Month: September 2021

The Athletic asked its 32 NHL correspondents to assess the status of each and every one of the NHL’s 32 teams, and, this morning, they offer Max Bultman’s take on the Wings’ 2021-2022 season prospects (literally and figuratively):

Detroit Red Wings

Season prediction: Lottery team by a mile
Offseason grade: B

Better. Trading for Nick Leddy and signing Pius Suter are two short-term boosts in the top half of the lineup, and the expected arrival of top prospect Moritz Seider should be another. The Red Wings were already sound in net, but they younger and add some upside there, too, with Alex Nedeljkovic. Health will be key, but they should be more talented. -Max Bultman

Continued (paywall); it’s more likely than not that The Athletic’s Dom Luszczyszyn will preach a gloomier picture for the Red Wings when he gets around to previewing them on Saturday or Sunday.

The Detroit Red Wings have something of a puzzle on their hands in defenseman Alex Cotton. The 20-year-old defenseman was drafted as a 19-year-old after posting a point-per-game season at the WHL level (20 goals and 47 assists for 67 points in 63 games in 2019-2020), and Cotton kept that pace up this past season (posting 7 goals and 19 assists for 26 points in 24 games during 2020-2021).

The 6’2,” 190-pound Lethbridge Hurricanes defenseman is probably headed back to the WHL for one final season before turning pro with the Red Wings, but The Athletic’s Max Bultman has profiled Cotton, and he notes that big #84 wants to make the AHL or ECHL this year:

“[The Red Wings have] got a really good feel of what Cotts is. I don’t think they’re in any real rush. Plus they’re loaded with prospects and they’ve had so many picks over the last little while that it’s going to be a challenge for any of their prospects to move forward. My expectation is that he’s going to have to be a little more consistent with his play and his puck movement. He’s got to be a little more patient and not try to force things all the time. He’s got to learn that he doesn’t need to hit the highlight reel every play,” [Lethbridge Hurricanes GM Scott] Anholt said. “That’s maturity for me. It’s learning how to conserve your energy, too, because he’s going to be playing against the best players (if he’s back in the WHL this year) and they’re good too.”

Cotton understands that, too. In Traverse City, he made his defensive play his focus, first in the prospect tournament (where he posted a plus-1 rating and four shots on zero points in three games while running one of the power plays) and now into main camp, where he’s one of 20 defencemen on the roster.

“I’m an offensive defenceman who tries to produce and run the power play and the area of my game that needs work is in the D zone so here I’ve been trying to show what I can do defensively and how hard I play. They know what I can do offensively, so I’m trying to prove myself defensively. It’s my first time here. I’m just trying to take everything I can from the pros who have been here before. And on the ice I just love the pace. It’s so much better than junior. It’s so much faster,” Cotton said.

“It would be awesome to go back (to Lethbridge) but at the same time I think I feel ready for pro and that’s my goal. I want to show the big guy up there what I can do and hopefully I can sign a contract here and stay down here for a while.”

Continued (paywall)…

The Free Press’s Helene St. James discusses the return of the Dylan Larkin-Tyler Bertuzzi pairing this morning, noting that both players suffered significant injuries which required offseason recovery (and repair in Bertuzzi’s case):

“It felt great to be back out there with the guys,” Larkin said Thursday. “We had been skating for a while at LCA, and just to have an organized practice, to be back up here — see all the familiar faces. We’re excited. Skating with Tyler and playing with Z a little bit today, it felt good.”

Bertuzzi echoed Larkin’s enthusiasm, saying he was “really happy with my progress and my recovery. I stayed in Detroit all summer, worked out and skated. I feel really good.”

Only so much can be read into lines at camp, especially because a visa issue has delayed Jakub Vrana’s arrival. But however the lines shake out, it makes sense to keep Larkin and Bertuzzi together. They’ve been linemates when possible for the last three seasons and read off one another extremely well.

“I like the two together,” coach Jeff Blashill said. “They’re a pair I’d like to keep together all season if I can. They complement each other. They have real good chemistry on and off the ice, so it’s definitely a pair I’d like to stay together. And then we’ll see who earns a spot with them. That will be determined over time.”

Continued (paywall)

MLive’s Ansar Khan posted an article this morning which discusses Dylan Larkin’s injury status, addressing Larkin’s recovery from a neck injury suffered at the hands of Jamie Benn this past season. Larkin’s recovery is not complete yet, so he’s not been cleared for full-contact practices or games:

“I don’t think I thought about (the injury) much today, which is a great sign and I just think for myself, why take a risk right now?” Larkin said. “I haven’t had a hit since the last one I took. I want to go into the season healthy. I don’t want to have anything nagging. I don’t want to have to deal with it, so I want to make sure I’m ready.

“Yes, there’s going to be a time to take a hit and it’s going to be good, more mentally than anything, to take a hit. But at least for the first couple days, I don’t want to risk something. I want to be a little bit cautious.”

Larkin said he couldn’t say whether he would be ready to play if there were a game this week.

“Our medical staff has done a great job since the night of the injury to make sure I’m here today and playing and healthy,” Larkin said. “We have a plan and we’re going to stick with it. I don’t think anyone on our staff expects this is going to slow me down or hold things up, but there’s still a couple last steps to take to make sure everything is good.”

Continued; WXYZ’s Brad Galli also filed a report regarding Larkin’s status:

NHL.com’s Nicholas J. Cotsonika posted a 2021-2022 season preview for the Detroit Red Wings this morning, assessing the three keys for Wings success this upcoming season:

1. Offensive improvement: They simply need to score more. They scored 125 goals last season, one more than the Anaheim Ducks, who scored the fewest in the NHL. Part of the problem was injuries. Part of it was the power play (11.4 percent), second-to-last in the NHL behind the Ducks (8.9 percent).

