A general manager since 1997, Holland didn’t have to make too many tough calls on the captaincy. He inherited Yzerman with the Detroit Red Wings, who was then succeeded by Nicklas Lidstrom.
“That took about two minutes to decide,” said Holland with a laugh.
The only close race for the captaincy was when Lidstrom retired and the “C” was going to go to either Pavel Datsyuk or Henrik Zetterberg. The captain would be Zetterberg, but he and Datsyuk would be co-leaders.
When Zetterberg retired, Holland opted not to give anyone on the Red Wings the captaincy. Yzerman arrived as GM and waited two years to give the “C” to Dylan Larkin.
“We were clearly in a rebuilding cycle,” Holland said. “You look at the team, and you see where you’re at. Are we in a rebuild mode? Are we in a down cycle? Is there a great young player we’re going to put the ‘C’ on or are we going to wait a few years? Then you have to factor in whether he’s ready for it, or if we’re putting too much pressure on him.”
What Holland has seen in the past two decades are captains relieving that pressure by sharing the responsibilities with teammates.
“The captain is the captain. But there’s also now a leadership group with the captain. There had been leadership groups before, but it would always defer to the captain. Now it would be a group of four or five players meeting with the head coach, instead of one player,” Holland said.
The Detroit Red Wings face a tricky opponent tonight in the Calgary Flames (7:30 PM on Bally Sports Detroit/Sportsnet East/Sportsnet Ontario/Sportsnet West/ESPN+/97.1 FM).
The Red Wings stand at 2-0-and-1 coming into tonight’s game, and are kicking off a set of 3 games to be played over the course of only 4 nights.
Calgary is 0-1-and-1, having most recently dropped a 3-2 overtime decision to Anaheim on Monday, and while the Flames placed center Glenn Gladwin on waivers, that was a roster-clearing move (as defenseman Tyler Pitlick will rotate into the lineup).
Calgary didn’t practice on Monday, choosing to fly to Detroit during the day instead, and the Flames are looking to shake things up as they kick off a 5-game road trip. Field Level Media offered the following take on the State of the Flames heading into tonight’s game:
Calgary will be seeking its first victory. The Flames lost to Edmonton 5-2 in their opener and 3-2 in overtime to Anaheim on Monday.
The offensive output has been modest even though they’ve had a combined 89 shots on goal during regulation in those games.
“I think we can be better around the net, for sure,” Flames coach Darryl Sutter told the Calgary Herald. “Still, that emphasis has to be on around the goalie more, and the second and thirds. There are very few goals that are highlight goals, when you look at it. Most of them are a screen or a flash play or a tip or a rebound or something like that. And I think, as a group, we can be better at that.”
The Flames begin a five-game, eight-night road trip, which also includes stops in Washington, New York, New Jersey and Pittsburgh.
Sutter believes his team needs to play smarter and tougher to have a successful journey.
“You have to accentuate the positive things and clean up little areas,” Sutter said. “We have some guys that have to be better players for us. Even after the two games, just in the little details of the game, they have to be better. For the type of team we have, they have to be better players in order for us to win games.”
Absent line rushes from Wednesday, you can watch the Flames-Ducks highlights here…
As recently as the 2019-20 season, the Wings began 3-1-0 — only to finish with a 17-49-5 record and a woeful .275 points percentage when the pandemic ended that season. They started 4-1-0 in 2017-18 and 6-2-0 in 2016-17 — and missed the playoffs both those seasons.
Still, there’s room for optimism and hope, especially this early in the season. And in forward Tyler Bertuzzi’s estimation, there’s belief this particular time the Wings can continue the good mojo and hockey.
“We got a lot of young guys with a lot of energy, and that makes the older guys have a lot more energy, too,” said Bertuzzi, who still puts himself in the younger group, incidentally. “It’s good to see them enjoying themselves and playing good hockey and playing in the NHL. It just makes everyone want to work and play harder, and work more together.”
