Month: July 2022

Former University of Michigan Wolverines forward Mike Cammalleri bounced around the NHL but had a productive career as a professional hockey player. Soon after he retired, Cammalleri helped found BioSteel Sports, which is now the official beverage supplier of the NHL. Cammalleri spoke with the Detroit News’s Mark Falkner regarding his journey from pro hockey player to sports drink entrepreneur:

It’s been two weeks since former Michigan Wolverines forward Mike Cammalleri was announced as a new business partner with the National Hockey League at the 2022 draft in Montreal.

A co-founder of BioSteel Sports Nutrition in 2009, Cammalleri met the media to discuss the company’s multi-million, multi-year contract to replace Gatorade as the league’s official hydration drink.

Financial details of the deal weren’t disclosed but Cammalleri said BioSteel has “come full circle” from the days when he developed the idea while playing 15 years in the NHL from 2003-2018 and while attending Michigan in Ann Arbor from 1999-2002.

“I was training with some of the world’s foremost experts in strength and nutrition, starting with my days back at the University of Michigan,” Cammalleri said. “One of the topics we discussed was watching what you consumed. We were careful of certain products with harmful sugars, food dyes or food coloring, artificial ingredients and preservatives.

“It got to the point in my pro career where I was ordering so many different things and mixing them together. It wasn’t a viable solution so I approached my childhood best friend (John Celenza, now a co-CEO of BioSteel with Cammalleri) and put five things on the table and said, ‘Why don’t we put this into one bottle?’ 

“We went through a year of research and development and then I started training with Matt Nichol, who had had similar challenges as the strength coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs. We brought him on as a partner and came up with healthier, cleaner hydration for pro athletes and then eventually to the everyday consumer.”

Continued

Last week, the Toledo Blade’s Mark Monroe conducted an exclusive Q and A session with new Red Wings coach Derek Lalonde. This weekend, Monroe examines Lalonde’s lasting effects upon Toledo and the ECHL’s Toledo Walleye, through the words of its players, alumni, and current head coach, Dan Watson:

Lalonde, 49, got his first head coaching position at the pro level when he took over Toledo’s struggling ECHL franchise in 2014-15. He led that Walleye team to the biggest turnaround in ECHL history, as Toledo posted a 50-15-7 record and won the Brabham Cup as regular-season champions.

“We had great teams when Derek was here,” said Alden Hirschfeld, a former Walleye forward who is now an assistant coach with the team. “Derek was big on building a winning culture with a positive atmosphere in the locker room, creating hard-working, winning teams. He was detailed in his messages and cared about his players on the ice and off the ice.”

On June 30, Lalonde was named the 28th coach in the history of the Detroit Red Wings.

“He will do great in Detroit, because of his knowledge and passion for the game,” Berschbach said.

Since Lalonde’s arrival in Toledo, the Walleye organization has become a perennial powerhouse, making the playoffs every year. Current head coach Dan Watson, who was an associate head coach under Lalonde, still uses many of the same philosophies.

“I know how he operates,” Watson said. “He’s a winner.”

Since leaving Toledo, Lalonde became an assistant coach with the NHL’s Tampa Bay Lightning, who reached the Stanley Cup Final three consecutive seasons and won back-to-back titles.

“He’s worked his way up and coached at all levels. He will do great in Detroit,” Hirschfeld said. “It’s special to have a coach coming in to coach the NHL team of your ECHL team’s affiliate that you played for.”

Continued; this is a great read…

The Grand Rapids Griffins didn’t make the AHL’s playoff cut last season, and that’s a rare occurrence for one of the AHL’s best teams.

That being said, between injuries, call-ups and COVID issues, the Griffins’ roster was depleted and often patched together with ECHL call-ups.

