Month: September 2021

The Red Wings defeated the Chicago Blackhawks 4-3 in a shootout in last night’s preseason opener. “One game in” is an incredibly, incredibly early time in the preseason to make regular season predictions, but likely fourth-line center Mitchell Stephens played absolutely excellent hockey during training camp and exhibition game one, as DetroitRedWings.com’s Ethan Sears notes:

Mitchell Stephens scores, brings energy: Over the weekend, Mitchell Stephens opened some eyes by scoring twice during the Red Wings’ Red and White scrimmage. In the first preseason game, he picked up right where he left off.

Early in the second period, after Detroit had given up two goals in a two-minute span and the game looked to be slipping away, Stephens found himself free on a breakaway. His wrist shot beat Kevin Lankinen to the far post, cutting the deficit to 3-2.

Stephens’ energy and skating was also noteworthy, particularly on the forecheck. There were a handful of times where he managed to keep the puck in the Red Wings’ offensive zone, or create Chicago turnovers that led to chances.

All we’ve seen so far is a single preseason game and a scrimmage, so it’s important not to overreact. But Stephens is in a fight for playing time, and a consistent spot on the fourth line.

It’s hard to imagine he hasn’t put himself in a good spot based on what we’ve seen so far.

Continued; Stephens has looked like he’s going to cement his status as the Wings’ resident replacement for Darren Helm and/or Luke Glendening thus far, in both practices and games. Again, it’s incredibly early, but Stephens has been tremendously good.

“Down Goes Brown,” a.k.a. Sean McIndoe, has posted an article in which he “finds hope” for the NHL’s “10 most hopeless teams.” As you might expect, such a list includes the Red Wings:\

Detroit Red Wings

The projections say: About 80 points, good for sixth in the Atlantic but just a 1-in-20 shot at the playoffs.

Why they’re probably right: Dom [Luszczyszyn]’s take on the Red Wings was “Patience. Patience. Patience.” To which I might add: Also consider patience. Steve Yzerman is executing on a burn-it-all-down rebuild, and that means a few years near the league basement. This is another one of those years, and the team seems fine with it. There are pieces in place and more on the way, and reason to believe they could be better this year. But “better” doesn’t get them all that close to “good.”

But hear me out … : One of the challenges with writing this post every year is coming up with a way to say “Goaltending is weird and hard to predict and this team will improve a lot if they’re suddenly really good in net” ten different ways. It’s basically true of every NHL team. But it’s really true of the Red Wings, who haven’t had strong goaltending in a long time but might this year.

Alex Nedeljkovic is one the most interesting players in the league this year because we don’t quite know what he is. The Hurricanes didn’t seem to have much faith in him, and his track record doesn’t give us much to go on, but he was very good in his 23 games last year. If that turns out to be who he really is, then the Wings landed an elite starter for next-to-nothing. And elite starters have been known to carry other mediocre teams a long way.

You could argue that the Wings aren’t even mediocre yet, and you might be right. But then you factor in the debut of Moritz Seider and wonder if he can pull off something close to a Makar/Hughes level of impact. Jakub Vrana might be poised for a major breakout, Filip Zadina still has lots of room to grow at 21, and Dylan Larkin is in his prime. If everyone exceeds expectations, is that enough? Only if Nedeljkovic stands on his head. But he might.

Continued (paywall); and honestly? I’m not concerned about the Red Wings’ goaltending being otherworldly. I’m concerned about the Wings getting some depth scoring and re-setting their special teams play.

“Ned” should be okay. The team in front of him needs to score some more goals.

I try new things and work out bugs in my preseason recaps, so you’ve been warned:

The Detroit Red Wings managed to defeat the Chicago Blackhawks 4-3 in a shootout in their first preseason game on Wednesday night.

The Wings prevailed in a wild and woolly affair that was punctuated by a late game-tying goal by try-out Bobby Ryan, a 24-save regulation-and-OT shutout for Calvin Pickard, who split the game with Thomas Greiss, and shootout goals from Taro Hirose and then Ryan salted the game away.

Here’s the AP’s game recap:

Chicago captain Jonathan Toews played for the first time in more than a year Wednesday night in the Blackhawks’ 4-3 shootout loss to the Detroit Red Wings.

Toews assisted on Dominik Kubalik’s goal late in the first period in the exhibition game and opened the shootout with a goal. The 33-year-old forward sat out last season because of chronic immune response syndrome. He last played on Aug. 18, 2020, in Chicago’s first-round playoff loss to Vegas

Bobby Ryan scored the tying goal for Detroit with 1:51 left in regulation and added the winner in the fourth round of the shootout.

Adam Erne and Taro Hirose also scored for Detroit in the shootout. Toews and Lukas Reichel were the only Blackhawks to score in the tiebreaker.

Michael Rasmussen and Mitchell Stephens also scored in regulation for Detroit. Thomas Greiss and Calvin Pickard each play half the game in goal, with Greiss allowing all three goals on 15 shots, and Pickard stopping 24 shots.

Brandon Hagel and Jujhar Khaira also scored for the Blackhawks, and Kevin Lankinen made 30 saves.

