Month: December 2021

The Athletic’s Harman Dayal and Max Bultman filed a rather complicated collaboration this morning, discussing how the Red Wings ought to avoid becoming the next Vancouver Canucks team as the Wings navigate the turbulent waters of a difficult rebuilding effort:

The lesson Detroit can take from the Canucks is mostly about timing. There is a time for teams to dangle first-round picks. There’s even a time to take risks with long-term contracts for older players. But those risks need to be well-calculated, and part of that calculation has to be maximizing the chances of truly taking advantage of the early years of such a contract.

In Vancouver’s case, the [J.T.] Miller deal clearly worked out, and the Canucks deserve credit for it. But giving up the chance to draft a player like [Dylan] Guenther partly in order escape three cap anchors in the final year of their deals this past summer does not, in hindsight, look like a well-timed push — even with [Conor] Garland and [Oliver] Ekman-Larsson playing big roles for the Canucks.

And of course, the pressure on Vancouver’s management team didn’t help matters there — another difference from Detroit’s situation, at least for now. Clearly, Jim Benning and his staff could not afford to wait much longer for success to arrive. Steve Yzerman does not appear to be on any kind of clock. But at some point, he, too, will face some form of pressure.

Maybe that cleaner cap sheet now will allow him a bit more buffer to take swings when that pressure arrives. Maybe the Red Wings’ deep prospect cupboard will produce a hidden gem or two — one of the ways he managed to assemble a powerhouse in Tampa Bay. Maybe Detroit’s players make it crystal clear when it’s time to go all-in.

But most likely, Detroit is going to have to carefully weigh the timing of every big move it considers in the coming two years.

Continued (paywall)

The Associated Press posted an early preview of tomorrow night’s match-up between the Red Wings and the New York Islanders:

BOTTOM LINE: Detroit aims to end its three-game skid when the Red Wings play New York.

The Red Wings are 7-6-2 in conference play. Detroit is the top team in the Eastern Conference with 4.9 assists per game, led by Moritz Seider averaging 0.6.

The Islanders are 3-8-2 in Eastern Conference play. New York serves 11.8 penalty minutes per game, the most in the Eastern Conference. Zdeno Chara leads the team serving 53 total minutes.

In their last meeting on Dec. 4, Detroit won 4-3.

TOP PERFORMERS: Tyler Bertuzzi leads the Red Wings with a plus-nine in 20 games this season. Dylan Larkin has 8 points over the last 10 games for Detroit.

Brock Nelson leads the Islanders with nine goals and has 11 points. Mathew Barzal has one goal and eight assists over the last 10 games for New York.

LAST 10 GAMES: Red Wings: 5-4-1, averaging 2.6 goals, 4.6 assists, three penalties and 7.2 penalty minutes while giving up 3.3 goals per game with an .896 save percentage.

Islanders: 2-5-3, averaging 2.1 goals, 3.8 assists, 4.3 penalties and 11.6 penalty minutes while giving up 2.8 goals per game with a .908 save percentage.

The Free Press’s Helene St. James makes a very difficult determination this morning, suggesting that the Red Wings need the early-season version of Tyler Bertuzzi to return from COVID protocols to turn their struggling team around:

Getting back a top-line forward and power-play stalwart is welcome news to a team trying to overturn a three-game losing skid, but what would really help is if Bertuzzi looks more like his early-season self than the one who was underperforming before a positive test on Dec. 1 landed him in quarantine for 10 days/five games.

When the season began, Bertuzzi hadn’t played since the end of January, when a back injury ended up derailing his 2021 season and requiring surgery in April.

Any concern how that would affect him dissipated when he scored four goals in the opener. He had a point in each of the next two games, and another multipoint performance (goal, two assists) in his fifth game.

Bertuzzi gave an especially impressive performance Nov. 6 at Buffalo, with the Wings on an 0-3-1 skid. With the Sabres leading 3-1 in the third period (Bertuzzi had set up Pius Suter’s goal in the first period), Bertuzzi scored twice 90 seconds apart with less than seven minutes to play — and capped off the evening by setting up Moritz Seider in overtime.

St. James continues (paywall); I’m going to have to suggest, with all due respect to HSJ, that her own assertion later in the article that Bertuzzi’s point-per-game production was probably unsustainable is probably more accurate…

And his presence as a catalyst for offense on the forecheck is more important than Bertuzzi himself somehow regenerating his early-season point-plus-per-game production.

The truth of the matter is that Tyler’s energy and enthusiasm are tremendous, and that the Red Wings miss his spark more than they do his ability to score at a high rate.

The Athletic’s Scott Wheeler discusses Hockey Canada’s World Junior Championship team, whose roster will include Red Wings prospects Donovan Sebrango and Sebastian Cossa:

LHD Donovan Sebrango (Detroit Red Wings): I don’t think Sebrango was at his best throughout camp. His first touch accepting passes into his shooting stance seemed off in drills. He had a couple of chats with coaches during drills where he made a mistake defensively and there was some teaching happening (and while that’s not the kind of thing I’d typically read anything into in this setting, he had to be dialled in on that side because he’s not going to be asked to create offence for this group). Still, his age, experience and style of play make bringing him as a depth guy sensible.