Forwards Tyler Bertuzzi, Robby Fabbri and Dylan Larkin are expected to be healthy. Forward Jakub Vrana wants to show what he can do in a larger role after coming from the Washington Capitals in a trade April 12. Detroit added defenseman Nick Leddy and center Pius Suter in the offseason, plus assistant Alex Tanguay to coach the power play.

2. Nedeljkovic’s numbers: Goalie Alex Nedeljkovic needs to follow up on last season, when he was a finalist for the Calder Trophy, which goes to the NHL rookie of the year as voted by the Professional Hockey Writers Association, after going 15-5-3 with a 1.90 goals-against average, a .932 save percentage and three shutouts in 23 games (all starts) for the Carolina Hurricanes.

That would help the Red Wings win in the short term and address the concern about the small sample size of his NHL career (29 games). After trading for the 25-year-old on July 22 and signing him to a two-year contract, general manager Steve Yzerman said they think he has the potential to be their goalie “for a number of years.”

3. Seider’s development: The most important thing for them to return to Stanley Cup contention is the development of their top prospects, and the top prospect most ready to make an impact in the NHL is 20-year-old defenseman Moritz Seider.

The No. 6 pick in the 2019 NHL Draft scored 22 points (two goals, 20 assists) in 49 games for Grand Rapids of the American Hockey League in 2019-20. After he was loaned to Rogle of the Swedish Hockey League amid the coronavirus pandemic last season, he scored 28 points (seven goals, 21 assists) in 41 games. He won the SHL Elite Prospects Award and was named SHL Defenseman of the Year.

Continued; NHL.com’s Dan Rosen and Cotsonika discuss the Red Wings’ season to come in a 6-and-a-half-minute-long video as well:

The NHL Tonight’s Tony Luftman and Mike Johnson discuss the Red Wings’ offseason changes and 2021-2022 outlook in this 3:22 clip:

The Free Press’s Kristen Jordan Shamus reports that former Red Wings goaltender Manny Legace, currently the Columbus Blue Jackets’ goaltending coach, contracted the coronavirus this past summer, and he became extremely ill:

Manny Legace stopped thousands of shots for six seasons as a goalie for the Detroit Red Wings — including during the team’s 2002 Stanley Cup championship run — but he wasn’t prepared for the blow the coronavirus dealt him.

Legace, 48, now the goaltending coach for the Columbus Blue Jackets, grew teary talking about the ordeal during a news conference Thursday.  

He was hospitalized in the intensive care unit at Henry Ford Macomb Hospital earlier this month, when the virus made it hard for him to breathe and he developed blood clots in his lungs.

“I was extremely afraid,” he said. “I was very lucky to make a lot of saves in my career, but Henry Ford Macomb made the biggest save of my life.”

Legace, who had yet to get a COVID-19 vaccine when he contracted the virus in mid-August, said he and his wife, Giana, had both followed the same pattern of symptoms initially.

But when they were at their home in Novi over Labor Day weekend, her cough and breathing had begun to improve while Legace’s grew worse. He didn’t think it was a big deal.

Continued; Legace was unvaccinated, but vaccines aren’t silver bullets of immunity…

Per the Red Wings’ Twitter account:

Boys are buzzin’#DRWTC x #LGRW pic.twitter.com/a8cAGNnCmJ— Detroit Red Wings (@DetroitRedWings) September 23, 2021

Per WZZM 13 on YouTube:

WZZM 13’s Matt Gard has more:

“The logos are easy to put down, but we did a lot of painting,” said Stafford Murray who works for Van Andel Arena.

“We did the painting this morning and we got it done pretty quick.”

When Murray says it’s easy, you have to remember he’s worked for the arena since 2002. So for him and his co-workers, a lot of this is old hat, but to someone who’s never seen the process in person before, it can be quite impressive.

After the painting is done, the crew uses a pump sprayer to put a thin layer of water over the artwork. Pipes under the rink cool the surface so that the thin layer of water freezes almost instantly and acts as a sealant before workers are ready to put down heavy water.

“We’ll be doing this today and tomorrow. It probably takes two shifts to get the ice thick enough,” Murray said.

“We got the hard part done already. This is the easy part, but it’s time-consuming because you can’t put down a lot of water at one time. You have to put a certain amount down and let it dry, and then start over.”

The Athletic’s Max Bultman has filed his first-day-of-training-camp article, and he discusses upcoming roster battles given the way the Wings’ roster is shaping up to be, including a potential new pairing on defense:

The fun one, however, is [Nick] Leddy — Detroit’s veteran trade acquisition this past summer — skating with [Moritz] Seider, the Red Wings’ top prospect.

That possibility jumped out immediately when Detroit made the move for Leddy, but because Seider will be a rookie and Leddy figures to be among the Red Wings’ most utilized players, it wasn’t clear whether they’d actually start out together.

And in terms of the season, it still isn’t clear whether they will. The preseason hasn’t even begun. But seeing them together on Day 1 was notable, and it’s hard not to like the idea of Seider starting out with a playoff-tested veteran partner.

“Certainly Nick has been around now for a while, he’s got a veteran presence to him, he’s a really good skater,” [coach Jeff] Blashill said. “But he’s also come from a team (the Islanders) that I think does it right as much as anybody in the NHL. Their attention to detail is great, so I think he can bring some of that wisdom not just to Seider but to other guys on our team. They’ve introduced some young defensemen there over the last couple years in New York, and I think Ledds has seen those guys develop, so I think he can impart some of that wisdom to Seids as well.

“And Seids is a real smart, confident person too, and I think there’s probably give and take. I’m sure that there’s some things that some of our defensemen can learn through the interaction with Moritz.”

Continued (paywall)