As Detroit Hockey Now’s Kevin Allen suggests, next year’s Griffins team should be stacked with some of the best and brightest Red Wings prospects, which should, in turn, make the team more competitive:

Elmer Soderblom. Jonatan Berggren. Pontus Andreasson. Taro Hirose. Kyle Criscuolo. Albert Johansson. Tyler Spezia. Cross Hanas. Steven Kampfer. Brian Lashoff. Maybe even Joe Veleno. Those are some of the players who could play for the Grand Rapids Griffins this season.

The Griffins should be much improved this season. The Detroit Red Wings will be sending several key prospects to their American Hockey League affiliate over the next few seasons. The Red Wings want to make sure young players are in a competitive environment. The mix of AHL veterans and skilled young players should accomplish that this season.

“It should be an exciting year with lots of great prospects ready to make their mark with the Griffins,” Griffins president Tom Gortsema said. “We are eagerly looking forward to developing the next Moritz Seider.”

This week the Red Wings re-signed Chase Pearson, but he possibly could be claimed on waivers by another NHL team if the Red Wings send him down.

Grand Rapids’ goaltending would be handled by Jussi Olkinuora, Victor Brattstrom and former Michigan State player John Lethemon unless the Red Wings decide not to send 2021 first-round pick Sebastian Cossa back to the Western Hockey League.

Continued; it’s just my gut feeling, but between Olkinuora and Brattstrom needing to jump-start and re-start their North American careers, respectively, I don’t see there being a place for Cossa unless he “steals a job.”

In any case, the Red Wings want the Griffins to be as competitive as possible, and this should be a better season for them.

The Red Wings have something of a “wild card” of a prospect in Ryan O’Reilly. The 22-year-old Arizona State University junior has a big puck-lugging sniper’s pedigree, but the 6’4,” 205-pound right wing hasn’t been able to find his form at the NCAA Division 1 level yet.

Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff profiles O’Reilly this evening, and, as Duff notes, this season is a big one for both O’Reilly and fellow Wings prospect Robert Mastrosimone:

The Arizona State Sun Devils will go two deep in Red Wings prospects and it’s going to be a big proving season for both players. Forward Robert Mastrosimone is transferring to Arizona State from the Boston Terriers for his senior season. O’Reilly is about to begin his junior campaign with the Sun Devils.

Last season, O’Reilly’s goal output doubled from three to six. However, his points total slipped from 13 to 11. He’s a far cry from the 21 goals he counted for the USHL’s Madison Capitals in 2017-18, or the 17 he scored for the Green Bay Gamblers in 2019-20.

If O’Reilly wants there to be a future for him in Detroit, he’ll be needing to display some significant forward strides during the 2022-23 NCAA season. At 6-foot-3, 205 pounds, he certainly displays NHL size

“I definitely need to work on my skating,” O’Reilly admitted. “The game is really fast, especially in the NHL. You never get fast enough.”

Continued; O’Reilly and defenseman Antti Tuomisto were the two biggest-name prospects who didn’t take part in the Wings’ 2022 summer development camp, and what I’ve seen of O’Reilly’s goal-scoring potential is impressive…

But he’s not put the disparate parts of his game together on a consistent basis yet, like so many of the Wings’ prospects.

I thought this was kind of interesting: NHL.com’s fantasy hockey staff is rather bullish on the Red Wings’ offseason moves, issuing an optimistic prediction in its “Fantasy Spin” column:

The Detroit Red Wings acquired goalie Ville Husso from the St. Louis Blues and signed him to a three-year contract, giving them a much stronger goalie tandem with him and Alex Nedeljkovic this season. Husso, one of the fantasy breakout goalies of last season, loses some fantasy appeal from the move but remains among the fantasy top 25 rankings at the position for this season.

Husso was 25-7-6 with a .919 save percentage and two shutouts this regular season, tied for the sixth-best even-strength SV% in the NHL (.919; minimum 40 games) and had a shutout in the Blues’ playoff opener against the Minnesota Wild. Even though Husso lost the starting job to Jordan Binnington in the postseason, he still has plenty of staying power at 27 years old and is now ranked ahead of Nedeljkovic in the fantasy top 250 after the trade to Detroit.

