Month: November 2021

Prospect (free) Round-up: Christopoulos, Walleye beat Fort Wayne

I never quite know what to do with the Toledo Walleye as they have exactly one Red Wings prospect right now in goaltender Victor Brattstrom, who’s the back-up behind Billy Christopoulos this season, but for completeness’ sake:

Toledo won a 3-2 overtime decision vs. the Fort Wayne Komets on Thursday, with Christopoulos stopping 33 shots. The Walleye’s website posted a recap:

TJ Hensick netted two goals in regulation, Billy Christopoulos made a season-best 34 saves, and Josh Dickinson saved the day with a game winner as the Toledo Walleye defeated the Fort Wayne Komets for their first overtime victory of the year.

The Walleye’s Thanksgiving victory in Fort Wayne marked the Fish’s fourth win in the last five games. Toledo leapfrogged the Komets in the Central Division standings with the win to take control of the division lead with a 9-5-0 record.

Continued; the Walleye will wrap up a stretch of 3 games in 3 nights tomorrow at home vs. the Indy Fuel.

Prospect Round-up Europe: Johansson 1A, Edvinsson 1A in SHL

Of Red Wings prospect-related note in Europe on Thursday:

In the Finnish Liiga, Eemil Viro finished at -1 with 1 shot in 15:30 played as TPS Turku lost 4-1 to KooKoo;

In a derby between Southern Swedish teams, William Wallinder missed out on Rogle BK’s 4-3 overtime victory over the Malmo Redhawks;

Albert Johansson had an assist, finishing at +1 with 2 shots in 21:02 played as Farjestads BK won 4-1 over Timra IK:

And in Frolunda HC’s 5-1 setback vs. Orebro:

Simon Edvinsson had an assist, finishing at +1 with 3 shots in 19:44 played:

Theodor Niederbach finished at -1 with 1 shot in 10:40 played;

And Elmer Soderblom finished even with no shots in 16:33 played.

Kulfan’s Thanksgiving notebook: time to give Ned a longer look

The Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan filed an American Thanksgiving Day notebook this afternoon, suggesting that the Red Wings might want to “go” with Alex Nedeljkovic as their starting goaltender after his spectacular performance against the St. Louis Blues on Wednesday:

Since an opening-night 7-6 overtime loss against Tampa Bay — a game Nedeljkovic, though allowing seven goals, was still one of the Wings’ better players that evening — Nedeljkovic has gradually progressed to a level close to last season’s Calder Trophy finalist-level season he had in Carolina.

Nedeljkovic is now 5-3-3 with a 2.76 goals-against average, and .917 save percentage.

“As the year’s gone on, as a group, we’ve gotten better and better,” Nedeljkovic said. “We can be a little more consistent in some areas. The chemistry is there, and everybody’s comfortable with each other, we are jelling pretty good. Some nights we’re having a little too many miscues and we’re not really as consistent as we’d like to be. Coming into December, we have to kind of tighten up there and really start to bunker down.”

As for the dramatic third-period saves, Nedeljkovic felt there was a factor involved for his teammates as much as the saves were important for him.

“For the guys, it’s just knowing I have their backs,” Nedeljkovic said. “A few of them I was caught out of position. So just giving them confidence they can play their game and swagger, and if something slips up, I can come up with the save.”

Continued

The Athletic’s Duhatschek discusses historical rookie teammates finishing as Calder Trophy finalists

The Athletic’s Eric Duhatschek filed a mailbag article this morning, and he leads things off with a question regarding the Red Wings’ dynamic rookie duo of Lucas Raymond and Moritz Seider:

Regarding Lucas Raymond and Moritz Seider’s strong starts in Detroit; are there comparables to having 2 players on the same team that will both most likely take top 2 of the top 5 slots in Calder? — Kyle A.

