Month: November 2021

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NHL analyst Kevin Weekes breaks down three weekend games that he will be watching, and he breaks them down for NHL.com. According to Weekes, Sunday’s match-up between the Red Wings and Vegas Golden Knights will be one to watch:

Vegas Golden Knights at Detroit Red Wings (Sunday, 6 p.m. ET; BSDET, ATTSN-RM, ESPN+, NHL LIVE)

Detroit (4-5-2) hosts Vegas in the second of a back-to-back for each team. The Red Wings are much improved from last season, led by rookies Lucas Raymond and Moritz Seider. Raymond, a forward, leads all rookies before games Friday with 10 points (five goals, five assists) and Seider, a defenseman, is second with nine (all assists). Forward Tyler Bertuzzi is also off to a fast start with nine points (six goals, three assists) in eight games. The Red Wings, though, have lost three straight after starting 4-2-2 and visit the Buffalo Sabres on Saturday before playing the Golden Knights.

Vegas acquired center Jack Eichel in a trade with the Sabres on Thursday and although he won’t be in the lineup for at least a few months, it sent a huge message to the team that management believes they can still win the Stanley Cup this season. Forwards Mark Stone, Max Pacioretty and William Karlsson are out with injuries and the Golden Knights are tied with the Ottawa Senators for 24th in the NHL in scoring (2.50 goal per game). After getting shut out 4-0 by the Maple Leafs on Thursday, they bounced back with a 5-1 win against the Senators on Thursday to even their record at 5-5-0. Robin Lehner made 38 saves and could start, although the Golden Knights will also be playing the second of a back-to-back after visiting the Montreal Canadians on Saturday.

Continued;

The Athletic’s Max Bultman broke down Moritz Seider’s game vs. the Boston Bruins last night via video, and here’s how he sets up said article:

Seider is off to a stellar start to his NHL career. As he skates around this morning, his eight points in 10 games are tied for second among all NHL rookies, trailing only his teammate, winger Lucas Raymond. Seider is also playing huge minutes for the rebuilding Red Wings: at 22 per night, he’s already in a legitimate top-pair role.

One of the league’s bottom-dwellers in recent seasons, the Red Wings got out of the gates hot this season at 4-2-1. But now they find themselves in the midst of a three-game losing streak, coming off perhaps their worst showing of the season.

Seider wants to stem that tide. When he was asked Wednesday about winning the league’s top rookie honor for October, he began his answer by saying, “Obviously, it would be way nicer to win more hockey games.”

This is a player who, at 20, has stepped into the NHL with a bright spotlight on him. It is clear, however, that he is not seeking it, and may not even like it all that much right now. When a question about his own play came up Wednesday, he said. “(I’ve) played, I think, pretty OK, but it’s definitely not about me. I don’t want to put myself in front of the team or want to talk about myself. I think we have to just find ways to win hockey games, and that will make us a better team in the end.”

Nonetheless, that spotlight on Seider is already here. And especially as he keeps progressing, it’s not going to vanish any time soon. Shortly after wiring a practice one-timer under the bar this morning, he will step off the ice, only to find Bally Sports Detroit waiting for him for an interview.

Continued (paywall)

The Red Wings find themselves amidst an 0-3-and-1 stretch, and they head to Buffalo to play the 4-5-and-1 Buffalo Sabres, who are looking to snap a 3-game losing streak of their own (they lost 5-2 to Seattle last night, in Seattle, and are traveling home today), tomorrow night in Buffalo.

The Wings will then head home to host the 5-5-and-0 Vegas Golden Knights on Sunday, and Vegas will be waiting for the Wings after last night’s 5-1 win over Ottawa.

Detroit’s coming off 3 very disappointing losses–to Toronto, Montreal and now Boston–and their schedule does the team no favors as the Wings are in the middle of a stretch of 11 games played over the course of 17 nights. But there is a positive this morning, per WXYZ’s Brad Galli:

The NHL’s rookie points leaders through Nov. 4?