The Red Wings, who hired new coach Derek Lalonde on June 30, are rebuilding but have a strong young core, led by elite center Dylan Larkin and rookie standouts from last season in Calder Trophy winner Moritz Seider and forward Lucas Raymond. The signings of valuable forwards David Perron, Andrew Copp and Dominik Kubalik in free agency and potential addition of top prospect Simon Edvinsson could also help the Red Wings improve and challenge for the Stanley Cup Playoff spot as early as this season.

Continued; again, here’s hoping that the Wings compete for a playoff spot this evening.

The 2022 World Junior Championship was cancelled due to the pandemic encroaching upon the “bubble” (or lack thereof) in Edmonton and Red Deer last December, but the tournament will take a re-set and begin again in Edmonton this August.

The Detroit News’s Nolan Bianchi took note of the fact that some of the Red Wings’ Swedish prospects (Simon Edvinsson, Theodor Niederbach and William Wallinder) will take part in the tournament, and they’re looking forward to the opportunity:

“When I was a little kid, I always wanted to play (in the World Junior Championship),” [Simon] Edvinsson said. “I just played two games, so yeah, that hunger goes a little bit more.”

For Edvinsson, specifically, the World Juniors are a primer for a chaotic couple of months that lie ahead. Yzerman said that he can’t think of a better environment for Edvinsson to prepare for trying to make the Wings’ opening-night roster.

“What a better way to prepare for training camp (than) playing in a highly important tournament, a highly competitive tournament,” Yzerman said. “We’ll just kind of let the whole thing play itself out, but the World Juniors will be a great stepping stone coming into training camp to try and make a good impression and earn a spot on the team.”

[Theodor] Niederbach downplayed the excitement that he had for the tournament, but maybe it’s because it’ll be his second time participating. He had two goals in five games during the 2021 World Juniors, playing between fellow Red Wings prospect Lucas Raymond and another top draft pick, Alexander Holtz (New Jersey Devils).

“I’m just happy to get ready here to be as good as possible,” Niederbach said. “When the tournament starts, you always give all you have, but we haven’t (thought) about it too much. … It’s been a long summer. And then maybe now we start to think about World Juniors.”

Continued

MLive’s Ansar Khan posted a notebook article this afternoon which discusses the Red Wings’ signing of Dominik Kubalik to a 2-year, $5 million contract as an unrestricted free agent:

“He’s big. He can skate. He has a great shot,” Yzerman said. “And the contract we think is very reasonable. It’s a guy that has a lot of upside. It’s another player who gives us more scoring depth.”

Kubalik might slot onto the third line alongside former teammate Pius Suter, who took the same path to Detroit a year ago after the Blackhawks opted not to qualify him.

Like they did with Suter, the Red Wing became quite familiar with Kubalik during the pandemic-shortened 2020-21 season, when they played the Blackhawks eight times. Kubalik scored 13 fewer goals in 12 less games that season, but he maintained the same points per game output.

His production slipped significantly last season with 15 goals and 32 points in 78 games.

“Last season was up and down pretty much the whole year,” Kubalik said. “Right from the beginning we got on a losing streak and it’s usually hard to get back and get it going. We just couldn’t figure it out, how to win, how to play. That’s exactly what happened with me, too. I couldn’t find my game. I had some good streaks and some bad moments at the beginning of the season. But right now, it’s a fresh start, it’s a clean table and I’m very excited about the opportunity.”

Continued

The Hockey News’s Steven Ellis offers a detailed scouting report on Red Wings prospect and 2022 8th overall draft pick Marco Kasper this evening:

“He really forced himself into the top 10 conversation as the season went on because he’s such a fascinating player,” a scout said. “Detroit made the right choice taking him. He’s going to be great.”

