Impressions from the Red Wings’ 5-2 win vs. the Columbus Blue Jackets at the 2022 prospect tournament

The Red Wings’ prospects won a 5-2 decision over the Columbus Blue Jackets at the Red Wings’ 2022 Prospect Tournament on Friday afternoon/evening. Riley Piercey, a try-out from Flint of the OHL, scored four goals; Drew Worrad had a goal and two assists; Pasquale Zito, Cross Hanas and Jeremie Biakabutuka all had 2 assists; and Sebastian Cossa (17 stops on 18 shots) and Andrew Oke (7 stops on 8 shots) split the win.

The Red Wings will try to flush this one as best they can and prepare for Saturday night’s tilt against the Dallas Stars (6 PM EDT at Centre ICE Arena, on the Red Wings’ social media channels), and I fully believe that Detroit has another gear to shift into come Saturday night.

Detroit’s effort against Columbus, while very solid in on the scoreboard, was somewhat inconsistent at times; players who had exactly one practice and no Friday morning skate under their belts looked about as familiar with each other as you might expect, and there were hiccups and a lot of over-playing the puck as a result.

I felt that, at times, the Wings got a little lucky here and there, especially when the Blue Jackets’ line of Kirill Marchenko, Kent Johnson and Mikael Pyythia all but ran ramp-shod in the Wings’ zone, but Detroit held fast and got better as the game went along…

And Riley Piercey had the game of his life, in front of a packed “owners’ box” of Wings executives and a mezzanine overflowing with scouts from 32 NHL teams and organizations across North America and Europe. He’s going to have to back it up on Saturday vs. Dallas and on Monday, when the Wings close out the tournament vs. Toronto at 11 AM.

If you missed it, the Wings have archived their live stream of the game…

As well as a clip of “sights and sounds” from the tilt:

MLive’s Ansar Khan also posted a game recap…

[Riley] Piercey opened the scoring at 7:14 of the first period, deflecting in a point shot from [Jeremie] Biakabutuka following an offensive-zone faceoff win.

…

Kent Johnson tied it for Columbus at 10:00, firing in a loose puck around the net following a couple of saves by Cossa. Johnson, who played two seasons at Michigan, was the fifth overall selection in 2021, taken one spot before Detroit drafted Simon Edvinsson.

…

The Red Wings scored twice in the second period to snap a 1-1 tie. Piercey notched his second goal of the game at 11:57, taking a pass from Cross Hanas, moving in and picking the top corner with a wrist shot.

[Drew] Worrad made it 3-1 at 16:25, banging in the puck from the net front during a power play.

Worrad, 25, played for four seasons at Western Michigan and appeared in 11 games for Grand Rapids at the end of 2021-22.

Piercey completed the hat trick by scoring on a breakaway at 11:33 of the third period to make it 4-1. After Kirill Marchenko answered for the Blue Jackets, Piercey scored at again with 5:16 remaining by poking in the puck from the crease.

It’s rather interesting to read ColumbusBlueJackets.com’s Jeff Svoboda’s recap, too, or the Columbus Dispatch’s Brian Hedger’s recap, but that’s for you to enjoy if you wish. Needless to say, the Blue Jackets were coming off a 7-1 win over St. Louis on Thursday, so they were both riding high and playing back-to-back, while the Wings seemed to find their legs as the game progressed.

That was the case both individually and collectively, and while Piercey stole the show, there were several stand-outs…And more than a few players who stand to improve over the course of the prospect tournament.

So, without further adieu, here are my impressions from the first game of the prospect tournament, on a player-by-player basis:

FORWARDS:

#85 Elmer Soderblom–#78 Amadeus Lombardi–#74 Cross Hanas

#85 Elmer Soderblom: Boy, howdy, is 6’8″ Elmer Soderblom a tall drink of water. He finished the game (per PointStreak’s Wings stats) with an assist on Drew Worrad’s power play goal, a shot and at -2, but I thought that wasn’t really representative of his play. There’s no doubt that there’s room for improvement in terms of his first skating step, in terms of his willingness to be a little more physical when he camps out in front of the opposition goaltender, and he needed to finish better, but he possesses a tremendous skill set for a player of any size, willing to deke and dangle between his legs while taking cross-checks and just standing there because the 21-year-old’s 6’8″ and 249 pounds.