Two Red Wings: Lucas Raymond and Moritz Seider pic.twitter.com/wFcnuY4jiC— Brad Galli (@BradGalli) November 5, 2021

Per the Grand Rapids Griffins comes a useful Tweet regarding tonight’s game vs. Iowa:

IT’S GAME DAY! We are in Iowa to take on the Wild at 8:00pm! #GoGRG

? : https://t.co/eaXIyjUSnT (FREE GAME)
? : https://t.co/EIEzgItQDD
? : https://t.co/QIz5YsPhcf pic.twitter.com/7VzVilAIqg— Grand Rapids Griffins (@griffinshockey) November 5, 2021

The Athletic’s Dom Luszczyszyn and Sean Gentille are back with a set of power rankings this week, and I had a feeling that their sarcasm would reach a fever pitch with the Wings at 0-3-and-1 over their past four games. I was not disappointed:

28. Detroit Red Wings

Record: 4-5-2
Last Week: 18
Dom rank: 27
Sean rank: 29

Dom: The Red Wings lost back-to-back games in Canada. Would’ve been sick as hell if their leading goal scorer was there to help, but alas.

Sean: Using his day off to have a great time online, no doubt.

Continued (paywall); I’m the first person to tell you that I disagree with Tyler Bertuzzi’s decision to miss 9 Canadian games, $450,000 and let down his teammates over the sake of not taking a shot, but the puns sting like a needle in the arm.

Shit, the thing I can’t figure out is why so many of the same people who defended Bertuzzi’s “courage” in not taking a shot are the same people who are insisting that Dylan Larkin is being a selfish bastard for stepping away from the team for personal reasons, but that’s just me…

Per Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff:

Another week, another honor for Detroit Red Wings rookie defenseman Moritz Seider.

The Alliance of European Hockey Clubs (EHC) presented its Young Player of The Year Award for the 2020-21 season and it’s Seider who’s the winner. Seider played last season for Rogle of the Swedish Hockey League. He was named SHL defenseman of the year.

One of the other finalists for the award was Red Wings farmhand Jonatan Berggren. He’s currently playing for the AHL Grand Rapids Griffins. Last season with Skelleftea AIK, Berggren was seventh in SHL scoring.

Continued; here’s what the European Hockey Clubs’ website had to say about Seider:

Young Player of the Year – presented by Fjällräven

Moritz Seider (Rögle Ängelholm, SWE/SHL) – The 6th overall Draft pick of the Detroit Red Wings in 2019, Seider impressed everyone with his mature game. When opponents tried to get the young German to lose control, the teenager simply hit back with force. During the regular season, Seider collected 7+21=28 points in 41 games, while dishing out a team-high 91 hits and averaging almost 21 mins TOI. Seider led Rögle to the SHL finals and was named the league’s best defenceman. At the IIHF World Championship, the 20-year-old helped get Germany’s best result in 11 years while being named tournament Best Defenceman and elected to the Worlds’ All-Star Team.

Other nominees: Jonatan Berggren (Skellefteå AIK, SWE/SHL), Anton Lundell (IFK Helsinki, FIN/Liiga), Janis Moser (EHC Biel-Bienne, SUI/NL) Lukas Reichel (Eisbären Berlin, GER/DEL).

ESPN’s Greg Wyshynski offers his NHL Awards favorites and finalists after the first month of the 2021-2022 NHL season (in an article for ESPN Plus), and you’ll not be surprised by his pick for the Calder Trophy as the NHL’s best rookie:

Calder Trophy (top rookie)

Leader: Moritz Seider, D, Detroit Red Wings
Finalists: Bowen Byram, D, Colorado Avalanche; Lucas Raymond, LW, Detroit Red Wings

First, we should note who isn’t in the Calder race at the moment: Cole Caufield, the heavy favorite for the award entering the season after his outstanding run with the Montreal Canadiens in the 2021 playoffs. The 20-year-old was demoted to the AHL after amassing just one assist in 10 games, skating to a minus-3.

His absence has opened the door to a pair of Detroit Red Wings rookies. Seider, the 20-year-old from Germany, has the early advantage with eight points in 10 games while skating 22:26 per contest.

His defensive game has been a little more refined than his offensive one, but given the competition he has faced it’s a heck of an opening month. Which, not coincidentally, ended with him being named rookie of the month for October.