…

G Sebastian Cossa (Detroit Red Wings): Cossa’s first test of the opener was a hard push from his right to his left to make a really tough pad save. That’s the quality, with his size and his power, that really sets him apart. He looked completely unbeatable down low, too. It was controlled pad save after controlled pad save, which actually stands in stark contrast from the summer camp when he got beat five-hole a bunch of times. On the flip side, he then got beat up high dropping into his butterfly early on a couple of shots in the second game. So there might be some give-and-take there. He stopped 47 of 51 shots (.922) in camp on the whole but I don’t think he has solidified his case for the starter’s net just yet.

Continued (paywall); my few viewings of Cossa have included the same concern–that Cossa leaves his feet too early and allows top-shelf goals because he drops that gigantic body into the butterfly almost instinctually, leaving the top half of the net open, especially over his catch glove.

The Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan filed a Sunday-afternoon notebook in which he discusses the Red Wings’ need to bounce back from their rough 3-game winless streak with a strong pre-Christmas showing over the next 5 games:

“You look at our most recent struggles,” Larkin said. “We had a couple of practice days, came out and won five in a row. We need to get back to work at home and hopefully get some guys back and see what can happen.”

Coach Jeff Blashill said after Friday’s loss that forward Tyler Bertuzzi (out five games on COVID-19 protocol) would be ready to play against the Islanders. The status of Marc Staal (COVID protocol), who has missed three games, remains uncertain.

The Wings need improvement on the defensive end, where they have allowed 18 goals in the last three losses. Detroit has sunk to 27th in the NHL with a 3.43 goals-against average.

“We’re going to get back to work and get better, especially in our D-zone coverage,” Blashill said. “We can’t give up the number of chances we gave up. We did create chances, our guys stayed with it in a tough environment (in Denver), and I’m happy for that. But we have to grow here. We got to get back, take a breath and be ready for a big game on Tuesday.”

Ramping up defensively and managing the puck better are two areas Blashill targeted after the loss to the Avalanche. 

“I’ve talked about it a lot — when you’re on the road you have to be great defensively and you have to manage the puck great to win,” Blashill said. “I don’t think even at home we’ve been great defensively or managed the puck well enough.  Sometimes you have to keep getting slapped in the face to continue to realize it, especially the puck management part of it. You can get away with it at times at home because momentum is totally different. If we want to win more on the road and we want to win later in the season, and we want to win against great teams, we have to keep working to be better defensively. We have to keep working to manage the puck.”

Continued; the Wings play 3 games at home and 2 on the road before Christmas, and their schedule is relatively spread out over the next couple of weeks, so they should have ample practice time with which to help remedy their defensive issues.

Detroit Hockey Now’s Kevin Allen posted a Sunday column discussing the potential impacts of the Red Wings’ 2021 first-round draft picks, Simon Edvinsson and Sebastian Cossa. Both will be playing in the World Junior Championship in Edmonton, and Edvinsson has apparently impressed in more ways than one while playing over 20 minutes a night for Frolunda HC:

“(Edvinsson is) a natural leader who is noticeable in the locker room,” said a Swedish source. “He acts like a mini-coach on the bench, always yelling instructions at his team mates on the ice, often sitting on the board, not on the bench.”

Edvinsson is expected to be a key player for Sweden’s National Junior team later this month. He has 12 points in 24 games as a puck-moving defenseman for Frolunda in the Swedish. At 18, he played 21 minutes, 46 seconds in Frolunda’s last game.

Since Yzerman took over, the Red Wings’ are tight-lipped about their future plans, but there is talk around the league about the possibility that Edvinsson will be given a shot to play in the NHL next season. Edvinsson and Seider are about the same size — 6-foot-4, 205 pounds. But Edvinsson is more of a risk-taker. He does make more mistakes than NHL coaches like. But he’s figuring out what he should and shouldn’t do.

Continued

Of Red Wings-related prospect note in North America on Sunday:

In the BCHL, Kienan Draper didn’t register a point in the Chilliwack Chiefs’ 4-1 win over Langley;

And Red Savage didn’t play in the Miami of Ohio Redhawks’ 7-4 win over Mercyhurst as Savage is heading to Plymouth, MI for the U.S. World Junior Evaluation camp.

MLive’s Ansar Khan answered reader questions in a mailbag feature this morning:

Q: I keep reading how Bertuzzi is the league’s only unvaccinated player, and it is causing him to miss games. What are you hearing about what pressures he is getting from the team (management or players) about this? If I was (Steve) Yzerman/(Chris) Ilitch, I would be quite upset that he is hurting the team over this. – Ron

A: Publicly, Yzerman, coach Jeff Blashill and captain Dylan Larkin, Bertuzzi’s close friend, support his decision. Blashill and the players genuinely like Bertuzzi, so I don’t know if he is getting pressure behind the scenes to get vaccinated.