After going eighth overall, Kasper became the second highest drafted player in Austrian history behind Thomas Vanek after the Buffalo Sabres picked him fifth overall in 2003. Kasper just edged out Marco Rossi (ninth overall, 2020) by one spot and became the fourth Austrian ever selected in the first round.

So, for Kasper, there’s a nice sense of pride. And the Red Wings are getting an electrifying forward with a bright future.

At 18, Kasper has nearly games of pro experience with Rogle during regular season, playoff and Champions Hockey League play. He doesn’t have a ton of offense to show for, but SHL teams are conditioned to win, which means some top prospects get lost in the shuffle. As a comparison, Kasper had 11 points in 46 regular season games compared to Lucas Raymond’s 10 points in 33 games in his NHL draft year. Definitely a better points-per-game average for Raymond, one of the top rookies in the NHL this past season, but still solid results for Kasper, who led all U-18 SHLers in scoring this year.

Kasper had six points in 11 games with Austria’s men’s national team, where he quickly forced himself up the lineup, playing over 19 minutes a night in three outings at the World Championship.

“It’s tough to play against men, I think seeing what the pros do every day, it’s helped me to see what it is to live like a pro and it’s helped me a lot,” Kasper said at the NHL draft combine in early June. 

Continued

The Athletic’s Sean Gentille conducted an offseason mailbag feature today, and he answered two Red Wings-related questions:

Which rebuilding team wins a championship first? Hawks, Coyotes, Canadiens, Sabres, & the Kraken (though not “re” building) come to mind as franchises in similar positions right now. I’d bet on LA or Detroit before any of those, but they’re further along in the process. (Late additions: New Jersey and Anaheim)

— Andrew G.

I’m not comfortable picking the Coyotes to win anything. The Blackhawks haven’t completed the teardown, though it’s early in the day, so who knows? Kent Hughes did well to fix one long-term cap issue in Montreal but still has one to go. I love the Sabres, but it’s still relatively early for them. I’m not considering the Kraken because they’re playing with a different set of cards. The Devils have huge pieces but not a ton else in the NHL.

From your group? It’s Detroit. They’ve got elite young players in the NHL, some really solid mid-20s pieces, a strong prospect base, a nice cap situation, an influx of win-now guys and Steve Yzerman running the whole deal. What’s not to love? Seems almost unfair to include them. It should be a really attractive spot for big names, too … which we’ll discuss shortly.

…

Break down who you think will win the Matthew Tkachuk sweepstakes and why….

— Charles W.

We’ve written a ton about this in the last few days, and I still think smart money has to be on the Blues. They’re prohibitive favorites for reasons beyond the obvious, starting with the ability to offer Jordan Kyrou as a centerpiece. So they’re my pick — but man, the Red Wings are a compelling option. If I’m Tkachuk, and going home isn’t in the cards, I’m trying to land in Detroit. That roster is officially on the verge of decency, and I’m not sure hockey means more to any U.S. market.

Continued (paywall); here’s hoping…

Red Wings forward Oskar Sundqvist spoke with 101 ESPN in St. Louis this morning, appearing on the “Karraker and Smallmon Show” with Randy Karraker and Michelle Smallmon.

Sundqvist is at home in Sweden, but he spoke about both his ties to St. Louis, where he will keep a home and split his summers between St. Louis and Sweden, and his ties to Detroit, whose Blues collective (see: Jake Walman, David Perron, Ville Husso, Robby Fabbri and Sundqvist) is helping him adjust to being a Red Wing.

Sundqvist admitted that he had knee surgery to “clean up” his knee at the end of the season, stating that he didn’t have any power to push off in his stride, and he suggested that he’s “getting toward 100%” again, which is good to hear.

Here’s the 101 ESPN summary of the interview…

Continue reading Audio: Red Wings forward Oskar Sundqvist appears on St. Louis’ 101 ESPN, admits having knee surgery this past spring