Month: September 2021

Ten Wings prospects make Pronman’s top-194-players 22-and-under cut

The Athletic’s Corey Pronman has released a list of his top 194 players who are 22 years of age or younger, and several Red Wings made his cut:

17. Moritz Seider, RHD, Detroit

Apr. 6, 2001 | 6-foot-4 | 183 pounds

Drafted: No. 6 in 2019

Tier: Projected bubble all-star and top of lineup player

Skating: Average
Puck Skills: Below-average
Hockey Sense: Average
Compete: Above-average

Seider had as good a season as you could have hoped for, as the best defenseman in the SHL last season and at the world championships. He’s so tough to deal with for opposing forwards. He’s a 6-foot-4, highly mobile, highly physical defender who projects to match up versus top NHL players. His skating helps him transition pucks very well to go with a strong first pass. The offense might never be elite, but it will be good to go with elite defending. Seider projects as a true top-pair defenseman with a chance to be a star No. 1 in the NHL.

…

25. Lucas Raymond, LW Detroit

Mar. 28, 2002 | 5-foot-10 | 170 pounds

Drafted: No. 4 in 2020

Tier: Projected top of the lineup player

Skating: Average
Puck Skills: High-end
Hockey Sense: Above-average
Compete: Average
Shot: Above-average

Raymond is an offensive weapon. He’s an extremely skilled and creative player with the puck who can make dazzling displays of puck handling and passing, and improvise like few forwards out there. Raymond also is a dangerous mid-distance shooter, making him a projected PP1 player in the NHL. He had a good but not amazing season in the SHL for Frolunda. He has the puck talent. The question after watching him versus men the past two seasons at his frame without amazing quickness is how does that play in the NHL. He has great edges and balance but struggles to pull away from checks. It may keep him from ever becoming a star, but I still project him as a top-line forward.

…

65. Sebastian Cossa, G, Detroit

Nov. 21, 2002 | 6-foot-6 | 210 pounds

Drafted: No. 15 in 2021

Tier: Projected bubble top and middle of the lineup player or quality starting goaltender

Athleticism: Average
Hockey Sense: Average

Cossa was as good as you could have asked him to be in the WHL, dominating the league for two seasons. His athletic toolkit is very intriguing as a 6-foot-6 goalie who can move very well for that size. He covers a lot of net with his length. He has some quick twitch in his frame in how he moves around the net, and gets in and out of his butterfly. Cossa’s reads are typically great. He loses track of some pucks and can be a bit busy in the net but usually anticipates the play very well. I love his selective aggressiveness with his positioning, and how he takes away angles with his size as well as how well he uses his stick to break up a lot of plays. Cossa projects as a quality NHL starting goaltender with the potential to become an upper-echelon goalie.

Continued (paywall), with Simon Edvinsson (77th), Michael Rasmussen (122nd), Filip Zadina (123rd), Joe Veleno (143rd), Albert Johansson (149th), Jonatan Berggren (157th) and Elmer Soderblom (170th) making his list…

Fundraising update: this week is ‘crunch time’

I’m leaving for Traverse City to take part in the Red Wings’ prospect tournament and training camp exactly one week from today, and despite some incredibly generous donations, we’re sitting at approximately $700 raised out of the $2,000 hotel bill and $600 to $1,000 in expenses/gas/groceries/dry cleaning/etc. funds. The fact that I am going to end up needing to upgrade my phone for the trip is not helping in that regard (my old Samsung S7 dies at the end of the year as Sprint/T-Mobile will no longer support 3G).

If you’ve been waiting for the right time to shake the change out of your wallet, this is the “right time,” and if you’re able to lend a hand at any level of support, I’d be incredibly grateful for your help as the rubber is a week from meeting the road.

I’ve held off on making any major purchases because the bucks in the bin need to go to the hotel bill for now, but tomorrow is dry cleaning day, Friday is Big Grocery Shopping day, and by next Monday, I’ll be packing up the Pacifica, facing an uncertain future as to whether I’ll be able to make that first half of the hotel bill. I’m nervous and scared right now, so:

If you wish to donate, you can use Paypal at https://paypal.me/TheMalikReport, Venmo at https://venmo.com/george-malik-2, Giftly by using my email, rtxg@yahoo.com, at https://www.giftly.com, and yes, you can contact me via email if you want to send me a paper check.

As always, I’m incredibly grateful for your readership and your time.

Duff recalls Lidstrom’s comments regarding his friend and defensive partner, Brad McCrimmon

Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff recalls Nicklas Lidstrom’s comments made regarding the loss of his friend and first defensive partner, Brad McCrimmon, who passed away in the Lokomotiv Yaroslav plane crash some 10 years ago today:

The bond between Lidstrom and McCrimmon and the appreciation Lidstrom felt for the ways in which McCrimmon showed him the ropes as an NHL rookie in 1991 were apparent when we worked together on Lidstrom’s book The Pursuit of Perfection.

“Listen kid, this is how it works,” Lidstrom remembered McCrimmon telling him time and again during that first NHL season. “I learned a lot from him.”

Players talk often about the little things they must comprehend when entering the NHL life. Lidstrom opened a window into what were some of those little things that McCrimmon taught him. Stuff like how to make the careful climb to the ice at venerable Chicago Stadium. That’s where Lidstrom made his NHL debut.

Over the years, several players took unflattering tumbles while navigating up the stairs from the visitor’s dressing room to the ice surface.

McCrimmon ensured that his new D partner wouldn’t be among them.

“He told me it was 18 steps,” Lidstrom remembered.

