Month: October 2021

Red Wings-Blackhawks quick take: kick ’em while they’re down, Lucas

The Detroit Red Wings attempted to right their ship against the winless Blackhawks on Sunday, just 24 hours after delivering a dud of a performance in Montreal.

Things got very complicated for the Blackhawks on Sunday roster-wise: the Hawks got Ryan Carpenter and Erik Gustafsson back from COVID protocol, but Patrick Kane remained on the COVID list, and just before game time, Jujhar Khaira, Riley Stillman and assistant coach Marc Crawford were all placed on COVID protocol, so the Hawks recalled Ian Mitchell from Rockford of the AHL.

Long story long, the Hawks were without Kane, Khaira and Stillman (as well as coach Crawford) vs. the Wings on Sunday night–much to the distress of a Red Wings fan base that recalled last season’s COVID issues on Detroit’s own roster–but they still wanted to break an 0-4-and-1 stretch against a Red Wings team that Marc-Andre Fleury had beaten 9 of the last 12 times he’s met Detroit.

On Sunday night, Fleury led the Hawks out for warm-ups opposite Alex Nedeljkovic, and once the puck dropped, the Red Wings played sloppy hockey on a back-to-back night…

But Nedeljkovic was indeed great, stopping 32 of 35 shots, Lucas Raymond scored a hat trick on a 4-point night, Dylan Larkin had 3 assists, Tyler Bertuzzi had a goal and 2 assists, and Detroit stuffed the struggling Hawks, winning a 6-3 decision (in which even coach Blashill got rewarded for a coach’s challenge!).

Continue reading Red Wings-Blackhawks quick take: kick ’em while they’re down, Lucas

Video from Sportsnet: Lucas Raymond scores his hat trick

Lucas Raymond scored a hat trick for the Red Wings in Chicago on Sunday, per Sportsnet…

And TSN:

Recap: Grand Rapids Griffins drop 3-2 shootout decision to Manitoba Moose

The Grand Rapids Griffins had a rough weekend in Manitoba. On Friday, they were shut out 1-0 by the Manitoba Moose, and on Sunday, the Griffins rallied from a 2-0 deficit to tie the game on goals by Dennis Yan and Ryan Murphy, but they were ultimately defeated in a shootout 3-2.

Victor Brattstrom stopped 28 of 30 shots for the Griffins, but the Moose’s final shootout shooter scored, and, as a result, the Griffins headed home from Winnipeg with no points in 2 outings.

The Grand Rapids Griffins’ website posted a recap:

GRAND RAPIDS GRIFFINS 2 at Manitoba Moose 3 (SO)

Oct. 24, 2021

WINNIPEG, Manitoba – The Grand Rapids Griffins dropped their third consecutive road game on Sunday when they were upended 2-3 in a shootout against the Manitoba Moose at Canada Life Centre. This shootout loss halted the Griffins’ 34-game streak of road contests ending in regulation that dated back to Dec. 21, 2019 when Iowa defeated Grand Rapids 3-4 in overtime.

The first period started out fairly slow as Grand Rapids found itself down seven to one in shots through 9:47 of play. With 11:58 remaining, Manitoba got a power play chance and looked to capitalize on the opportunity. Declan Chisholm was on the right side of the ice when he made a pass to Cole Perfetti at the blueline. Perfetti skated to the left circle and sent a wrister over the right shoulder of Victor Brattstrom that kissed off the crossbar into the net at 9:01. The tally marked just the second power-play goal the Griffins have allowed this season in 11 tries.