Ultimately, Yzerman will decide if Bertuzzi has a future in the organization, and the general manager has shown he is aggressive and not hesitant to make bold moves.

Is Yzerman prepared to go through another season with one of his best players ineligible to play anywhere from eight to 11 games (depending on the schedule), assuming Canada continues to deny entry to the unvaccinated? It is probably easier to accept on a declining team entering a rebuild, not on a club making strides and aiming for the playoffs, as the Red Wings surely will be next season, if not this year.

My guess is Yzerman wants no part of that. Bertuzzi’s contract ($4.75 million cap hit) expires after 2022-23, when he’s due to become an unrestricted free agent. I doubt that Yzerman will want to re-sign him and will look to move him well before that, maybe in the offseason, maybe even at the trade deadline.

Continued, with Khan explaining that Bertuzzi’s trade value is reduced due to his vaccination status;

I’ve always assumed that he’s probably going to get moved because he’s older (27) and is so hot-and-cold more than anything else. Bertuzzi is an integral instigating type of player that can really “stir the drink” on a winning team, but his vaccination status…

That breaks a lot of unwritten rules regarding “taking one for the team,” as Darren McCarty suggested earlier this season.

The Free Press’s Helene St. James posted a subscriber-only article this morning which discusses the “state of the Red Wings” as the Wings limp home winless in 3 games, in which they gave up 5, 6 and 7 goals, respectively:

“If we want to win more on the road and we want to win later in the season, and we want to win against great teams, we have to keep working to be better defensively and we have to keep working to manage the puck,” [coach Jeff] Blashill said.

“We’re going to get back to work and get better, especially in our D-zone coverage, because we can’t give up nearly the number of chances we gave up. But we did create lots of chances, and I’m happy for that. But we’ve got to grow here. We’ve got to get back, take a breath, and then get ready for a big game on Tuesday.”

The Wings (13-12-3) are 9-3-2 at LCA. Their five-game winning streak featured four home games sandwiched around a victorious outing in Boston. The absence of fans last season certainly emphasized their importance, but again, the Wings aren’t going to succeed anywhere if they don’t establish a defensive identity. Unlike the Avalanche, averaging with a league-leading 4.38 goals per game, the Wings don’t have the offensive power to mask defensive lapses.

“Without a doubt, when you’re on the road, you have to be great defensively and manage the puck great,” Blashill said. “I don’t think, even at home, we’ve been great defensively and managed the puck well enough. So if we want to be a team that can win both at home and on the road, we have to do that better. It’s a lesson that our guys are learning. Sometimes you have to keep kind of getting slapped in the face to continue to realize especially the puck management part of it. You get away with it at times at home because momentum is totally different.

“I think our team understands that we can be a really, really good team. We have to get back to work and I think our guys have a self-belief, and that belief has been earned through the work they’ve put in, and now we just have to get back and play a really good game on Tuesday.”

Continued (paywall)

Of Red Wings prospect-related note in North America on Saturday night:

In the ECHL, Kaden Fulcher stopped 16 of 19 shots as the Toledo Walleye lost 3-2 to the Iowa Heartlanders on Saturday night;

In the QMJHL, Oscar Plandowski finished at -1 in his return to the lineup from suspension as the Charlottetown Islanders won 5-3 over the Saint John Sea Dogs;

Jan Bednar was the back-up in the Acadie-Bathurst Titan’s 5-1 win over Val-d’Or;

In the OHL, Pasquale Zito scored a goal, finishing at +1 with 2 shots, an 0-for-5 faceoff record and a major penalty for boarding in the Windsor Spitfires’ 2-1 win over Kitchener;

In the WHL, the Sebastian Cossa-less Edmonton Oil Kings lost 5-2 to Winnipeg;

Cross Hanas had a goal and an assist, finishing at +4 with 4 shots in the Portland Winterhawks’ 7-4 win over Spokane;

Alex Cotton finished at -1 with 7 shots in the Vancouver Giants’ 5-2 loss to Victoria;

In the BCHL, Kienan Draper scored a goal in the Chilliwack Chiefs’ 4-1 loss to Cowichan Valley;

And in NCAA Hockey, Cooper Moore finished at +2 with 4 shots in the University of North Dakota Fighting Hawks’ 4-1 win over Colorado College;

Sam Stange finished at -1 with 1 shot in the University of Wisconsin Badgers’ 5-4 loss to Penn State;

Jack Adams finished even in the University of Notre Dame Fighting Irish’s 1-0 loss to Michigan State;

Ryan O’Reilly scored a goal and added an assist, finishing at +2 with 4 shots in the Arizona State University Sun Devils’ 4-1 win over Clarkson;

And in the University of Denver Pioneers’ 6-2 loss to Minnesota-Duluth:

Carter Mazur scored a goal and added an assist, finishing at +1 with 2 shots;

Shai Buium finished at -1;

And Antti Tuomisto finished even with 3 shots.