Month: September 2021

Here’s the Red Wings’ lineup for tonight’s game vs. Chicago (8:30 PM EDT on the NHL Network [joined in progress around 9:30 PM], NBC Sports Chicago Plus, and WWJ Newsradio 950):

Our lineup in Chicago.

?: @WWJ950 | #LGRW pic.twitter.com/IVwxelBW8H

— Detroit Red Wings (@DetroitRedWings) September 29, 2021

ChicagoBlackhawks.com’s Carter Baum posted the Hawks’ lineup:

PROJECTED LINEUP

Kubalik – Toews – Kurashev
Hagel – Dach – Connolly
Reichel – Borgstrom – Nylander
Khaira – Entwistle – Gaudette

Stillman – Murphy
C. Jones – Kalynuk
Phillips – Beaudin

Lankinen
Soderblom

Enjoy 46-seconds of time-lapsed footage of the ice going in at Van Andel Arena:

DetroitRedWings.com’s Ethan Sears filed a notebook article this morning, discussing Lucas Raymond’s chances of making the team, Danny DeKeyser’s recovery from surgery, and a set of personnel notes. Here’s his discussion of DeKeyser’s health:

There was a point last season where Danny DeKeyser didn’t know if he’d get better.

After undergoing major back surgery, DeKeyser struggled upon his return. He didn’t feel 100 percent, having lost strength in his left leg due to nerve damage that made it hard for the leg to fire properly.

“There was days where my hamstring would fire and my calf wouldn’t fire or vice versa,” DeKeyser said. “Kinda had to work to get everything working consistently together, so that whole chain produces a lot more strength.”

Late in the year, though, something clicked. He began to feel close to 100 percent, started playing better and looking like himself. Now, during training camp, Blashill has been talking of him as a “human eraser.”

“We give up a 2 on 1, a guy tries to go to the backdoor, he knocks it out of the air, or he gets stick on puck” Blashill said Saturday. “Or there’s breakdown in front of net and he’s able to get stick on puck. These are all kinds of things where people have made mistakes and you need a defensive play.”

“… He makes a lot of big-time defensive plays that becomes a human eraser for other people’s mistakes.”

Continued; here’s hoping that both DeKeyser and Filip Hronek find consistent form for the Red Wings this season.

I’ve been getting some questions about this one, so:

If you missed my discussion of the preseason game television/radio situation in yesterday’s practice impressions:

1. Tonight’s game between the Detroit Red Wings and Chicago Blackhawks (8:30 PM EDT start) will be “Joined in Progress” by the NHL Network, which is airing a 7 PM-start game between the Devils and Caps first (so the game will be joined in progress around 9:30), and it airs on NBC Sports Chicago Plus in the Blackhawks’ TV area.
2. Ken Kal and Paul Woods will also cover the game on the radio:

Hey Red Wings fans, Paul Woods and I will be calling tonight’s game from Chicago. You can hear all the action at 8:15pm @WWJ950 #tunein— Ken Kal (@KenKalDRW) September 29, 2021

3. Kal and Woods will also webcast the Red Wings-Sabres game on Thursday, September 30th (that’s tomorrow, a 7:30 PM EST start) on the Wings’ YouTube channel:

4. I have been told that the Red Wings’ exhibition games vs. Columbus on Saturday (7 PM EDT), Chicago on Monday (7:30 PM EDT) and Thursday vs. Pittsburgh (7:30 PM EDT) will all air on Bally Sports Detroit;

5. Kal and the Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan gave me the following radio schedule yesterday:

September 30 vs. Buffalo will air starting at 7:15 PM on WWJ;

October 6 @ Columbus starts at 6:45 PM 97.1 the Ticket;

And October 7th vs. Pittsburgh starts at 7 PM 97.1 the Ticket.

