Month: September 2021

Free Press’s Monarrez notes that Yzerman is trying to learn from the best in sport(s)

The Detroit Free Press’s Carlos Monarrez took note of Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman’s remarks regarding following the best examples in sports as he tries to rebuild his own team:

Yzerman is searching on pitches in England and diamonds in America, on gridiron and courts and rinks. Anywhere he can extract some knowledge, like from his favorite soccer team.

“Partly because I’m a big fan of the sport and the team,” he said, “Liverpool soccer club, what they’ve done over the course of the last 10 or 15 years and how they’ve built a kind of culture, a style of play, (that’s) one that comes to mind for me.”

Because the Wings and Tigers are both owned by the Ilitch family, Yzerman has been able to speak with Avila, exchange ideas and has enjoyed learning about how and why some personnel decisions have been made. Even within the NHL, Yzerman is constantly educating himself about the process of building a winning team.

“I talk a lot to other general managers and pick their brain on where they’re going, what they’re doing, why they make the moves they make,” he said. “I learn a lot from that. It’s probably a sin to say, but with Bill Belichick and what he’s done in the NFL with the Patriots, how he’s made and run that franchise has been very, very interesting for me.”

Continued

Two Swedish stories stuck behind a paywall

Regrettably, this morning’s Swedish news stories involve two members of the Red Wings’ prospect core, but they’re stuck behind paywalls.

IceHockeyGifs found a story about Lucas Raymond on GP.se…

From https://t.co/wAuNs7oE58 piece on Lucas Raymond ahead of main camp –

“I will do everything to steal a place on the roster”

New weight after summer is 189lbs while having maintained a bodyfat% “in the single-digits”. #LGRW https://t.co/nQmLohKhGx— IcehockeyGifs (@IcehockeyG) September 23, 2021

And Expressen’s Gothenburg-based paper, GP.se, has an article up profiling big Elmer Soderblom, but it’s also behind a paywall.

Down Goes Brown suggests that the Wings’ success hinges on Nedeljkovic’s play

Sean McIndoe, a.k.a. “Down Goes Brown” of the Athletic, discusses what he considers to be the strangest moves of the offseason via a “bizarro meter’s” worth of power rankings for each and every one of the NHL’s 32 teams, and this is what he has to say about the Red Wings’ offseason:

Detroit Red Wings

The offseason so far: It was basically the Alex Nedeljkovic trade and then a handful of depth moves.

But their strangest story was: If Nedeljkovic turns out to be the answer in goal, Steve Yzerman will have added a key piece at a low price.

Bizarro-meter ranking: 3.4/10. Yzerman continues his slow-but-steady rebuild. Every year, we say that he’ll eventually have to get more aggressive, but apparently, that point hasn’t arrived yet. The Wings are on track, but it’s hard to see how they’ll be all that much better this year unless Nedeljkovic goes full superstar.

Continued

A bit about Seider from HSJ

The Free Press’s Helene St. James posted her pre-training camp article this morning, discussing Moritz Seider’s chances of making the team and Tyler Bertuzzi’s status as unvaccinated and unable to play in Canada:

Seider, 20, comes to the Wings after spending last season with Rögle, where he played so well he was named the Swedish Hockey League defenseman of the year. Previously, he spent a season with the Grand Rapids Griffins and a season in the men’s league in his native Germany.

“Moritz will get every opportunity in the preseason to get as comfortable as he can be to potentially start the regular season,” Yzerman said. “He’s going to compete with not only the other three right shots, but the four left shots as well. Moritz has done well — playing in the men’s league in Germany, he did well. I was somewhat apprehensive his first year in Grand Rapids, as an 18 year old, and he did well. Then going into Sweden last year, he performed well. We are optimistic he’s up for the challenge. I would temper the excitement — it’s a huge step going from the AHL or the SHL to the NHL, the reality is the best players in the world are in the NHL. It is difficult to play in, more so for goalies and defensemen than it is for forwards.

“We expect there to be some learning, but I think he’s physically strong enough, he’s mature enough, and he has enough hockey sense to play. Can he adapt to the speed and excel in the league? Time will tell. He’s 20 years old.”

Continued (paywall)

Update: Here’s a bit more from the Traverse City Record-Eagle’s Andrew Rosenthal:

Moritz Seider, fresh off an year with the Swedish team of Rögle, is a name many fans are itching to know whether or not he will make the 23-player roster or new taxi squad.

What’s certain is he’ll be on the ice a lot in the preseason, Yzerman indicated. The Red Wings took the 20-year-old from Zell, Germany, sixth overall in the 2019 NHL draft. Seider did not play in last weekend’s prospect tournament but is set to appear in Traverse City for camp, which starts Thursday morning at Centre ICE.

Detroit will carry eight defenseman this winter.

“I would temper the excitement and the expectations,” Yzerman said. “I think it’s a huge step going from the American League, the Swedish league, or the KHL for that matter, to the NHL. The reality is the best players in the world are in the NHL, with exception of the young guy who’s stayed in Europe for a year or two more.”


Your understatement of the evening, part 2: a bit of a ramble about the needle and the battleship

I needed to take a little nap this afternoon, and when I woke up, my Twitter account had blown up, 3 comments needed to be moderated in the moderation queue regarding my take on Tyler Bertuzzi’s status as unvaccinated, and Breitbart of all places showed up in my Red Wings search engine for a story about Tyler this evening.

