The Detroit News’s Bob Wojnowski penned a lengthy, subscriber-only missive discussing the Red Wings’ embracing their youth movement as the 2021-2022 season begins:
The games should be more meaningful individually, with a mix of first-time guys, middle-time guys and a few old-time guys. If Greiss isn’t strong enough to be the primary starter in net, Nedeljkovic will get his shot, and he was outstanding as a rookie with Carolina.
If Filip Zadina or Tyler Bertuzzi can’t recapture their scoring prowess, guys like Suter, Robby Fabbri, Sam Gagner and Adam Erne will get more chances. The big leap should take place on defense, where Seider will log plenty of minutes, along with veteran acquisition Nick Leddy and holdover Danny DeKeyser. Another rookie, Gustav Lindstrom, 22, will get a shot, and we haven’t even mentioned oft-overlooked Filip Hronek, 23, who actually led the Wings in points last season (26).
Not saying much, I know. But it says something about the direction.
“We have a lot of new faces, and I don’t think there’s any doubt we have an opportunity to have a real good (defense) corps,” Blashill said. “How good are we up front? Can we score a lot more? I think we’re heading in the right direction, but how much better will we be? How quickly? I can’t answer that. Up to the development of the players.”
I can’t answer either, or even guess. But at some point, the progress has to be more than incremental. With Chris Ilitch’s other team, fans’ patience is gradually being rewarded. The Tigers took a leap this season and will unwrap Riley Greene and Spencer Torkelson at some point. The Wings are unwrapping Raymond and Seider, who are mature beyond their years and skilled beyond normalcy.
“The objective is to improve our team, and I look at it as, OK, are some of our younger players ready to play?” Yzerman said before training camp. “In some cases we are counting on them. In some cases, they’re going to have to show us they can do it. As for (statistics), it’s all kind of an educated guess really. I think we’re going to score more goals, I think our power play’s going to be a little bit better.”
Continued (paywall)