Actually, there are a number of parallels to the situation you outline, and a lot depends on how far back in time you want to go. In the NHL’s Original Six era, Dave Keon won the 1961 Calder Trophy ahead of his Maple Leafs teammate Bob Nevin. In 1950, two Bruins (Jack Gelineau and Phil Maloney) ran one-two; the year before, in 1949, it was a pair of Rangers (Pentti Lund and Allan Stanley) who managed the trick. In the modern era, as reader Andy B. pointed out, the best example came in the 2002 Calder race, when Thrashers teammates Dany Heatley and Ilya Kovalchuk finished one-two ahead of third-place finisher Kristian Huselius of the Panthers.

Others came close to duplicating that feat:

In 2007, the Penguins’ Evgeni Malkin won the Calder, with teammate Jordan Staal finishing No. 3. (Paul Stastny, then with Colorado, was second).

In 2008, the Blackhawks’ Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews finished first and third, with the Capitals’ Nicklas Backstrom sandwiched in between.

In 2013-14, when Colorado’s Nathan MacKinnon won the award, a pair of Tampa Bay Lightning forwards, Ondrej Palat and Tyler Johnson, finished second and third.

In 2016-17, the year Auston Matthews won, the Leafs placed three in the top six: Mitch Marner was No. 5 and William Nylander No. 6.

So, there is a lot of precedent to think that if Raymond and Seider can keep up their early-season performances, the voters would have no issue rewarding them both. I’m assuming your concern is they might split the vote. History shows that while that can often happen in the Hart Trophy race, it’s less likely to occur in Calder voting.

Continued (paywall)

Duff discusses Carter Mazur this morning

I kind of keep my eye on the University of Denver Pioneers more than most teams because they’re the Frolunda Indians of NCAA Hockey–they’ve got three Red Wings prospects on the team in sophomore defenseman Antti Tuomisto, freshman defenseman Shai Buium and Jackson, MI native and freshman forward Carter Mazur.

Mazur was named the NCHC Player of the Week last week, and Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff discusses Mazur’s play of late in his daily hockey digest:

Detroit Red Wings draft pick Carter Mazur has wasted little time adjusting to NCAA hockey. The Denver Pioneers left-winger has scored seven goals in 12 games. That gives Mazur a share of the NCHC freshmen lead in goals with his Denver teammate Massimo Rizzo.

Netting his seven goals on 37 shots, Mazur is showing a 18.9% shooting percentage. With 7-3-10 totals, he’s averaging 0.833 points per game.

Born in Jackson, Michigan, Mazur grew up a Red Wings fan. His favorite player as a kid was Darren Helm. In youth hockey, one of his coaches was Red Wings director of amateur scouting Kris Draper.

“Being drafted by an organization like the Red Wings is unreal feeling and so surreal to me,” Mazur admitted, recalling the atmosphere when he heard the Wings calling his name 70th overall on draft day.

Duff continues, also discussing Jonatan Berggren’s surge in Grand Rapids; I got to meet Mazur and Buium at the World Junior Summer Showcase in Plymouth, MI last summer, right after I got my gallbladder out, and you couldn’t meet two more grounded kids.

Buium’s parents are Israeli, so he’s had the first-generation-American-immigrant’s experience, and Mazur’s just this plucky kid that is delighted to be a pain in the ass.

Happy American Thanksgiving

My middle-of-the-night Facebook thought on my phone went something like this:

Sometimes one has to be thankful for the struggles that one goes through on both a daily basis and over the long haul as we attempt to “adult” our way through life.

There are a lot of moments when I don’t really know how I’m going to get through whatever issue I’m facing–in no small part due to living with chronic anxiety and depression–but I seem to learn and grow and find a way more often than not.

On an American Thanksgiving morning where I’m bleary-eyed, I’m not quite sure how we’ve managed to get through the last couple months of TMR 3.0, but this smallest of small businesses is making it through. So, this morning, the best thing that has happened to me since I got my gallbladder out last July and decided that it was time to get back to blogging…

Is you. I’m incredibly grateful for your support, monetarily and readership-wise, your clicks, your tolerance of my rambles, and the fact that you’re probably skimming this paragraph this morning.

I hope you know that you’re the reason I do this–I believe that providing a service in making following the Red Wings a little easier is a valuable use of my time–and I do plan on slowly but surely growing and fleshing out the blog over the next couple of months.