He’s had some prospect tournament experience, so the culture shock for him wasn’t nearly as bad as it was for some of his compatriots, but at the same time, there are elements of his game that are still decidedly European–especially his tendency to try to loop back in the corners and look for a more perfect play instead of just hauling ass toward the net and ripping a shot off the goaltender for a rebound. A more selfish Soderblom would benefit both Elmer himself and the Red Wings, and I expect him to find that narrower-ice game as he acclimates to playing with 15 fewer feet between the boards and the net.

Overall, he had a good first game on North American ice in a couple of years, and he didn’t really deserve the -2, but his line was playing against the Kent Johnson line all night long, and Johnson is a force of nature, so they got burned a couple of times.

#78 Amadeus Lombardi: At the other end of the size spectrum at 5’10” and 160 pounds, Lombardi didn’t blink a Gord-darned eyelash at the fact that everybody is bigger and heavier than he is, finishing at -1 with 2 shots. The 19-year-old Flint Firebirds product played with his usual pluck and panache, utilizing his strong skating skills and low center of gravity to win faceoffs, to blaze through traffic and to not give a flying flurk when the bigger, heavier guys whacked and hacked at him as he played a strong north-south game on a night when many of his teammates were going east-west.

I haven’t seen a ton of Lombardi yet, but it’s evident already that the Red Wings may have a steal on their hands in a 2022 4th round pick here, because he just goes, he goes, and he goes some more, hustling that little pair of hockey pants 100% of the time. And he’s only 19!

#74 Cross Hanas: Hanas displayed a couple of things I hadn’t seen before over the course of a 2-assist, 3-shot, -1 game. After posting 60 assists in the WHL this past season, the 6’1,” 174-pound center playing on the wing really showed a tremendous set of passing and playmaking skills, dishing passes left and right with Soderblom and Lombardi, and helping set up both the 1-1 and 2-1 goals en route to a really solid game.

Turning pro at 20-and-a-half, Hanas also displayed a surprising edge to his game, instigating and pushing and shoving at a rate I did not expect from him. There are still some disparate parts of his game that need work, especially physically speaking (he needs to get stronger), but he’s really improved over the past couple of seasons in terms of his skating and passing, and I’m excited to see what he’ll bring to a Grand Rapids Griffins team that needs offensive aplomb.

#58 Riley Piercey*–#62 Drew Worrad**–#56 Pasquale Zito

#58 Riley Piercey*: The free agent invite from the Flint Firebirds did what I had a feeling he would do as a 6’3,” 212-pound winger who’s 20 years old: he played a bruising physical game that he could not display during the summer development camp, he skated superbly well, and he was both set up for some gorgeous goals and found a way to score a couple of his own.

Having the game of his life, Piercey finished with 4 goals on 4 shots and a +4 while playing both on the top line and the top power play unit (in which the Wings deployed Soderblom, Lombardi and Piercey with Worrad and Simon Edvinsson as the lone defenseman), and there was a moment that I thought was particularly telling for him:

Late in the game, just before scoring goal #4, Pasquale Zito bailed out Piercey on the PK when Piercey’s stick snapped, yielding a long sequence of Blue Jackets possession in the Wings’ zone, so what does Piercey do? He finally gets to the bench, chugs up the ice with his new stick, and breaks away to score that 4th and final goal.

I mean, one game does not a career make, and at 20, Piercey both has a lot to prove in terms of consistency and is still draft-eligible, should the Wings choose to send him back to Flint (which is what’s going to happen) for his final “overage” Major Junior season…

But he’s one of those OHL’ers who missed a full year due to the pandemic, and that developmental gap has been filled in a big way by a 58-points-in-59-games season last year. So the Wings invited him to the summer camp, knew he was big, strong and sometimes ornery, and hoped for a best-case scenario, which he provided in spades on Friday night.

What he does for an encore will determine his future course.

#62 Drew Worrad** “A”: The Griffins-contracted Worrad is the oldest player on the team at 25, and he wore one of two alternate captain’s “A’s” as a result. The 6,’ 178-pound Worrad finished with a goal and two assists for 3 points, finishing at +3 with 3 shots, and while Piercey stole the headlines, Worrad may have been the other “quiet story” of the game up front.

How so? He’s fighting for a spot in Grand Rapids after posting 45 points in 39 games during his senior year at Western Michigan, and, at first blush, at least, he took every opportunity to let his future coach, Ben Simon, know that he’s not heading down to Toledo come October. He’s bigger than his listed size (EliteProspects has him pegged at 6’2″ and 200 pounds), he’s got a finisher’s touch and he plays a mature, professional game.

I’m not saying that he’s the next diamond in the rough turned an NHL’er or something, but on this prospect team, he’s staking his claim to an AHL job, and if he continues to play well, it’s gonna be hard to deny him.

#56 Pasquale Zito: The 19-year-old Zito finished with 2 assists and a +3 with 1 shot on goal, and he may be 6’1″ and 176 pounds, but he’s physical as all hell get out, he’s got some hands to him, and he skates hard and fast. There are some rough edges to his game, and I felt that he was up-and-down despite his superb effort, but, like Piercey, a little inconsistency is to be expected when you’ve missed a year of development in the OHL due to the pandemic cancelling a full season’s worth of play.

Zito has been traded from the Windsor Spitfires to the Niagara IceDogs over the summer, and it will be interesting to see what the edgy player can do in a go-to role on a team that’s loading up for a run at the OHL title. In the interim, his effort, intensity and determination are very useful to the Red Wings’ prospects, and if he keeps playing as Lombardi-like hard as he did on Friday, he’ll show a bright future is in the offing.

#79 Kirill Tyutyayev**–#83 Marcus Limpar-Lantz*–#86 Ivan Ivan*

#79 Kirill Tyutyayev**: Tyutyayev is both dazzling and frustrating to watch at the same time. On a third line that was surprisingly good, the Wings list the 22-year-old at 5’9″ and 146 pounds, but he’s closer to the EliteProspects-listed 5’10” and 176 pounds…Of skill. Utter skill. He missed most of last season with a shoulder injury, and this year, the little guy from Yekaterinburg looks primed to pounce.

He finished as an even player with a shot and a minor penalty taken (not the smartest one, either), but he deked and dangled and deked and dangled and stole pucks and generated scoring chances and passed up more than his fair share thereof. If he only put two hands on his stick and bore down on some of his gorgeous chances, I think he’d be able to tuck more pucks in the goal.

In any case, the AHL-contracted Tyutyayev has tremendous skill but little track record of success at the North American pro level, and the prospect tournament serves as something of extra runway which he can use to generate momentum heading into what will hopefully be a successful AHL campaign. From there, who knows whether he’ll impress the Wings into giving him a two-way deal?

#83 Marcus Limpar-Lantz*: A free agent invite, MLL finished even with 2 shots, and despite the fact that the 20-year-old is heading to the Erie Otters from the Swedish J20 league with Orebro, the 6,’ 190-pound center displayed a really mature two-way game. I was surprised at how darn solidly he played while skating in his first North American competitive game, regardless of whether we’re talking about his faceoffs, his overall skating abilities, passing and shooting skills, or his determination to go to the net and/or into the corners to generate turnovers and occasionally sacrifice his body in order to win battles for pucks.

Is he another elite prospect in the making? Not necessarily, but at first blush–and this was the “first blush”–he’s promising.

#86 Ivan Ivan*: I could see why Ivan Ivan hasn’t been drafted, and why he’s tantalizing at the same time. The 20-year-old free agent invite from the Cape Breton Screaming Eagles just isn’t big at a slight 5’11” and 171 pounds, if you believe the Wings, or 6′ and 190 pounds if you believe EliteProspects, but he posted 65 points in 65 games this past season, and his pedestrian stat line in Friday’s game (even with 2 shots) doesn’t tell the whole story.

There are so many flashes of elite offensive abilities with Ivan that it’s frustrating to watch sometimes, because he has a host of “almosts” and then engages in a significant number of puck battles where he is betrayed by the fact that he’s physically under-powered as compared to his opponents. I’m hoping that on Saturday and Monday, some of those “almosts” pay off.

#87 Jacob Mathieu*–#84 Julien Anctil*–#94 Mitchell Martin*

#87 Jacob Mathieu*: I called this line the “Don’t Get Run Over” line, and that was fairly accurate, all things considered. Mathieu, a free agent invite from the QMJHL’s Rimouski Oceanic who stands all of 5’10” and 168 pounds, got run over a bit. That’s to be expected when you’re an under-sized 18-year-old who was passed over in his first year of draft eligibility, but there were times that it just wasn’t pretty out there, despite the fact that he finished even with a shot…

#84 Julien Anctil*: And I could say similar things about Anctil, a 6’2,” 177-pound free agent invite from the Sherbrooke Phoenix. The 21-year-old posted at a point-per-game rate this past season, and he won a lot of faceoffs en route to an even plus-minus rating and 1 shot on goal, but there were more instances when the Wings’ fourth line looked over-matched, out-sized and over-powered than there were moments when they held their own. That’s not an indictment of the players–they had some deer-in-the-headlights moments playing at an AHL-like level of play and intensity for the first time–but this was not the line you wanted the Kent Johnson line to go against.

#94 Mitchell Martin*: Martin was the best of the trio. At 6’3″ and 174 pounds, the Kitchener Rangers winger displayed some physical aplomb, and he not only did not get “run over,” but he also ran over some of his opponents on occasion. Another one of those “lost developmental year” OHL’ers, the 19-year-old had a fairly average season in Kitchener, and he doesn’t seem to possess super-high-end potential by any means, but he was the glue that kept the fourth line together.

DEFENSEMEN:

#3 Simon Edvinsson–#44 Donovan Sebrango

#3 Simon Edvinsson: Oh, boy. I have a lot of things to say about Simon Edvinsson, and I’m not going to say all of them tonight, because the first time I saw Moritz Seider play, I thought, “Gee, he’s got a ridiculous amount of natural talent, but there are some things he needs to work on.”

And that’s what I felt about Edvinsson, who finished at +2 with 2 shots. As coach Ben Simon said, the 6’6,” 207-pound defenseman really does glide over the ice despite his size, skating effortlessly. He’s got amazing flip passes and outlets through traffic that are pinpoint accurate, his wrist shot from the point is fantastic, and when he feels like engaging for the puck, the 19-year-old can gap up or use his stick and/or body to out-smart his opponents right out of puck possession…

But there are times that Edvinsson, like Soderblom, looks like his hands are full adjusting to the size and pace of North American ice, and sometimes he looks a little disinterested in actually defending. You see that sometimes with players who are just absolutely elite in terms of their skill levels, and it’s that old-fashioned “compete level” that he needs to work on, as well as his willingness to make the “simple play” or plain old eat the puck and take a hit to make nothing happen.

Sometimes making nothing happen is a better outcome than trying to make something spectacular happen, especially for a defenseman, and I don’t know if Simon’s got that part of the game down yet.

Now is he absofrickinlutely elite? Hell yes. Is he a finished product who already knows what’s going to happen with the puck before it’s on his stick? Not yet.

Is there enough time for him to earn a spot on the Wings’ roster, despite some of those tendencies? Shit, man, Seider looked awfully similar a year ago, and over the course of the prospect tournament, training camp and the exhibition season, Seider just kept ascending.

And this was his first game at this level after being banged-up and dealing with food poisoning for a bit at the World Junior Championship, so I don’t even know if he’s at 100%.

But great expectations come with a heavy crown to carry, and he could be better.

#44 Donovan Sebrango “A”: Sebrango wore an alternate captain’s “A” with Canada’s World Junior Championship team, and the 6’1,” 194-pound defenseman actually started out playing on the left side with Oscar Plandowski, but when the first first pairing of Albert Johansson and Edvinsson on the right side showed little chemistry, coach Simon moved Edvinsson to the left side, and put Sebrango on the right side of what would become the top pairing.

Sebrango is spare and spartan in terms of his playing style, but he is nearly endlessly effective as a #4 defenseman, playing rock-steady hockey in terms of his stick, his forward, backward and lateral skating, his low, heavy shot, his hard, accurate first pass, his physical game and his overall demeanor from shift to shift. If there’s a player for Edvinsson to play with, it’s Sebrango, because he knows how to embody a style that involves sometimes just “eating the puck” and taking a hit along the boards to make a play–or sometimes to make nothing at all happen.

Sebrango had a good first game, though, and I think he can be even more consistent, if not somewhat dominant while playing against younger competition, given that he’s got 96 AHL games to his credit.

#20 Albert Johansson–#77 Oscar Plandowski

#20 Albert Johansson: Albert finished at -2 with 1 shot, and I felt that some of that was unearned, but them’s the breaks for the 6,’ 176-pound who’s 21 and coming over from Farjestads BK of the SHL to play North American pro hockey. There were moments that Johansson did struggle with the intensity and pace of the Blue Jackets’ blazingly fast, heavy offensive game…

But he and Eemil Viro are just so damn smooth and seamless in terms of playing strong two-way games, from their stick-checking abilities to their use of leverage to assuage for their lack of size, that they’re more often than not utterly dependable. Both players skate particularly well, too, and I think that Johansson has a lot of room for improvement in terms of his consistency and poise. There’s just a level-headedness to him in practice, and he wasn’t so level-headed in his first game, but I believe that he’ll calm down with time and experience.

#77 Oscar Plandowski: Plandowski probably had his best game as a Red Wings prospect, despite finishing at -2 with 1 shot. The 6,’ 190-pound 19-year-old from the QMJHL’s Charlottetown Islanders is a remarkable skater–he should be given that his mother is a professional skating coach–and at times, the right-shooting defenseman’s instincts are superb. At other junctures, his tendency to want to do everything himself causes mistakes that his teammates have to bail out, especially in instances when he goes way too far up into the rush, or where that magical “nothing play” would be preferable to the youngster trying to do too much.

He’s got some skills in terms of his passing and shooting abilities as well, and he can check, but it’s a matter of putting it all together.

#51 Eemil Viro–#63 Jeremie Biakabutuka*

#51 Eemil Viro: Eemil finished at +2 on the third defensive pairing, and that was a surprise, not only because the 6,’ 176-pound Viro was playing in his first North American near-pro-level game, but also because he was playing with a partner who’s a free agent try-out. Like Johansson, Viro is utterly smooth in terms of his skating, and because he’s 20 years old and has played in a couple of full pro seasons with TPS Turku, his poise is tremendous. He uses his short stick to poke check and strip opponents of pucks, he’s got a surprisingly good shot for a wiry little dude, and his passing is heads-up and crisp. Again, he uses leverage and that stick to ensure that his lack of size is not an issue, and he’s just one of those defensemen that you can depend upon in almost every situation.

#63 Jeremie Biakabutuka*: I had no idea what to expect from the late addition to the mix, and the 6’4,” 203-pound free agent invite looked very, very sound and solid out there. The Charlottetown Islanders defenseman skates well, he’s got a hard shot, his passing is solid and his positioning is quite good, and his 2 assists and +3 were evident of stronger offensive instincts than I expected him to display.

He’s definitely “more than a name,” and he had a superb game in terms of generating a primary and secondary assist en route to a surprising start. My understanding is that he was a necessary addition due to injuries, too, so he may continue to earn an opportunity to impress.

GOALTENDERS:

#33 Sebastian Cossa: Cossa split the game with Andrew Oke, playing the first 30:03 and stopping 17 of the 18 shots he faced. And I really thought that he exemplified the “What a difference a year makes” vibe on Friday night (and I rarely use that “vibe” word).

