga start

Filip Zadina scored 2 goals today in the Czech Extraliga, and the Free Press’s Helene St. James wrote an article about Zadina’s goal-scoring outburst:

It’s only been three games for Zadina, but he already has four goals and one assist. The latter was earned setting up a goal in overtime.

…

Zadina, who turns 21 on Nov. 27, was one of the few bright spots during the Wings’ miserable 2019-20 season. After a pedestrian training camp that had team executives worried if the sixth pick from 2018 would live up to expectations, Zadina joined the Wings in late November, called up after an injury to Anthony Mantha.

Zadina’s season was cut short by a lower-body injury, but from Nov. 23-Feb.1 he was tied with Robby Fabbri for the team lead with eight goals and ranked third on the team with 15 points, behind Dylan Larkin (21) and Fabbri (17). 

The Czech Extraliga isn’t NHL-level hockey, but it’s a great sign for the Wings that Zadina is dominating at that level. 

Prospect round-up: Hronek, Zadina score 2 goals apiece in Czech Extraliga play

Of prospect-related note:

In the Finnish Liiga, Eemil Viro did not play in TPS Turku’s 4-3 OT loss to the Lahti Pelicans;

Otto Kivenmaki had 2 shots, finished even and played 17:55, and Kasper Kotkansalo finished even in 21:46 played as Assat Pori won 3-2 in a shootout over JYP;

In the Czech Extraliga, Filip Hronek scored 2 goals, including the game-winner, finishing at +1 with 3 shots in 23:22 as HK Mountfield won 3-2 over HC Viktovice:

Jan Bednar was the back-up in HC Energie Karlovy Vary’s 3-2 win over Ceske Budejovice;

And Filip Zadina scored 2 goals on 3 shots, finishing at +1 in 16:17 as HC Ocelari won 3-2 over Liberec:

You can watch highlights of all the Czech League games here on Hokej.cz.

Update: In the Swedish Allsvenskan, the game between Gustav Lindstrom’s Almtuna IS and Timra IK was postponed due to a coronavirus issue;

William Wallinder had 3 shots, finishing at -1 in 15:35 played during MODO Hockey’s 5-2 win over Vasby IK;

And Gustav Berglund had 2 shots in 16:53 played in Vasteras IK’s 2-1 shootout loss to Vasterviks IK.

DobberProspects discusses the Red Wings’ roster and draft moves

DobberProspects’ Nick Richard assesses the Red Wings’ offseason roster moves and draft machinations this morning, recapping Detroit’s trade and free agency moves before moving on to capsule discussions of each and every one of the Wings’ 2020 draft picks:

Steve Yzerman got to work shaping the 2020-2021 Red Wings’ roster in August, signing restricted free agent Robby Fabbri to a two-year contract carrying a cap hit of $2.95 million. The 24-year-old Fabbri put up 31 points in 52 games after being acquired from St. Louis last season, and Detroit will once again look for him to contribute as a secondary scorer. The team also retained Sam Gagner on a one-year deal worth $850k and he will compete for a depth spot in the lineup when training camp opens.

The team made another pair of moves prior to the draft, acquiring veteran defenceman Marc Staal, along with a 2021 second-round pick from the New York Rangers in exchange for future considerations,  while also buying out the remaining three years of Justin Abdelkader’s contract. The Red Wings also decided not to tender qualifying offers to Madison Bowey, Brendan Perlini, and Christopher Ehn, allowing them to become unrestricted free agents.

On the opening day of free agency, the Red Wings signed reigning Masterson Trophy winner Bobby Ryan to a one-year, one-million-dollar contract after he was bought out by the Ottawa Senators. It has been a rough few years for the former second overall pick, but a rebuilding team like the Wings seems like a good fit for a player who is trying to revive his career. They also added some defensive depth by bringing in Jon Merrill on a one-year, $925k contract. The additions of Staal and Merrill should make up for some of the experience lost with the departure of long-serving Red Wing Jonathan Ericsson, and the retirement of Trevor Daley.

Those moves were followed by the signings of Troy Stecher, Thomas Greiss, and Vladislav Namestnikov. Stecher, 26, was not tendered a qualifying offer by the Vancouver Canucks, allowing Detroit to sign him to a two-year deal as an unrestricted free agent. He will have an opportunity to earn top-four minutes and perhaps some second unit power play time on a team that is short on blue line options. The signing of Greiss to a two-year deal was the final nail in the coffin for the Jimmy Howard era in Detroit, and he will form a tandem with the returning Jonathan Bernier. Namestnikov is a solid addition on a short-term deal that carries a cap hit of just $2 million, and he will provide versatility to a Red Wings lineup that will be looking to integrate some of their younger forwards into the NHL lineup.