In the interim, let’s try to continue taking things a shift at a time, and be as grateful for each other as we can be. Much love and respect to everybody this morning.

And 9-9-and-3 is .500 in the NHL, which isn’t a bad thing.

Khan in the morning: Big Ned

MLive’s Ansar Khan discusses Alex Nedeljkovic’s role in the Red Wings’ 4-2 victory over the St. Louis Blues this morning. As Khan notes, the Red Wings weren’t necessarily thrilled with the fact that Nedeljkovic had to make 33 spectacular saves along the way toward bailing out the Wings last night, but they took it:

“Especially in the third, he was unbelievable, made huge, huge saves,” Red Wings coach Jeff Blashill said. “We gave up way too many chances in the third. We got to get better, but you’d like to get better when you’re winning, and the goalie gives you a chance to do that and I thought he was great.”

Blashill broke from the strict rotation he has used almost exclusively with Nedeljkovic and Thomas Greiss and started Nedeljkovic in back-to-back games. The Red Wings (9-9-3) stopped a four-game slide (0-3-1).

Nedeljkovic made several saves with his quick lateral movement. His most noteworthy stop came about two minutes after Adam Erne put Detroit ahead 3-2 at 4:38 of the third, a diving glove save.

“Just battling, just trying to compete,” Nedeljkovic said. “I had to get back over. It was kind of a bang-bang play. Just getting out of position, recognizing the puck is on his stick already and I still was over on the other side of the net. I’m just trying to take up as much net as possible.”

The Blues, who had back-to-back power plays midway through the third, outshot the Red Wings 15-9 in the third period.

“A few (saves) I was kind of caught out of position, so for me really it was nice to save my own butt,” Nedeljkovic said. “Just giving (his teammates) the confidence to be able to play their game, play with some swagger, play with some confidence knowing that if something kind of slips up, I’ll be able to make the save for them.”

Continued; AWood40 posted a clip of game highlights from last night, too:

Recap: Griffins double up Milwaukee

The Grand Rapids Griffins overcame a plucky Milwaukee Admirals team on Wednesday night, with Dominik Shine scoring 2 goals, Kyle Criscuolo had a goal and two assists, Jonatan Berggren posted a goal and an assist, and Calvin Pickard stopping 18 of 20 shots en route to a 6-3 win over the Milwaukee Admirals.

The Griffins’ website posted a recap:

Continue reading Recap: Griffins double up Milwaukee

Prospect round-up: Brattstrom’s bad night; Cossa wins, Cotton 2A in WHL; Draper 1+1 in blowout win

Of Red Wings prospect-related note in North America:

In the ECHL, Victor Brattstrom had a very rough evening, as did his Toledo Walleye teammates. Brattstrom stopped 26 of 35 shots on Wednesday, surrendering 9 goals as Toledo lost 9-2 to the Cincinnati Cyclones.

Toledo is playing a stretch of 3 games in 3 nights (they play in Fort Wayne on Thanksgiving, and host Indy on Friday), so Brattstrom should wind up back in the Walleye cage before all is said and done on Friday.

In the OHL, Pasquale Zito had an assist, but finished at -3 with 4 shots and a 5-for-14 faceoff record as the Windsor Spitfires lost 5-2 to the London Knights;

In the WHL, Sebastian Cossa stopped 30 of 33 shots in the Edmonton Oil Kings’ 5-3 win over Red Deer;

Alex Cotton had 2 assists, finishing at +1 with 4 shots (and earned second star honors) as his Vancouver Giants won 3-2 in overtime over the Portland Winterhawks. Cross Hanas finished at -2 with 4 shots and 2 minor penalties taken for Portland;

In the BCHL, Kienan Draper scored a goal and added an assist, finishing even in the Chilliwack Chiefs’ 11-1 win over Powell River;

And in NCAA Hockey, Ryan O’Reilly finished at -1 with 1 shot as the Arizona State University Sun Devils lost 4-3 to Bemidji State.