Month: October 2021

This article comes to us via the invaluable IceHockeyGifs on Twitter: Red Wings prospect Elmer Soderblom engaged in a “20 Questions” interview with Johannes Haggelund, and here’s a rough translation of Soderblom’s answers to Haggelund’s questions:

1. If you had to pick an aspect from another player in the SHL, whose skill would you pick?

“[Teammate] Ryan Lasch‘s passing game.”

2. Who is your most difficult opponent in the SHL?

“Last year, Moritz Seider (of Rogle) was hard to play. I’m often around the goal and in the corners, and I met him a lot there and it was tough.”

3. What physical exercises do you think are the most fun, and the most boring?

“Bench presses are always fun. It’s one of the most fun exercises. The most boring physical exercises are chin-ups. I’m tall and heavy [Soderblom is 6’8″ and 238 pounds]. They’re not my favorite.”

4. What do you do in the bench press?

“I’ve gotten up to 137.5 kilos [303.13 pounds] this season.”

5. When were you the most starstruck?

“When I met Peter Forsberg at the Globen Arena after we won the Under-18 World Championship [in 2019] in Ornskoldsvik. After that we had to go to the Globen and I met “Foppa.” It’s the most starstruck I’ve ever been.

The Red Wings lost a 3-0 decision to the Calgary Flames on Thursday night, and the 2-1-and-1 Red Wings will face extraordinarily difficult challenges this weekend in heading northeast to battle the 0-and-5 Montreal Canadiens on Saturday, and then turning around to tangle with the 0-4-and-1 Chicago Blackhawks on Sunday.

MLive’s Ansar Khan posted an article this morning which discusses the fact that the Wings fell into the Flames’ trap last night, letting an emotional let-down from their first three games affect their play against a trap-happy, slow-the-game-down defensive team…

“The first three games were emotional, and we practiced hard (Wednesday), and we didn’t have our legs today,” Dylan Larkin said. “We didn’t have that emotion that we played with. You’re not going to have it every night in the National Hockey League. It’s 82 games. It’s hard. But when we don’t have our legs, our emotion, we got to find a way to simplify and play a better hockey game.”

The Red Wings showed much energy the first five minutes, but some of it was sapped after the Flames jumped ahead 2-0 in the first period on goals by Elias Lindholm (10:06) and Andrew Mangiapane (14:33) against Alex Nedeljkovic.

It was the first time this season the Red Wings trailed in a game and despite outshooting the Flames 33-29 and getting some open looks in the slot against Jacob Markstrom, Detroit didn’t have enough push to come back.

“In the third, they did an excellent job,” Red Wings coach Jeff Blashill said. “They just put it in, made us go 200 feet. We stayed on the outside. I didn’t think we shot enough pucks. We didn’t have the same level of energy that we’ve had, especially in the third period.”

Khan continues, and the Free Press’s Helene St. James looks ahead to the Wings’ difficult weekend schedule, which is of course made more difficult by Tyler Bertuzzi’s impending absence from the lineup:

The Detroit Red Wings fell into the Calgary Flames’ trap over the course of a 3-0 loss to Calgary on Thursday night, and now the 2-1-and-1 Red Wings face two extremely difficult tasks this weekend:

First, the Wings will take on 0-and-5 Montreal Canadiens team coming off a 4-1 loss to Carolina on Saturday (minus the unvaccinated Tyler Bertuzzi), and then Detroit will head to Chicago to battle an 0-4-and-1 Blackhawks team that will have rested since tonight’s 4-1 loss to Vancouver.

Long story long, it’s out of the frying pan and into the fire for a Red Wings team that had no “oomph” on Thursday evening, and the Red Wings may very well have to manufacture emotion and urgency going into Montreal on Saturday, as well as some energy heading into Chicago on a back-to-back Sunday.

As far as Thursday’s game was concerned, Calgary came into the night sitting at 0-1-and-1, and the Flames’ players and coach told the Calgary Sun’s Kristen Anderson that Calgary had no problem manifesting urgency or emotion at Little Caesars Arena:

Of prospect-related note in North America on Thursday:

In the OHL, Pasquale Zito finished at +1 with 1 shot and a 5-for-7 faceoff record in the Windsor Spitfires’ 7-4 win over Owen Sound;

And in NCAA Hockey, Jack Adams finished even with 1 shot in the University of Notre Dame Fighting Irish’s 3-2 OT loss to Rochester.

