Month: July 2022

Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman’s most polarizing signing this month is a simple answer: the signing of 31-year-old Ben Chiarot.

The big defenseman signed a 4-year, $19 million contract (with an average aggregate value of $4.75 million per season), and the contract includes a modified no-trade clause (per CapFriendly) over the course of the deal.

That’s a lot of money to be paying a defenseman on the Tylenol-taking side of 30. We’ll see how Chiarot performs as he accumulates hard miles on his odometer, but the history for big, tough defensemen in terms of an aging curve isn’t spectacular, so more than a few eyebrows were raised at the money and term that Yzerman gave the 6’3, 234-pound Chiarot.

This morning, The Athletic’s Dom Luszczyszyn ranks the Chiarot contract as the 10th-worst contract in the NHL today:

10. Ben Chiarot

Contract: $4.8M x four years

Surplus Value: -$16.2M

Positive Value Probability: 11.7 percent

Ben Chiarot is 31 years old. He plays a very rugged and punishing game. He is signed until he’s 35 for nearly $5 million per season. His best comps are Jack Johnson, Roman Polak, Dion Phaneuf, Brent Seabrook, Mark Stuart, Dan Girardi and a slew of other similarly-branded defencemen. Of his 25 best comps, over half were out of the league after two years.

This is not a good contract in any sense of the imagination. 

Is it bad enough to be on this list? It depends on how you calculate surplus value. The chart above shows a negative $16.2 million, but that imagines a low-end cutoff of the league minimum. As you can see on the left side of the chart, Chiarot’s market value — according to the model — falls well below that. The actual retail price is negative $23.7 million. 

But. That’s based on the model’s judgement of value. As has been often reported, Chiarot’s real value lies somewhere above that… and somewhere below what traditional hockey folks believe. That mid-point is a third-pairing defender, and $4.8 million is already a steep price for that. Add in his age, the term, and the comps that all scream limited utility and Chiarot is a player who belongs here. He can be worth it if traditional scouts are right about his game, or if he thrives in a more suitable role. For now, however, it’s a bit hard to see.

Continued; even Steve Yzerman makes mistakes from time to time (the Brendan Perlini for defensive prospect Alec Regula trade worked out spectacularly well for Chicago, who’s gotten a solid middle-pair defender in Regula)…

But it’s just too early for me to predict nothing but gloom and doom for the Red Wings because one defenseman’s been over-paid.

As they say, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Yesterday morning, one Red Wings prospect, Simon Edvinsson, cracked The Athletic’s Scott Wheeler’s Top 50 NHL Prospects (skaters) list.

This morning, Wheeler ranks the top 10 goaltending prospects under 25 years of age, and Sebastian Cossa finishes 3rd, behind Minnesota’s Jesper Wallstedt and Nashville’s Yaroslav Askarov:

3. Sebastian Cossa, G, 19 (Detroit Red Wings — No. 15, 2021): Between the Traverse City Prospects Tournament in September, a pair of Calgary camps with Canada in August and December, and the Memorial Cup in June, I’ve watched Cossa play live more than double-digit times this season. In those viewings, I’ve seen him look unflappable. I’ve also seen him look rattled as shots sneak through holes they shouldn’t be finding. The same was true this year for him in the WHL, where his previously-stellar numbers came back down to earth.

Cossa’s a huge (6-foot-6), powerful, athletic goalie and those last two things don’t always come with the first. He’s a fiery, confident, talkative competitor who doesn’t like to get beat (which contrasts with the stoic demeanour we see in many goalies) and wants to command the net and the room. Bigger goalies often struggle with their movements and their recoveries but neither are an issue for Cossa. His positioning (he does a really good job holding his outside edges to be patient on shots) and reflexes (he’s got great hands up high) help him block and grab a lot of pucks. But it’s his ability to bounce back into his stance or change directions with passes that separates him. His power through his pushes gives him rare side-to-side ability for a goalie as big as he is.

But there are also some question marks. Some of them are contextual, like how good the Oil Kings have been in front of him these last three years. But others are about the tools, including some of the trouble he faces closing his five-hole because of his size (this is a major recurring issue, even though he does a really good job kicking pucks aimed for the lower corners) and the way he can occasionally lose himself in his net on scramble plays (those strong pushes to get to tough lateral saves can pull him off his lines). He can get pulled out of his net overcommitting on dekes too. His natural gifts give him undeniable upside though. When he’s set and square to shots (as he almost always is), he’s tough to beat. I still think he’s got starter upside due to his combination of size, dexterity and rare explosiveness in the net, but I wouldn’t quite consider him in the same tier as Wallstedt or Askarov at this stage.

Continued (paywall); Cossa is definitely still somewhat raw in terms of the details of his technique, but he’s still only 19, and he’s been designed to win 2-1 and 3-2 games for the stacked Edmonton Oil Kings of the WHL while playing behind a stellar defense.

I’d argue that Cossa may need to play for a worse team than this past season’s WHL Champions/Memorial Cup-participating Oil Kings to really challenge himself as a still-blossoming pre-professional.

All of that being said, picking the “best” goaltender out of Wallstedt, Askarov and Cossa is like picking your favorite flavor of ice cream. It’s easy–just pick one.

Per a Tweet from DetroitRedWings.com’s Daniella Bruce comes a new episode of The Word on Woodward:

TSN Analyst @CraigJButton had great things to say about the moves the @DetroitRedWings made this offseason👀. We hit on each FA addition, the draft, training camp, & more. Click the link to hear all of Craig’s insight! This is a good one folks🚨 #LGRW
🎥: https://t.co/Up1KRFof1f pic.twitter.com/maPspD9Qsg— Daniella Bruce (@daniellabruce_) July 25, 2022

New Red Wings coach Derek Lalonde gave a 6-and-a-half-minute interview to The NHL Tonight, speaking about his hiring by the Red Wings and his journey to the head coaching job:

Former Red Wing and Woodward Sports Network host Darren McCarty weighed in on his expectations for the Red Wings this upcoming season today on the “Big D Energy” show:

The Red Wings signed 27-year-old defenseman Robert Hagg to a one-year, $800,000 contract today as Mark Pysyk suffered an offseason Achilles tendon injury which required surgery.

Hagg, a 6’2,” 205-pound defenseman, is known for his heavy hits, and the Uppsala, Sweden native spoke with Expressen’s Gunnar Nordstrom this evening regarding signing with Detroit. Here’s a rough translation of their conversation:

Eager to Help Detroit

Los Angeles. Robert Hagg, 27, was free to choose a new team in the NHL when his contract with the Florida Panthers expired this summer. Now, he’s made that choice. It’s the Detroit Red Wings.

“There were a few different options on the table, but I stuck with Detroit. Partly because of how the team looks and is structured, and also that there’s a big upside and a very exciting future there,” says Robert to SportExpressen.

On Monday, [Hagg] signed a one-year contract worth $800,000 dollars, which corresponds to about 8.2 million Swedish Krona.

The Red Wings are in the midst of a generational change and have drafted a slew of highly-rated talent over the course of recent seasons.

Some of them have already made the lineup, like Swedish forward Lucas Raymond, 20, and German defenseman Moritz Seider, 21, who won the Calder Trophy for his play in his 2021-2022 season debut.

In its pipeline, Detroit also has Swedish defensemen Simon Edvinsson, 19, Albert Johansson, 21, and Gustav Lindstrom, 23.

The fact that they get help from a Swedish compatriot with experience from several years of playing in the NHL can be an advantage.

“There are many talented players here, and it will be fun to get to know them all. I’m looking forward to getting over there and getting started,” says Hagg.

Is there any other particular reason that you got hooked on Detroit [as a destination]?

“It’s a young team, but with many players who’ve been in the league for several years and have gained experience.”

Detroit Hockey Now’s writers continue to dig into the Red Wings’ prospect system, and tonight, Bob Duff discusses 25-year-old goaltender Joren Van Pottelberghe, who played for EHC Biel-Bienne of the Swiss National Liga last season:

Technically, goaltender Joren Van Pottelberghe is still classified as part of the prospect pool in the Detroit Red Wings organization. However, it’s been seven years since the Red Wings selected the Swiss netminder in the 2015 NHL entry draft. To date, his only appearances on North American ice as part of the Red Wings system have come during summer development camps.