After retaining restricted free agents Taro Hirose and Adam Erne, the Red Wings also had a pair of key players in Tyler Bertuzzi and Anthony Mantha file for salary arbitration this offseason. Bertuzzi went through the arbitration process and was awarded a one-year contract worth $3.5 million, while the team managed to settle with Anthony Mantha on a four-year deal worth $5.7 million per year prior to his hearing. Both players will be looked to as key contributors for the Red Wings this coming season and beyond.

Continued

Bultman attempts to determine the Red Wings’ roster four years into the future

The Athletic’s Max Bultman attempts to discern what the 2023-2024 Red Wings’ roster might look like, and here’s his set-up:

When Anthony Mantha signed his four-year, $22.8 million contract last week, a simple reality of the Red Wings’ future jumped out: With only Mantha signed past 2023, Steve Yzerman is working with an essentially blank canvas.

That’s not to say Detroit’s cupboard is bare — in fact, after years of high first-round picks and a plethora of second-rounders, it’s the opposite. The farm system is now pretty deep, with a couple of potential cornerstone pieces on the way. And even though the organization’s top NHL players aren’t all signed long term yet, most of them are young enough to be in the long-term picture.

But in terms of both flexibility, and the variance inherent to prospects, the Red Wings’ future could still take any number of forms. That makes projecting even a few years down the line a much different exercise than it was just two or three years ago.

This article, though, has been an annual tradition since the early days of The Athletic Detroit. And while it’s coming later than usual this year, we weren’t about to skip over it altogether. The premise is to take a look at how the Red Wings’ lineup is shaping up three years into the future, as a way of assessing the team’s progress in the rebuild, and its possible timeline for contention.

Continued (paywall)

Red Wings fans are optimistic about their team’s management, per The Athletic’s ‘front office confidence rankings’

The Athletic’s Dom Luszczyszyn posted a compilation of fans’ rankings as to how confident each and every one of the NHL’s 31 fan bases are in their respective teams’ front offices, and the Detroit Red Wings rank as the 4th-best team in terms of fan confidence in one Steve Yzerman and company:

My, oh my, what a climb for the Red Wings. It is very hard to get this kind of vote of confidence from a team that had such an abysmal season last year, but Red Wings fans are very high on the Yzerplan. Detroit got top five grades in every category except trading, where the Red Wings were sixth. Just 0.1 percent of Red Wings fans are less confident than they were a year ago, which ranks second to the top team on this list at zero percent.

This might be a case of relativity given how Ken Holland’s tenure ended, but with Steve Yzerman there’s a crystal clear vision in place, one Red Wings fans are on board with. The rebuild is in full swing and Yzerman has done well so far to accumulate picks and make good selections. He’s cleared out a lot of bad money and made some shrewd free-agent signings that could pay off in the form of future draft pick capital. 

It’s all very promising right now, but there’s also a chance the fans are acting a bit overzealous at the moment with regards to their front office. The public is pretty high on Detroit, ranking them in the top five, but not nearly to the same degree that fans have, with the 1.1-point difference tied with Minnesota for the highest. The primary concern is roster building where it’s a little implausible that the league’s worst team in the middle of a rebuild should be third – 19th feels a lot more appropriate. It’s reminiscent of the scores Devils fans gave Ray Shero last year a few months before he was fired after a spectacular offseason didn’t lead to any on-ice success. 

The lesson here for Red Wings fans is to approach with caution. The Yzerplan is off to a terrific start, but the teardown is the easy part. Building things back up is going to be much more difficult, and though Yzerman had a strong hand in Tampa Bay’s Cup win, it doesn’t necessarily mean lightning will strike twice.

Continued (paywall); the path toward rehabilitating the Red Wings players’ and prospects’ pools into those suitable for a playoff team will take at least a couple more seasons, but I do find it a little odd that Luszczyszyn chastises the fan base for its optimism.

Roughly translated: GP.se reports that Theodor Niederbach may head to MODO Hockey of the Allsvenskan

According to GP.se’s Adam Johansson, Red Wings prospect Theodor Niederbach, who’s been tearing up the Under-20 National League in Sweden, may end up heading home to the Ornskoldsvik area to play a “level up” with MODO Hockey. What follows is roughly translated from Swedish:

Frölunda’s super talent now open for MODO

MODO would fill the gap left by the retired Aaron Gagnon.

In Frölunda there is an son of “O-vik” who is open to play games for the team.

“A loan would be fun, especially to Modo,” says Theodor Niederbach to SportExpressen.

Continue reading Roughly translated: GP.se reports that Theodor Niederbach may head to MODO Hockey of the Allsvenskan