The Detroit Red Wings wrapped up their 4-game season-opening home stand by hosting the winless Calgary Flames on Thursday night.

This was a bit of a trap game going in–Detroit up 2-0-and-1, confident after playing three emotional games, battling an 0-1-and-1 Flames team that loves to check, check and check some more, and Calgary allowed the Red Wings to fall into their trap, winning 3-0 against a listless Detroit team.

Now the Red Wings will head into Montreal to face the pressure-packed 0-and-5 Habs, and the Wings need to learn from a game in which they were shut down completely instead of simply trying to flush a poor game on team and individual levels (with perhaps the exceptions of Gustav Lindstrom and Alex Nedeljkovic).

Ultimately, the Wings were sunk by their own defensive mistakes and their own indecisive play here, and they afforded Calgary the opportunity to play a low-energy checking game for the vast majority of the night. Detroit can’t afford to play who-gives-a-damn hockey opposite Montreal on Saturday, nor Chicago on Sunday.

From Bally Sports Detroit on Twitter:

He's new to the @DetroitRedWings, but not new to the Mitten! @alexned_ takes us through his first few months with his new squad. #LGRW pic.twitter.com/WShyuAEaYu

— Bally Sports Detroit (@BallySportsDET) October 21, 2021

The Grand Rapids Griffins’ starting goaltender, Calvin Pickard, is wearing a Red Wings-themed mask painted by world-renowned mask painter David Gunnarsson:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by David Gunnarsson (@daveart)

The Hockey News’s Tony Ferrari posted a list of “Nine Standout European Prospects to Open the Season,” and Red Wings prospect Elmer Soderblom cracked Ferrari’s list:

lmer Söderblom, RW/LW, Frölunda HC (SHL), Detroit Red Wings

The big man has been a big deal to start the season. The 6-foot-8 Söderblom has always had a boatload of skill and great hands in tight, but his mobility as a whole was questionable, to say the least. It was the primary reason the Swedish giant lasted until the sixth round of the 2019 NHL draft. 

Söderblom has been a key piece to Frölunda’s attack this season as he has proven to be reliable and consistent with a real drive to improve. His mobility clearly hindered him last season as he was extremely reliant on his strong puck protection at the SHL level but against men, it wasn’t as consistently reliable. Söderblom is looking more and more like a productive bottom-six NHLer every day.

Continued; if you missed it, Soderblom scored the OT game-winner for Frolunda HC today:

Elmer Söderblom scores again (5th goal the last 5 games), and decides the game in overtime #LGRW pic.twitter.com/h86AueBHJh

— IcehockeyGifs (@IcehockeyG) October 21, 2021

Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff penned an article discussing Moritz Seider’s significant ice time with the Red Wings team as a rookie:

The presence of Moritz Seider is quickly adding up to big numbers for the Detroit Red Wings. Three games into his NHL career, the 6-foot-4, 197-pound defenseman is proving to be a towering presence on the stats sheet as well as on the ice.

Seider is leading all NHL rookies in ice time. He’s playing 21:34 per game. While it’s certainly early in the season, thus far, only one other NHL first-year player, Nashville Predators defenseman Alexander Carrier (20:38), is playing as much as 20 minutes per night. Both Seider and Carrier are skating a league-high 26.7 shifts per game.

Red Wings coach Jeff Blashill made it abundantly clear that this excessive workload for Moritz Seider, Detroit’s top pick in the 2019 NHL entry draft is about on-the-job training. Seider is getting out there on the ice the old-fashioned way. He’s earning it.

“First off, we’re making those decisions beyond just his development,” Blashill said. “He’s getting those minutes because he’s earning those minutes. I think he’s done a good job.”

Continued

The Red Wings posted another episode of “The Forecheck” ahead of tonight’s game vs. the Calgary Flames (7:30 PM on Bally Sports Detroit/Sportsnet East/Sportsnet Ontario/Sportsnet West/ESPN+/97.1 FM):

Update: Here’s the Flames’ game preview: