Month: July 2022

I believe that a player’s personal life is, for lack of a better term, personal, and regardless of the gravity of the milestone, I try to keep player gossip to a minimum unless somebody’s doing something that might hurt themselves or others.

But the Wings’ press corps is posting this, so I’m gonna confirm: Dylan Larkin, the Red Wings’ captain, posted an Instagram post this morning stating that he proposed to his girlfriend:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Dylan Larkin (@dylanlarkin71)

I obviously wish Dylan and Kenzy all the best, and the fact that Dylan’s dog, Ellie, seems rather unimpressed by the proceedings is adorable.

But let’s give the boy some space, eh?

A Saturday morning tidbit: I believe that it bears noting that Daily Faceoff’s Frank Seravalli has consistently included Red Wings forward Filip Zadina on his “Trade Targets Board” every day for the last month.

I’m not sure whether Zadina is in play, but it’s a thought given his struggles to break through offensively as a 21-year-old with the Wings last season:

23. Filip Zadina
Right Wing, Detroit Red Wings
Age: 22
Stats: 75 GP, 10 G, 14 A, 24 Pts
Contract: Pending RFA, not eligible for arbitration
Scoop: There was no shortage of excitement around Zadina when the Red Wings selected him at No. 6 overall in 2018. GM Steve Yzerman doesn’t tip his hand, but the sense league-wide is a change of scenery is in order for Zadina. He is a gifted shooter, but the knock on him is that he’s become more of a perimeter player – and only a select few players (Alex Ovechkin and Steven Stamkos) can consistently score in today’s NHL from the outside.

The Red Wings are the Vatican of sports organizations: You might see some white smoke or black smoke when they elect a new Pope, but that’s about it leak-wise. I was surprised when Kevin Weekes nailed the Derek Lalonde hiring a day early, but he’s Kevin Weekes. He knows.

Long story long, would you trade Zadina, or do you feel that he’s worth one more season’s worth of auditioning for a top-six role? And if you were to trade Zadina, for whom would you try to trade him?

The Free Press’s Helene St. James wrote her early morning-published missive for the day, and in today’s column, she discusses the Red Wings’ rationale for acquiring goaltender Ville Husso from the St. Louis Blues:

“There’s a not a lot of goalies out there, and we need depth at that position,” [Red Wings GM Steve] Yzerman said Friday. “We thought it a worthwhile decision to make. We elected to use a draft pick to try and improve. We certainly liked the season that Ville had.”

Husso appeared in 40 games with the St. Louis Blues last season, posting a 25-7-6 record with a 2.56 goals-against average, a 0.916 save percentage and two shutouts.

Immediately after trading for Husso, 27, the Wings signed him for three years, $14.25 million. Alex Nedeljkovic, 26, who was acquired last summer, is under contract through 2022-23 for $3 million. Essentially Yzerman created a situation where the Wings have two goaltenders of similar age with a combined salary cap hit below $8 million. 

“It doesn’t prevent us signing at some point extending Ned’s contract at all,” Yzerman said. “We’re in a position to do that. We’ve got two guys we feel can play in the league and based on albeit somewhat of a limited action in the NHL, both guys have shown they can win games.” 

Continued (paywall); one former St. Louis Blue is particularly excited that Husso’s coming to Detroit:

Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman spoke with the media after the conclusion of day 2 of the 2022 NHL Draft on Friday…

And, as Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff notes, Yzerman made an intriguing comment regarding his attempts to make more changes happen at the draft:

“We’re chipping away at things,” Yzerman acknowledged. “Without elaborating, there was one or two more things I was hoping to accomplish that we weren’t able to do but overall, we’re all excited. We just finished the draft and hopefully some of these kids turn into players.”

Turning his lament into hopefulness, Yzerman was maintaining a belief that the book isn’t closed on those other moves he was seeking out.

“No,” he said. “We’ll just keep working at things.”

The Athletic’s Max Bultman pondered Yzerman’s remarks:

The AHL’s Hershey Bears, the affiliate of the Washington Capitals, posted a press release when it was announced that the Red Wings had hired Alex Westlund as their goaltending coach on Friday morning. This got lost in the 2022 NHL Draft, Day 2 shuffle, but I think it’s an important press release to read as it explains the background of someone you probably hadn’t heard of until today:

The Detroit Red Wings announced today that they have hired Alex Westlund as goaltending coach.

Westlund, 46, departs Hershey after serving as the team’s associate goaltending coach for the past five seasons. Under Westlund’s watch, Hershey’s goaltending tandem of Pheonix Copley and Zach Fucale won the Harry “Hap” Holmes Memorial Award in 2020-21, presented to the goaltender(s) on the team which allows the fewest goals per game in the regular season. The Bears allowed an average of 2.33 goals per game, finishing with the fewest goals against in the AHL for the first time since 1996-97. Westlund’s tenure in Hershey has also seen him guide goaltenders Ilya Samsonov and Vitek Vanecek, who have each graduated to the NHL.

The New Jersey native joined the Washington organization after spending two seasons as the goalie coach with the DEL’s Augsburg Panther Eishockey Club in Germany, in addition to working with Zagreb of the KHL. His resume also includes experience with USA Hockey, serving as the head goalie coach and evaluator for the New England District, being a member of the goalie evaluation group for the USA Hockey’s Select 17 Festival, and participating in the prestigious Warren Strelow Camp.

Westlund has a page on EliteProspects.com, which states that the native of Flemington Village, New Jersey played a fair amount of AHL and ECHL games, but mostly split his time between the KHL and the ICE Hockey League in Austria.