So: You know my take on the fact that Mr. Bertuzzi has chosen to decline COVID vaccination, to the tune of missing 9 games in Canada and probably about $400,000 U.S.

To say that, as both a Wings blogger who has to be semi-objective and a Wings partisan who does not always stay semi-objective, I am disappointed in his stance is an understatement.

But what gets me the most is the simple part of it all, never minding the whole personal situation with COVID (no uncle, no high school friend, no friend who had a kidney transplant) on my side of the situation:

Tyler Bertuzzi may have “bodily autonomy,” but, put simply, his employer also has every right to have a vaccination policy, and, as a result, an integral part of the Red Wings’ roster is has chosen to not do part of his job as an integral part of the Red Wings’ roster.

That’s what really bothered me during my nap this afternoon. It’s that somebody is more than willing to take a check to make a play or take a cross-check or a hack on the ankles to get to the front of the net and stay there is equally willing to simply sit and watch his teammates for at least nine games–and follow admittedly punitive off-ice measures designed to protect his teammates from him–because of moral or ethical objections to getting a sore arm.

That kind of inconsistency of character is something I can’t quite wrap my head around. He’s willing to make all kinds of sacrifices to his body for his teammates, and that makes him a good, valuable player, but a little vaccine’s worth of fats and MRNA a bridge too far for the temple of a body he’s built. Is that it?

It doesn’t make sense to me. Maybe it does to you, but as a human being, more than a blogger or a Wings partisan, I don’t understand why it is the needle that terrifies the battleship.

He’s not doing his effing job by refusing the vaccine, and that’s not good enough for George the former soccer player or hockey player who had no talent but did whatever it took to run through walls for his teammates.

And that is why I am still so upset with Tyler Bertuzzi today. He’s not willing to go the extra mile to protect his teammates from himself, and that makes no sense to me.

Your understatement of the evening, part 1

Pro Hockey Talk’s Adam Gretz posted a list of “X Factors” for each and every one of the NHL’s Eastern Conference teams, and he earns an “art of understatement” award for this take on Moritz Seider:

Detroit Red Wings: Moritz Seider. If he is as good as the Red Wings think he can be that would be quite the immediate boost to their rebuild. The perception of this pick has rapidly changed in two years.

Continued; you could say that, yeah, you could say that…

A bit of praise for Pasquale Zito

The Windsor Star’s Jim Parker took note of the fact that Red Wings 2021 draft pick Pasquale Zito earned a nod from Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman as one of the better performers at the Red Wings’ prospect tournament. The Windsor Spitfires forward didn’t play a game last season in the OHL due to the pandemic:

Yzerman was so impressed by Zito’s performance at the club’s prospect tournament on the weekend that he earned an invite to the team’s main training camp, which begins on Thursday in Traverse City, Mich.

“We were down to nine forwards,” Yzerman said of the final game of the tournament. “Some of these kids hadn’t played, like Pasquale Zito didn’t play last year.

“I thought he looked really good out there for someone who hadn’t played (and) for someone who’s 18-year-olds old. He hung in there good. Some of these teams had guys that have been pro for a few years or that have just left college and are 23-, 24-years-old (and) he did well for an 18-year-old.”

The 6-foot, 176-pound Zito had a power-play goal in three games and was even in a tournament where Detroit was outscored 16-10.

“I feel I played OK,” Zito said “Obviously, having a year off in the OHL, being away a year, of course, for the first game (I) felt a little slow being back. I felt progressively I got better and got adjusted to the speed.”

Continued

Khan on the competition for jobs

MLive’s Ansar Khan discusses the Red Wings’ competition for spots on the roster, in terms of both younger and older players, this evening:

“I expect and hope the players all recognize — whether it’s Bobby Ryan coming in on a PTO, Givani Smith, Moritz Seider, you name it — they got a lot to play for and have a good training camp and good preseason and then ultimately, once the regular season starts, maintain their role or play an increased role,” [Red Wings GM Steve] Yzerman said. “I am looking forward to watching the new faces and see how the players that have been here respond to the opportunity to get a bigger role and compete with some of the younger players or new faces for those spots.”

Veleno appears furthest ahead among the waiver-exempt players making a push for a roster spot. He made his NHL debut by playing five games at the end of the season.

“Physically, he’s very strong, he’s a strong skater, good puck skills,” Yzerman said. “I thought he was very good in the (Prospects) tournament. I’m excited to see him in preseason. He’s pretty fit, thick. He looks like a guy who physically has been in the league 7-8 years and that’s going to bode well for him.”

Yzerman said Raymond and Berggren, coming over from Sweden and dealing with minor injuries from the Prospects Tournament, need to show they can keep up and be positive contributors. They’re up against it, as Yzerman said they likely will need to be among the top nine forwards and playing significant minutes to start the season in Detroit.

“Both looked good in limited play in the rookie tournament,” Yzerman said. “Hopefully, Jonatan isn’t out too long, and Lucas is able to go with zero restrictions starting (Thursday) and they can get into the drills and show that they’re strong enough, They’re good skaters, but can they play at the pace of the NHL level, adjust to the smaller ice surface?”

Continued