Coach Jeff Blashill is enjoying the positive first week but realize it’s a small, small sample size.
“Winning is way more fun than losing, that’s a fact, and we’re in that business and you feel better about yourself,” Blashill said. “But the other thing, for sure, is this is an everyday league. We’ve played three games and we’ll have a game (Thursday) against a good team (Calgary) we’ll have to find a way to win.”
Kulfan continues; the Red Wings have a rough schedule for the rest of the month; the Wings will head on the road to play in Montreal on Saturday, and Chicago on Sunday;
The team heads back home for two days off, then plays another stretch of 3 games in four nights in Washington, at home vs. Florida, and then on the road again vs. Toronto to finish the month;
Then the Wings play 11 times in 20 days to start November, so it’s going to become a grind very quickly for a Wings team that’s had enough rest to avoid the injury bug thus far.
We’ll learn more about both teams’ lines and lineups in about twelve hours, so come back for the game-day coverage.
Seider was the defenseman of the year in the Swedish Hockey League last season. The 20-year-old has three assists in three games for the Red Wings (and didn’t even earn an assist on Raymond’s goal, despite starting the sequence with a nifty move to avoid an opponent in the Detroit zone and a pass to transition the puck the other way).
Raymond also came from the SHL and has scored three points (one goal, two assists) in three games for Detroit, which is off to a 2-0-1 start and hosts the Calgary Flames on Thursday (7:30 p.m. ET; SNE, SNO, SNW, BSDET, ESPN+, NHL LIVE).
“It will be very interesting to follow a player like Moritz Seider, who we saw a lot here in Sweden last year,” said Red Wings legend Nicklas Lidstrom, a Hockey Hall of Fame defenseman who lives in Sweden but came to Detroit for the start of the season. “He has a great future. He has all it takes to be a really good player and an asset for Detroit. And that goes for Lucas Raymond as well. He had a very good preseason and is a promising player. These younger guys on the team are very interesting players. It will be fun to watch them.”
Raymond’s goal, at 6:17 of the third period, gave the Red Wings a 1-0 lead. He helped make it 2-0 with an assist 2:36 later, sending a saucer pass past an opponent along the right-wing boards in the neutral zone to Larkin, who fed forward Tyler Bertuzzi on the rush.
“Those are a couple real dynamic offensive plays,” coach Jeff Blashill said. “The one thing [Raymond] does pretty consistently is he plays a complete game, so what that does is earn trust, and if you earn trust, you get minutes. And he’s done a pretty good job of that.”
“He looks like he’s got great energy,” coach Jeff Blashill said. “He’s been on pucks. He’s always been kind of a junkyard dog in terms of how he plays, but he looks like he’s skating well, which is great. Over the years you have different guys that have had major back surgery and sometimes the damage is more significant than others and so you just don’t know.”
In only 12 games since the start of last season, Bertuzzi has 10 goals and 13 points.
“Obviously very happy,” Bertuzzi said. “Great start for the team, showing confidence and scoring goals. After missing almost a full year last year, it feels good to be back out there. We’re playing really well now.”
The Red Wings hoped Dylan Larkin would benefit from being reunited with Bertuzzi and it looks like he has, with three points (goal, two assists) in two games.
“Dyl’s our engine,” Bertuzzi said. “He brings speed and energy and leadership. It showed last night (in a 4-1 victory over Columbus). It’s going to keep showing through the rest of the season. Guys rely on him and he’s a big part of this team.”
The ECHL’s Toledo Walleye chose to not participate in the 2020-2021 season due to the pandemic, but the Walleye are back for this year’s campaign, and Toledo Blade correspondent Mark Monroe spoke with Walleye coach Dan Watson regarding the state of his team:
With the retirement of mainstay forwards Shane Berschbach (the team’s all-time leader in nearly every category) and Kyle Bonis and the departure of 2019 ECHL MVP Josh Kestner, there are offensive holes to fill.