Continue reading Recap: Grand Rapids Griffins drop 3-2 shootout decision to Manitoba Moose

Tweet of note from Riger: Hronek’s still out tonight

Per 97.1 the Ticket’s Jeff Riger, who’s watching Red Wings coach Jeff Blashill’s pre-game Zoom call with the media:

Jeff Blashill on Filip Hronek out again tonight “he’s not in the lineup, it remains a coaches decision and we’ll keep those likes and dislikes internally between the players and coaching staff, all of us in the last couple games need to be better and we’ll just leave it at that”— Jeff Riger (@riger1984) October 24, 2021

Instagram post: Here’s Victor Brattstrom’s mask, painted by David Gunnarsson

Here’s Victor Brattstrom’s goalie mask, as painted by “Daveart,” a.k.a. David Gunnarsson:

Continue reading Instagram post: Here’s Victor Brattstrom’s mask, painted by David Gunnarsson

Kulfan’s notebook: Ill-timed penalties damning Wings

The Detroit Red Wings aren’t taking a ton of penalties thus far, but when they do take bad penalties–the kinds of penalties where they’re committing infractions far away from their own goal, or suffering at the hands of chintzy calls–the Wings are affording their opposition easy goals on their struggling penalties.

As a result, the Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan’s pre-game notebook focuses on these penalty issues:

[On Saturday] a growing Wings’ issue, taking penalties, surfaced. Three consecutive whistles against them, all in the offensive zone, put Montreal in control. The Canadiens waltzed to a 6-1 win.

“We had good energy, we were on top of them, we were playing good hockey,” coach Jeff Blashill said. “We score on the power play. We took three offensive-zone penalties, and that’s something that’s plagued us here throughout the early part of the season. We’ve taken too many penalties. We’ve talked about it. We have to stay out of the box and be more disciplined in those areas.”

Gustav Lindstrom and Danny DeKeyser had tripping calls, and Filip Zadina, a high-sticking infraction during that stretch. Montreal scored twice in that span, once on the power play and another goal shortly after a power play expired.

The Wings couldn’t recover. Detroit is averaging just under six penalties per game, tied for second most in the NHL.

“Sometimes there are good penalties, and you need to take them out of desperation to maybe stop a scoring chance,” defenseman Marc Staal said. “We’re not taking those type of penalties. We’re taking stick penalties and tripping, kind of needless penalties away from the play and those will hurt you.”

The Wings can’t have sustained success playing shorthanded so often.

“I’ve addressed it with our team,” Blashill said. “At the end of the night, we can’t expect to take this many penalties and expect to win.”

Continued

Prospect round-up, North America: Bednar named 3rd star in shootout loss

Of prospect-related note in North America on Sunday:

In the QMJHL, Oscar Plandowski finished at -1 with 2 shots in the Charlottetown Islanders’ 7-5 win over Val-d’Or;

And Jan Bednar stopped 34 of 37 shots, but neither of 2 shootout shooters, in the Acadie-Bathurst Titan’s 4-3 shootout loss to Saint John. Bednar was named the game’s third star.

Hawks morning skate news: Kane iffy for tonight, Gustafsson Carpenter out of COVID protocols

The Detroit Red Wings face the Chicago Blackhawks this evening (7 PM EDT on Bally Sports Detroit/NBC Sports Chicago/Sportsnet One/NHL Network/97.1 FM), and there is still a possibility that Patrick Kane will play in tonight’s game, as will Erik Gustafsson and Ryan Carpenter:

.gif of note from IceHockeyGifs: Elmer Soderblom’s blossoming in Sweden

Red Wings prospect Elmer Soderblom stands at 6’8″ and 237 pounds, and IceHockeyGifs posted a fine clip of Soderblom’s fine start in Sweden with Frolunda HC:

Elmer Söderblom (#25), drafted in the 6th round of the 2019 NHL Draft.

20-21 season: 5 points in 28 games.
21-22 season: 9 points in 14 games.

Here’s a recap of Söderblom’s start of the season #LGRW pic.twitter.com/8xafBcTqdE— IcehockeyGifs (@IcehockeyG) October 24, 2021

Soderblom presently projects to be a bigger version of Michael Rasmussen, albeit as a winger–i.e. a middle-six forward as opposed to the next coming of Johan Franzen–but you never know until they come over.