Continued

The Athletic’s Red Wings fan survey answers revealed (part 1)

The Athletic’s Max Bultman has revealed part of the results of The Athletic’s Red Wings fan survey this morning:

Last week, we asked you to weigh in on all things Red Wings. And as always, you came through.

More than 2,100 fans participated in our annual Red Wings fan survey, sharing their confidence levels in the front office, thoughts on the rebuild timeline and opinions on some key individual players. And now, it’s time to dig into the results — which blended some predictable outcomes (yes, faith in the general manager is strong) with some more eye-catching ones in each direction.

We’ll deliver the results in two parts, starting today with the portion of the survey dedicated primarily to the offseason. Thanks to all who weighed in. Now let’s get to it.

Continued (paywall)

HSJ examines the Red Wings’ roster ‘two weeks out’

The Free Press’s Helene St. James has posted something of a training camp preview as we are just over two weeks out from the Red Wings’ hitting the ice in Traverse City:

The Detroit Red Wings are two weeks out from the start of training camp, their ice time booked for Traverse City as has been tradition since 1997.

They weren’t able to go in 2020, of course, because of COVID-19. This year’s event runs about a week later than normal, with a golf outing Sept. 22 and practices/scrimmages Sept. 23-28. Their exhibition season begins Sept. 29 with a game at the Chicago Blackhawks and runs through Oct. 9. The home opener is Oct. 14 against the Tampa Bay Lightning.

This will be the third season under general manager Steve Yzerman. When training began in September 2019, players noted most of them weren’t “his,” meaning they were on the roster when Yzerman was named GM five months earlier.

Now, nearly every player on the roster bears Yzerman’s endorsement. Gone from the squad that finished the 2018-19 season are: forwards Anthony Mantha, Andreas Athanasiou, Frans Nielsen, Thomas Vanek, Darren Helm, Luke Glendening, Justin Abdelkader, Christoffer Ehn and Jacob de la Rose; defensemen Niklas Kronwall (who retired and joined the front office), Trevor Daley, Madison Bowey and Jonathan Ericsson; and goaltenders Jimmy Howard and Jonathan Bernier. In addition, defenseman Dennis Cholowski, a first-round pick from 2016, was lost in the Seattle expansion draft, and forward Evgeny Svechnikov, a first-round pick from 2017, was not tendered a qualifying offer this summer.

Continued

UpNorthLive: Red Wings have canceled training camp golf classic, alumni game

This is a bummer, per UpNorthLive’s Roxane Werly:

The Detroit Red Wings are cancelling some events planned for Traverse City during its Training Camp.

Due to the increase in COVID-19 cases the Training Camp Golf Classic and the Alumni Hockey Game are cancelled.

The 22nd Annual Detroit Red Wings Training Camp Golf Classic was scheduled for Sept. 22.

The Alumni and Celebrity Game was scheduled for Sept. 25.

The NHL Prospect Tournament and main Detroit Red Wings Training Camp will go on as planned.

Khan profiles Pasquale Zito

The Red Wings took something of a leap of faith in drafting Windsor Spitfires forward Pasquale Zito this summer, because Zito didn’t play a meaningful game during the 2020-2021 season. MLive’s Ansar Khan has penned a profile of the Windsor Spitfires forward:

The Detroit Red Wings, with their final pick in this year’s draft, took a chance on a gritty, two-way forward from just across the river who didn’t play in 2020-21 due to the pandemic.

Pasquale Zito is determined to reward their faith.

“He said, ‘I’m going to do everything I can to make it worthwhile’ of us stepping up and picking him. That’s pretty neat to hear,” Kris Draper, Detroit’s director of amateur scouting, said. “For us it was about relationships we trusted. He lost a year of hockey, but we feel over the next couple years he’s going to do everything on and off the ice to make himself ready and turn himself into the prospect we want him to be.”

The Red Wigs selected Zito, a 6-foot, 175-pound left wing, in the sixth round (166th overall), based on his play as a 16-year-old for the Windsor Spitfires in 2019-20 (three goals and 13 points in 46 games) and conversations with the junior club’s front office and training staff.

After the 2020-21 OHL season was canceled due to the pandemic, Zito was relegated to playing pick-up games and working out in the gym to stay in shape.

Continued

Slow down there, Mr. Loob

Per Detroit Hockey Now’s Kevin Allen, former NHL’er Hakan Loob, who was taking part in a Swedish hockey television broadcast today, made quite the comparison, invoking Nicklas Lidstrom as a comparable for Simon Edvinsson (per IceHockeyGifs):

Duff notes that there are other opinions regarding Edvinsson’s upside:

Edvinsson is 6-foot-4, 205 pounds. He is playing with Frolunda. Loob said Edvinsson is playing like  he’s think he could “maybe play in the NHL next year.”

Draft expert Russ Cohen’s assessment differs in terms of the Edvinsson’s time frame.

“(He) gets in the flow of the game well. His wrist shot is very accurate,” Cohen said. “The Swede is elusive up the ice and he’s very confident as a puck distributor on the power play. His skating is already very good. He has good physical strength that could improve and that’s why it will take him one more year in the SHL and then he’ll come over and start in the AHL and maybe play the entire season there or a portion of it before they call him up. ”

Cohen is a regular on NHL Network Radio. He also is owner of the Sportsology website and a contributor to EP Rinkside.

Tweet of note: Coach Blashill to take part in The Coaches’ Site’s virtual hockey summit

Red Wings coach Jeff Blashill will be part of a virtual hockey summit held by The Coaches’ Site, to be held between September 13th and 17th. Here’s a snippet of his presentation:

Blashill will be joined by Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy, Blues coach Craig Berube, Kings coach Todd McLellan, Stars coach Rick Bouwness and others…