But Watson has instilled a culture of success that has created lofty expectations every season. His teams have featured an up-tempo style balanced with tight checking and dependable goaltending.
“I think we have a little bit of everything again,” Watson said. “No. 1, we have a real good group of guys. We have some skill. We have some guys that can push the pace with their skating and the way they move pucks. We have some toughness. We have really good goaltending, as well. We will have a very competitive team that the fans will be proud of once we get playing.”
The team’s Kelly Cup aspirations begin in net with the goaltending tandem of Billy Christopoulos and Kaden Fulcher. Christopoulos is a proven winner at the ECHL level, and Fulcher also has a track record of success in junior hockey.
The team’s offense received a huge offensive boost when captain T.J. Hensick, a 35-year-old former NHL forward, opted to put retirement off for at least one more year. Hensick has played in 104 career regular-season games for Toledo, racking up 114 points with 33 goals and 81 assists. He played in his 900th career game the last time the Walleye were on the ice, at the Huntington Center on March 11, 2020.
Watson believes Hensick is in better shape than he was in 2020 and looks energized.
“I really wanted him back, and he knows that,” Watson said. “He has dedicated himself to being ready for the season, and it’s showing.”
The Red Wings will hold a “viewing party” for the team’s October 27th road game vs. the Washington Capitals at the MotorCity Casino:
Join Darren McCarty and Joey Kocur for our first #RedWings viewing party at Sound Board inside MotorCity Casino Hotel on 10/27 to watch our matchup with the Capitals! (Event is 21+) #LGRW
Steve Yzerman was named the Detroit Red Wings general manager on April 19, 2019. But the Yzerman managerial era didn’t start until last Thursday when defenseman Moritz Seider and forward Lucas Raymond made their NHL debut.
Those were the two players Yzerman chose in the first round of the first two drafts he commanded as Detroit’s GM. Yzerman has joked in the past that his scouting department does the work and then he gets credit when they succeed and he can blame the scouts if it doesn’t work out.
But anyone who knows Yzerman knows those first-round picks were his decisions. You can tell that by the people chosen. It looks like Yzerman hit a home run with both selections. But it will be a while before that is truly determined. It’s not even a given yet that Raymond will stay with the team this season, although it looks better every time Raymond makes a play or takes a shot.
The Red Wings situation is similar to what a college football coach goes through when he takes over a struggling team. It’s said that they shouldn’t be judged until their recruits start to become starters.
This is the first season the Red Wings are getting the youngsters that Yzerman drafted. It will still be a couple or three seasons before Yzerman has put together a group the way he wants it. But you can see it starting the take shape.
Bally Sports Detroit posted this week’s episode of Wingspan, addressing the Red Wings young players’ development over the course of 21 minutes of video:
Thomas Greiss, Red Wings (2-0-0, .969 Sv%, 1.00 GAA): Maybe Greiss is more used to the barrage of shots having already spent one season behind Detroit’s shoddy defense. Alex Nedeljkovic made 41 saves in his first start but allowed seven goals, while Greiss has now saved 62 and allowed just two. This is normally not a big deal, but the Wings have suddenly turned from lottery-bound to being able to make the Atlantic Division just a tad more interesting.
Greiss could be the starting goalie on a team that might get close to 40 wins, and he likely will get the start Thursday against Calgary and then get one more start during a weekend back-to-back in Montreal and Chicago. It’ll give us a chance to see more of Greiss and also give Nedeljkovic one more chance to fight for his share of the playing time. In fantasy leagues where goalies are scarce, Greiss should still be available and worth a wait-and-see stash with a much-improved Red Wings team. There will be bad nights, but the Wings also have enough talent to compete now, going toe-to-toe with the Lightning then winning two straight with only one goal allowed per game.
Last season, the Wings couldn’t limit their opponents to one goal for consecutive games until the third month.
Continued; I have the feeling that the Wings will split Greiss and Nedeljkovic’s workload fairly evenly over the course of the entire season, but right now, it’s probably Greiss’s net to lose.