“I have not really thought about it that much,” Van Pottelberghe said of playing in North America. “I’m more focused on playing as much as possible in Switzerland, to get as many games as possible.”

Van Pottelberghe was playing for Linkoping of the Swedish League when the Red Wings claimed him in the draft. He’s spent the past six seasons performing in his homeland – three with Davos, one with Kloten and the past two campaigns with Biel. Among his teammates with Biel is former Red Wings forward Damian Brunner.

JVP battled with Gilles Senn for HC Davos’ starting job for a couple of years, and JVP was loaned out to two separate teams before earning his first professional starting job with EHC last season (while Senn burned out as a New Jersey Devils prospect, and returned to Davos).

Duff reports that all did not go well there, and, as a result of an injury, a current Red Wings project and former prospect have come into JVP’s world:

Continue reading DHN profiles the curious case of Joren Van Pottelberghe

The Toledo Blade’s Mark Monroe caught up with Toledo Walleye fan favorite and offensively-inclined defenseman Simon Denis, 30, who’s returning to the Walleye after several seasons spent abroad:

Denis, who appeared in 119 regular-season games for Toledo in 2016-17 and 2017-18, had played the last four seasons in Asia. He kept a close eye on the Walleye when he was in South Korea and Japan, knowing in his heart that he would return someday.

“As soon as I knew was coming back to North America, I knew I wanted to come back to Toledo,” Denis said. “It’s playing in front of that crowd and the first time you get to hear that horn, there is nothing like it in the ECHL and minor league sports in general. I get chills thinking about that atmosphere.”

Denis’ first season in Toledo also was his first as a pro and the first season Watson took over as head coach. The team reached the Western Conference finals, falling in five games to the Colorado Eagles.

Alden Hirschfeld, who is now an assistant coach, was the captain of that team.

“He’s a great person and hard worker on and off the ice,” Hirschfeld said. “He cares about the team and his family more than himself. He will bring great leadership to the team. It’s great to have him back in Toledo.”

Denis was the team’s top-scoring defenseman as a rookie, finishing with 55 points in 70 games. The following season Denis again led all defensemen in scoring with 35 points in 49 games. That Walleye team lost in the Central Division finals.

Continued

At this point in the offseason, a fair number of, “Team X should trade for Team Y’s Player Z” articles, and I usually pay them little heed.

Today is an exception, I suppose. Sports Illustrated’s “Inside the Penguins'” Jacob Punturi posted a list of “Five Depth Forwards the Penguins Should Target,” and I’m not saying that this guy is off-limits, but he strikes me as already having been penciled-in as Detroit’s fourth-line center:

Michael Rasmussen: The biggest option available (literally) for the Penguins is 6’6″ forward Michael Rasmussen of the Detroit Red Wings. The 23-year-old has seen continual improvement at the NHL level and most recently set career highs in goals, assists, and points this past season (15 goals, 12 assists, 27 points). With both center and wing capabilities, Rasmussen would bring a little of everything to the Penguin’s bottom six. 

He can score and would add a net front presence to the power play units. He’s also adept defensively and would give head coach Mike Sullivan another penalty killing option. Rasmussen is under contract for this upcoming season and the following one at a modest cap hit of $1.4 million. 

The Red Wings are looking to take the next step and might be unwilling to deal with their depth players, but if things take a turn, expect Hextall to make a call or two on this player.

Continued; now anything is possible in this NHL, and this summer, especially, but I don’t see the Red Wings dealing a 23-year-old who is 6’6″ and does have potential to become a stalwart 3rd-line center to “make room” for someone, and I don’t see anyone on the Penguins’ depth chart that intrigues me.

That’s a hard “No, why?” from me.

Sportsnet’s Ryan Dixon examines the offseason moves made by each and every one of the NHL’s 32 member teams, and, while it’s early, he offers a set of power rankings going into the 2022-2023 season. Let’s just say that the Wings’ half-dozen-plus moves didn’t move Dixon’s needle:

25. Detroit Red Wings: Basically the Red Wings added a lot of steady hands in the form of Andrew Copp, Ben Chiarot and David Perron. This team’s ability to move forward, though, will largely rest with newcomer Ville Husso in the crease.

Continued; I guess the Wings will have to earn their respect on the ice.