The Athletic’s Scott Wheeler took in the entirety of the Red Wings’ prospect tournament, and The Athletic’s Corey Pronman jetted from tournament to tournament over the past week, so both gentlemen shared their observations regarding their respective tournaments of focus this morning.
Among Wheeler’s observations are the following…
C Joe Veleno (No. 30, 2018): I think the Red Wings would have liked to see Veleno produce a little more than he did, which kept him out of the standouts here, but he was really quite noticeable in other ways. He played on the interior, pushed tempo, drove through coverage, finished his checks and galloped around the ice with that skating stride of his, trying to cut through every lane he could (though he often didn’t make his way all the way through in possession). He had the puck a lot.
I also spoke to his offseason strength and conditioning coach, Justin Griffin, this week. Here’s what Griffin had to say: “Veleno has changed his body in the last two summers so that at the Detroit testing, they were kind of joking around like ‘wow, you worked out this summer.’ He didn’t really put that much time in the gym when he was younger and once he got to the NHL level and they were like, ‘hey, you’ve got to get stronger.’ He hasn’t missed one workout six times a week with us the last two summers.”
Continued (paywall); one Wings prospect made Pronman’s cut:
Kirill Tyutyayev, LW, Detroit
I was at the first Detroit game where Tyutyayev had two goals and an overall strong performance. He was a later draft pick a few years ago and when I’ve circled around to him, I’ve thought he was a dime a dozen small, skill guy who doesn’t skate well. The size/skating still concerns me but what impressed me at the game other than his hands and playmaking was his work ethic. Tyutyayev competed hard off pucks to create pressure, force turnovers and one of his scoring plays was off a hard drive to the net versus a much bigger defender that he got to the far post on. At the minimum, he put himself on the radar to monitor in the AHL this season.