6. I am fairly certain that Sunday’s matinee game vs. Pittsburgh (1 PM EDT start) will be streamed but geo-blocked on the Penguins’ website, as they’re streaming their home games;

7. The other two games, at Columbus on October 6th (7 PM EDT) and Buffalo on October 9th (3 PM EDT start) are Mystery Games as far as TV or web coverage goes.

There have been rumblings of the Blue Jackets and Sabres picking up other teams’ streams, so they don’t seem to be doing their own thing. We’ll find out what happens with these two games over the course of the next week.

DetroitRedWings.com’s Daniella Bruce and Arthur J. Regner sat down for a lengthy interview with Red Wings prospect tournament/training camp try-out T-Bone Codd, who’s a Michigan native and a winger for the OHL’s Saginaw Spirit:

97.1 the Ticket’s Will Burchfield posted an article this morning discussing the Red Wings’ expectations for one Michael Rasmussen. Burchfield suggests that Rasmussen could develop into a Jordan Staal-style two-way center:

Jordan Staal, to put it bluntly, is a beast. He’s big, he’s strong, he’s fast and he’s more skilled than you might think. You don’t stumble into 1,000-plus games in the NHL, and you don’t put up 575 points by mistake. If Rasmussen ever comes close to those numbers, the Wings would have to be over the moon. Aim high, right?

You can tell Rasmussen has bought into the vision. He was drafted ninth overall in 2017 as a prolific scorer out of the WHL, but his NHL profile will have to be different. Asked at the start of camp how he wants to establish himself this season, Rasmussen, never one to waste words, said, “Earning valuable ice for our team, whether it’s five on five, a big face-off, penalty kill, power play. Anywhere I can help the team, I just want to get that trust.”

Staal has that trust in Carolina. He’s had it for years, and he had it in Pittsburgh before that. He was second among forwards on the first-place Hurricanes last season in ice time (18:29) and the only forward on the team who played at least two minutes per game on both the power play and the penalty kill. He put up 38 points, 14 of which came on the power play, in 58 games. Oh, and he won 58 percent of his face-offs, fifth best in the NHL.

Continued

The Athletic’s Max Bultman posted a set of five observations made over the course of training camp, framing them as questions going forward. Among them:

4. Will the power play show signs of improvement? One of the most important offseason additions Detroit made won’t play a minute on the ice for them this season. That would be assistant coach Alex Tanguay, who has the task of running the Red Wings’ power play, which last year was among the league’s worst.

Veteran Sam Gagner spoke during camp about the importance of getting some swagger back with the man advantage, noting that Tanguay had that swagger as a player. He said Tanguay the coach has been clear about what he wants.

“He’s direct about moving the puck quick, getting open fast, not dusting off pucks and being available for your teammates,” Gagner said. “I think that’s something that’s really important for us to get our swagger, is making sure that we communicate about those different types of things and there’s no question marks. It’s just: ‘This is what we want, and this is how we’re going to do it and this is how we’re going to have success.’ That’s the first step, and now we’ve got to go out and execute.”

The Red Wings have done plenty of work on the power play in camp, including during the Red-White game, but none of it really means anything until we see it with units that resemble the ones Detroit will actually use and against an opposing team’s penalty kill.

Continued (paywall)

The Free Press’s Helene St. James posted a subscriber-only article this morning which discusses the Red Wings’ roster as in flux heading into the 8-games-in-11-nights exhibition season. She also noted that Wings coach Jeff Blashill has high expectations for Lucas Raymond, should he attempt to make the team out of training camp:

At the other end of the career spectrum is Raymond, a 5-11, 182-pound winger who has spent the past couple seasons in the Swedish Hockey League. Blashill joked that “it should be clear to my wife that (Raymond) should be on the hockey team” — meaning the 19-year-old will have to dominate his shifts, more so than a veteran.

“They’re both going to get chances with good players, and then they have to go out and grab jobs,” Blashill said. “Bobby [Ryan] has been through this before; Lucas is new to it but I think he’s a kid who would love a job and wants a job. Wants to do everything he can. He certainly understands if he’s not ready to play a primetime role for us, that he’ll start in Grand Rapids, and if that’s the case, he’ll be determined to work his way back up. That’s the type of person he is.