He retired after the 2014-15 season, and headed to the German League with Ausburger, he spent one year with Medvedscak Zagreb when that Croatian team still existed in the KHL, and he headed to Hershey, PA.

Red Wings defenseman Moritz Seider conducted a 10-minute interview with SWR Sport in Germany during his summertime training in Mannheim, and while the interview is in German, you won’t be surprised to find out that Moritz works his ass off:

There are shorter clips on SWR Sport’s website as part of a written interview anchored by said clips. Here’s a rough translation thereof–and it’s a long interview.

You can thank my Google Email Alerts for tipping me off to the full interview, which was online a couple of days ago, but posted to YouTube and as text on Thursday night:

The Detroit Red Wings made 8 draft picks over the course of the second day of the NHL’s 2022 Draft, and drafting a total of 9 players in Montreal. The Red Wings’ media corps weighed in as to the substance of the Wings’ picks, and here is a summary of said media corps’ takes:

1. MLive’s Ansar Khan noted that the Red Wings focused on drafting center-ice prospects:

The Detroit Red Wings loaded up on forwards in the draft, addressing an organizational need. After selecting center Marco Kasper eighth overall Thursday, the Red Wings picked three centers and three wingers among eight players they drafted Friday during the final six rounds at Montreal’s Bell Centre.

“Obviously, we need some help at center, at least in the prospect pool,” general manager Steve Yzerman told media at the draft. “The players that we had (targeted) in the later rounds were centers. It’s just kind of the way the list worked out for us.”

Detroit took a pair of left wings in the second round in Dylan James (No. 40) and Dmitri Buchelnikov (No. 52).

James (6-0, 177) was the USHL rookie of the year at Sioux City (28 goals, 61 points in 62 games) as part of a championship team.

“A complete hockey player,” Kris Draper, Detroit’s director of amateur scouting, told reporters in Montreal. “We really like his 200-foot game, used in all situations. When you commit to North Dakota, you’re going there to play hockey. That’s something we really like.”

2. The Free Press’s Helene St. James continued the narrative…

The Red Wings’ media corps weighed in on the Red Wings’ acquisition of Ville Husso from the St. Louis Blues, and here’s MLive’s Ansar Khan’s take on the deal…

[GM Steve Yzerman] expects Husso, 27, and Alex Nedeljkovic, 26, to form a strong tandem.

“We certainly like the season that Ville had,” Yzerman told media at the draft. “We think he can come in and solidify the tandem with Alex. We think we’ve got two guys we can put in net every night and give us a reasonably good chance to win.”

Husso (6-3, 209) went 25-7-6, with a 2.56 goals-against average and .919 save percentage for the Blues. He wasn’t as effective in the playoffs, however, going 2-5 with a 3.67 GAA and .890 save percentage.

“We feel comfortable that he’ll make us a better team,” Yzerman said. “We had the cap space, and the contract isn’t seven years or anything like that. It’s a very reasonable term for us. There’s not a lot of goalies out there and we felt we better get one. We need depth at that position. We thought it was a worthwhile decision to make.”

The Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan’s take on the trade…

The Detroit Red Wings brought in Ville Husso from the St. Louis Blues today, and signed him to a 3-year, $14.25 million contract. Several media pundits weighed in on the deal, including The Athletic’s Pierre LeBrun…

The Avalanche, meanwhile, have let it be known they’re willing to move Kuemper’s rights before he hits the market Wednesday. That’s exactly what the Blues did Friday morning netting a third-round pick for moving Husso’s rights to Detroit. I really like this move by Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman. First of all, the contract was sensible, three years and $4.75 million AAV. But secondly, Husso was the youngest of the notable UFA goalies which fits in nicely with the program in Detroit.

It’s believed the Wings also had interest in [Jack] Campbell but given the uncertainty and competition for him, this felt the safer route for Detroit.

Real sneaky play here by Yzerman.

Daily Faceoff’s Scott Burnside…

New Red Wings assistant coach Bob Boughner is a native of Windsor, Ontario and was drafted by the Detroit Red Wings, so his career is coming full circle in joining Derek Lalonde’s staff as an assistant coach. Here’s what Boughner had to say about taking his new job with the Windsor Star’s Jim Parker:

“Right in my own backyard is like a dream come true,” the 51-year-old Boughner said Friday of returning to the Red Wings.

Boughner was a member of one of Detroit’s most famous draft classes that included third-round pick Nicklas Lidstrom, fourth-round pick Sergei Fedorov, sixth-round pick Dallas Drake and 11th-round pick Vladimir Konstantinov. That draft class went on to play nearly 6,000 combined NHL games. A rugged defenceman, Boughner logged 630 games over parts of 10 seasons in the NHL with Buffalo, Nashville, Pittsburgh, Calgary, Carolina and Colorado, but still recalls hearing his name called by the Red Wings in 1989.

“It was at the old rink in Minnesota (the Met Center in Bloomington) and my parents were there,” Toughener said. “Jimmy D. (Devellano), Nick Polano and Jacques Demers. I still have the jersey (after being drafted). I have it in storage now, but it’s framed and I used to have it on my wall.”

Boughner recalls talking to former Red Wings captain and current general manager Steve Yzerman back in those early days at training camp in Flint. The two reconnected less than a week ago after Boughner was let go as head coach of the San Jose Sharks after parts of three seasons and the two reminisced about those days.

“It was funny when we started talking,” Boughner said. “I got fired five-six days ago and my phone started ringing a little with teams trying to fill out staffs.”

This is the first NHL head coaching job for Lalonde, who was looking for someone with NHL experience to be his associate coach.

“I knew from our first conversation that we had a lot in common with the way we saw the game,” Boughner said of Lalonde. “It just seemed like a good fit.”

Continued