There aren’t any quotes from the game as the Red Wings’ press corps doesn’t fly with the team during preseason games, and Detroit didn’t hold any Zoom calls as the team flew right back to Detroit for Thursday’s game vs. Buffalo (7:30 PM EDT, streamed on the Wings’ YouTube channel)…

So you can read the Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan’s recap, MLive’s Ansar Khan’s recap, the Free Press’s Ryan Ford’s recap if you wish; Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff penned a list of 3 stars from tonight’s game, including a player who made a good first impression:

Continue reading Preseason recap: Red Wings defeat Blackhawks 4-3 in a shootout

Red Wings defenseman Moritz Seider spoke with Bally Sports Detroit’s John Keating over the course of an extended interview, and they posted a 2:35 clip of Seider’s interview a couple of days ago…

But wait, there’s more, from tonight’s Tigers broadcast:

You can draw parallels to what the Tigers have done and what the Red Wings hope to do. Moritz Seider blossomed in the top Swedish League, he hopes to carry that momentum into his first @DetroitRedWings Preseason. #LGRW pic.twitter.com/6w7iu2QKY6

— Bally Sports Detroit (@BallySportsDET) September 29, 2021

Bally Sports Detroit also confirms that the Red Wings’ three home exhibition games after tomorrow’s Red Wings-Sabres game (which will air on the Red Wings’ YouTube channel) will all air on BSD, so that’s Saturday, October 2 vs. Columbus, Monday, October 4 vs. Chicago and Thursday, October 7 vs. Pittsburgh, all on TV.

The Hockey News’s Adam Proteau has made his predictions for the Atlantic Division’s eight teams, and he believes that the Red Wings will occupy the 7th spot in the divisional standings when all is said and done:

7. Detroit Red Wings: Only the Sharks, Sabres, Ducks and Blue Jackets won fewer games than Detroit did last season. Nineteen wins in 56 games was a clear indication of how far the Wings still have to go to become a genuine playoff threat. But that doesn’t mean GM Steve Yzerman hasn’t improved them; he acquired 2021 Calder Trophy finalist Alex Nedeljkovic from Carolina, and he brought in veteran blueliner Nick Leddy from the New York Islanders. Along with 2019 sixth-overall pick, D-man Moritz Seider, Leddy and Nedeljkovic make Detroit’s defense better, but still not good enough to run with the beasts of the Atlantic.

Slowly but surely, Yzerman has made his roster younger – the Wings have only two forwards older than 28 – but the tough road ahead for Detroit speaks to the struggles virtually all formerly great teams endure as the winning generation retires and a new competitive cycle kicks off. Like the Senators, the Red Wings could and should win more games than they did in 2021, but like the Sens, it probably won’t be enough to propel them into a playoff spot.

Continued; Sixth? Fifth? We can hope…

Red Wings director of amateur scouting Kris Draper spoke with the Woodward Sports Network’s “Big D Energy” show regarding his expectations for the preseason:

Of prospect-related note in Europe:

In the Swedish Allsvenskan, Filip Larsson served as the back-up in HV71 Jonkoping’s 4-1 win over Vasteras IK;

In the Finnish Liiga, Albin Grewe missed Ilves Tampere’s 4-2 win over Assat;

Eemil Viro finished at -1 with 2 shots in 17:42 played as TPS Turku lost 3-2 to KooKoo;

And Otto Kivenmaki finished at -1 with 1 shot in a healthy 16:21 played as the Lahti Pelicans lost 5-3 to JYP.

MLive’s Ansar Khan took note of this remark from Red Wings coach Jeff Blashill regarding the difficulties involved in balancing his team’s lineup as the Wings prepare to play 8 exhibition games over the course of 11 days–including a 3-games-in-3-days stretch this weekend:

Coach Jeff Blashill explained on Tuesday how the staff determines how many games each player will play.

“It’s a little bit like that movie, ‘A Beautiful Mind,’ ” Blashill said. “You have all these numbers, and we have an excel spreadsheet we work off of and we plan it ahead of time and then three guys get hurt and you kind of re-plan it.

“The first two games we’re going to try to not have anybody play back-to-back unless something unforeseen happens. Larks, Bert, Staal and DK won’t play those first two games. We’ve got a set number of games for each player we try to get depending on where they’re at, what positions they’re fighting for, how many years they’ve been in the league. They need to be ready and hit the ground running. We try to stay within those set number of games, but it depends on injuries, how the guys play and all that stuff.”

Continued

The Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan notes that Red Wings free agent signing Pius Suter and forward Robby Fabbri have been reunited on ice, as the pair played together in the Ontario Hockey League for the Guelph Storm:

[Red Wings coach Jeff] Blashill has had Suter and Fabbri together through training camp (Vrana was expected to complete the line), hoping the two can find their junior hockey chemistry.

“It’s been good to get on the ice with him in camp,” Fabbri said. “It’s going to be fun playing with him. Brings back memories.”

Suter, who the Wings signed as an unrestricted free agent in July, noted how the chemistry is returning in time through practices and continually being on the ice.

“We played a few games way back in Guelph, but it’s been a while,” Suter said. “As time goes on, every practice you kind of feel how he thinks, how I think, how we’re going to play it out. The more you play together the more you’re going to read off each other better, so with every game it’s going to improve. He’s a quick, smart player, so I don’t think it will take us too long.”

Continued

Reporting from Moon Base Alpha again…In other words, I made it home from Traverse City in one piece today, and am unpacked, doing laundry, and catching up on today’s stories.

The weather is very different here–in Traverse City, fall is peeking out of the trees, while it feels like summer here, even though this is the time of the year when Metro Detroit and Traverse City have the same weather temperature-wise–but I’ve taken a Tylenol Cold to help with the allergies, and Aunt Annie is very happy to see me back home as well.

I want to thank each and every one of you for contributing to the Traverse City trip and reading my articles while I was up there. I’m just so incredibly grateful for your generosity and your readership. I really don’t have enough of a grasp of the English language, degree included, to put my gratitude into words, so I just busted my ass over the past 15 days to give you as much as I possibly could.