“Both of them are going to get opportunities, both of them are going to get a good number of games, and that goes for a number of guys. We have guys like Taro Hirose and Riley Barber that had really good years in the AHL. They’re going to get a number of games.”

Blashill debated dividing the 40-odd players into Detroit and Grand Rapids squads, but “I don’t know who’s on that Detroit team yet. We’ll use exhibition season to determine who’s on that team.

“Whoever can grab a job, grab a job. I think it’s as competitive as it’s been here in a long time.”

Continued (paywall)

NHL.com’s Dan Rosen discusses several Red Wings-related topics in his Wednesday mailbag feature:

Red Wings general manager Steve Yzerman has made some interesting moves this offseason. He has some serious prospects in their system. He has drafted well. How long until we see a renaissance of sorts with his team? Could we see Sebastian Cossa, Lucas Raymond or Moritz Seider make the team this year? — @theashcity

The Red Wings are at least two years, if not three, away from a renaissance. But that’s not surprising. This was a five-year plan when Yzerman was hired as executive vice president and general manager April 19, 2019. They’re two truncated seasons and three NHL Drafts into it.

Seider has the best chance of making an impact this season. The No. 6 pick in the 2019 NHL Draft should be penciled in as a top-six defenseman. He scored 22 points (two goals, 20 assists) in 49 games for Grand Rapids of the American Hockey League in 2019-20. He played for Rogle in the Swedish Hockey League last season, won the SHL Elite Prospects Award, and was named SHL Defenseman of the Year, scoring 28 points (seven goals, 21 assists) in 41 games.

Raymond, the No. 4 pick in the 2020 NHL Draft, is in the mix to earn a spot in Detroit’s forward group, but the 19-year-old might not be ready and could be headed for Grand Rapids.

Cossa won’t be in the NHL at least until the 2023-24 season figuring he has one more season with Edmonton in the Western Hockey League and then at least one in the AHL. The No. 15 pick in the 2021 NHL Draft is in line to be Detroit’s goalie of the future, but Alex Nedeljkovic has the net after signing a two-year contract July 22, the same day he was traded to the Red Wings by the Hurricanes.

Continued; Blashill had this to say about Lucas Raymond’s challenges in terms of making the team out of training camp, per WXYZ’s Brad Galli:

Jeff Blashill said Lucas Raymond’s needs to stand out to to make the Red Wings roster.

“It should be clear to my wife that he should be on the hockey team,” Blashill said, before clarifying that it’s not a slight on his wife. pic.twitter.com/H7tNvUQ3jR— Brad Galli (@BradGalli) September 29, 2021

Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff notes that Red Wings defenseman Troy Stecher hopes to play better hockey after experiencing a “bump” in performance as an integral member of Team Canada’s World Championship team:

Stecher was a huge piece of the puzzle as Canada won the gold medal at the 2021 IIHF World Championship. He believes that will only serve to make him a more valuable player in Detroit’s scheme of things.

“Last year for myself was kind of a season with two different ends,” Stecher explained. “I started the season really well. Then I got hurt and came back and didn’t play as well as I would have liked, so [going to the worlds] was an opportunity for me to extend my season, go play some meaningful minutes.

“I played a ton there and in an important role for that team. More than anything it gave me a lot of confidence and reassurance in myself as a player that I can play at this level and I can be a factor.”

Stecher is also hoping that his offseason work ethic pays off:

“For me, I pride myself in my work ethic and what I do away from the rink, especially in the offseason,”Stecher said. “This past summer I took only six days off after the World Championship.

“Getting back to Canada, I looked at the schedule. It was June 17. I realized camp was coming up pretty quick.

“I’ve been on the ice basically for 12 months now, been to the gym the whole offseason. I just wanted to come to camp and show the organization, the coaching staff and management how hard I worked this summer and make sure I was in good shape.”