Through Wednesday night’s games, Raymond led all rookies with nine points in 10 games, just ahead of Byram and Seider (both with 8). The 19-year-old Swede has an interesting story, in that his play at rookie camp and in the preseason all but forced the Red Wings into putting him on the roster instead of percolating in the minor leagues. He has rewarded their trust, and helped create one of the best lines in the NHL during the first month of the season with Dylan Larkin and Tyler Bertuzzi (67.1 expected goals percentage).

Byram has split time with former Calder winner Cale Makar and veteran Erik Johnson this season, and has outpaced both of them. He’s right there with Seider in leading rookie defensemen in scoring, although he has been a bit more protected with 61.5% of his shifts starting in the offensive zone. (Seider is at 54.6%.) A solid start for the fourth-overall pick in 2019.

Among the other candidates are Spencer Knight of the Florida Panthers, whom one expects will crack the top three by next month; Jonathan Dahlen of the San Jose Sharks; elder statesman Michael Bunting of the Toronto Maple Leafs; Cole Sillinger of the Columbus Blue Jackets; Dawson Mercer of the New Jersey Devils; and Trevor Zegras and Jamie Drysdale of the Anaheim Ducks.

Continued (paywall); the last two paragraphs scout the competition more than anything else, but I thought they were useful for completeness’ sake.

I fully believe that Cole Caufield will return successfully from the AHL, scoring enough goals to give Seider and Raymond significant competition, but I’m hoping that the Red Wings’ Calder duo keep their games up over the course of the long 82-game season (and possibly the Olympics).

The folks who engage in prospect assessments and the ranking of young players sometimes make incorrect assumptions regarding players. Sometimes they just miss the boat on a player, and sometimes the player develops in a manner that nobody expects.

As such, I don’t really see a reason for The Athletic’s Scott Wheeler to spend his time apologizing for “NHL prospects I was wrong about.” Shit happens, and we all make mistakes, so somebody like Wheeler, who both specializes in prospect assessments and busts his ass accumulating in-person and video evidence to support his theories, gets an, “It’s okay, man” from me.

Anyway, Wheeler does mention something Red Wings-related this morning, and I thought I’d share it with you:

Continue reading When ‘sorry about Seider’ isn’t necessary

The Detroit Red Wings lost 5-1 to the Boston Bruins last night, dropping their record to 4-5-and-2, and losing their 4th game in a row (0-3-and-1).

This morning, the Free Press’s Helene St. James and MLive’s Ansar Khan offer post-scripts which wrap up the coverage of the Wings’ loss.

St. James notes that the Red Wings are amidst a stretch of 11 games to be played over the course of 17 nights–and a set of 3 games to be played over the course of 4 nights, presently–so the Wings don’t have the time to sulk about their inferior record of late:

“In Montreal, we just weren’t good, we just played a really bad game,” alternate captain Marc Staal said after Thursday’s 5-1 loss to the Bruins. “Boston came out ready to go and played with a lot of pace and tempo and we just caught ourselves defending a lot and then found ourselves in the box. It’s tough to climb out of a hole like that. We have to stay positive as a team and look to improve on ourselves.”

Captain Dylan Larkin played in the 5-4 loss at Toronto but missed the 3-0 loss at Montreal and the Buffalo game for personal reasons. As big a part of the team as he is, it doesn’t explain why the Wings have been steamrolled at the start of the last two games. Against the Bruins, they managed just three shots in the first period.

“You’re on the road, teams are going to come out strong,” Staal said. “I think just playing a smart road game with the puck, just being simple, being hard, winning battles down low, all the little things that halt momentum for a home team off the start, we weren’t doing. That’s definitely something we can be better at and get ready to jump on teams early on.”

The Wings have played from behind in five straight games. They seemed to show something on Oct. 27, when they stormed back from a two-goal deficit to win in overtime Oct. 27 at Washington. The Wings then came home and rallied from another two-goal deficit to earn a point against the Florida Panthers.

Now the Wings have lost three straight in regulation, outscored, 13-5, and outshot, 116-68.

The Red Wings have one more road game, Saturday in Buffalo, and then they come home to play the Vegas Golden Knights on Sunday night.

Coach Blashill offers this take on the Wings’ struggles of late:

Continue reading HSJ, Khan in the morning: special teams play and a ‘shooting mentality’ are lacking