Massive at 6’6″ and 215 pounds, a year ago, Cossa was far too busy and far too willing to drop to his knees and surrender top-shelf and five-hole goals because he was most comfortable in the butterfly, and was most comfortable reacting and then stopping a shot. On Friday, at least, he was much more patient, much more composed, and he battled his ass off against the most difficult portions of the game in terms of the Blue Jackets’ scoring chances.

Sure, there were a couple of instances when the 19-year-old got a little lucky, but most of the time, his increased maturity in the crease served him very, very well. That, and his flashy glove, flair for making dramatic stops, and especially his improved puck-handling helped, and I won’t deny that his imposing size is a tremendous asset that he’s not afraid to use to his advantage. But he’s so much less busy around the crease now, and so much more willing to let the shooter make the first move instead of dropping into the butterfly and hoping that he’s big enough to block whatever comes next. All good signs for a player who’s hoping to turn pro this upcoming season.

#31 Andrew Oke*: Oke is a little floppy and flail-y, but the free agent invite from Saginaw looked very strong while stopping 7 of 8 shots in 29:57 of ice time. At 6’2″ and 198 pounds, he honestly plays a little smaller than his size, and I believe that, after a rough year with a rebuilding Saginaw Spirit team last season, he’s going to benefit more from working with the Wings’ goalie coaches than any other player with any other type of skill coach.

There are tools and fundamentals and a toolbox to Oke’s strong butterfly game, and at all of 18, and just passed over in his first year of draft eligibility, I’ve heard at least one vote for the Wings to ink him to a deal. Take that for what you will, and let’s see how he does over the course of the prospect tournament and training camp to come.

SCRATCHES:

#61 Jake Uberti*, center: The 6’2,” 200-pound free agent invite from Mississauga of the OHL hasn’t been able to practice or play, and that makes the 20-year-old incredibly difficult to assess.

#72 Trenton Bliss**, center: I was hoping that Bliss, who’s a 24-year-old graduate of Michigan Tech, would be able to play, because the 6’1,” 195-pound center might have been able to bring some Drew Worrad-like capabilities and maturity to the fourth line. The Red Wings sure need as much, “More than, ‘Don’t Get Run Over'” poise due to their relative lack of forward depth, and Bliss looked really solid as an AHL-contracted forward at the summer development camp. Here’s hoping that he recovers soon.

#49 Seth Barton, defense: I’m not really certain why Barton, a 23-year-old who’s got a year of AHL experience (albeit a limited one) wasn’t able to play, because the 6’3,” 196-pound defenseman looked quite good in practice and played well with Viro. Biakabutuka had one of those “game of his life” games on the down-low, however, and big Jeremie may have usurped a spot for Saturday’s game. We’ll see how that flows.

#95 Tnias Mathurin, defense: I liked Mathurin, a 6’3,” 200-pound 2022 draft pick, at the summer development camp, though he looked a lot more like a #6/7 defenseman who was stay-at-home to the bone than a top prospect. The Wings can afford to let him heal up if he is in fact injured, however.

#60 Jan Bednar, goaltender: Bednar, like Oke, is going to benefit from working with the Wings’ goalie coaches maybe more than he will from playing actual competitive hockey. The 19-year-old grew two inches to stand at 6’4″ and 196 pounds, and he had a very good season with Acadie-Bathurst of the QMJHL, a disastrous World Junior Championship with the Czechs, and now he’s at a fall prospect tournament for the second year in a row. He’s got tremendous high-end abilities and he’s tremendously inconsistent, so finding some maturity in his game is going to come with both coaching and with games played.

*=Free agent invite, **=Grand Rapids Griffins contract

Those are my assessments of what I believe to be a team that’s in progress toward getting better, as both individuals and as a collective unit. The Wings have a morning skate tomorrow at 10:15 AM, and then they play the Stars at 6 PM.

In the interim, I’ve got some posting-what-the-other-guys-said stuff to do, and then I need to get my butt to bed because I haven’t slept over five hours a night since I got here. I embrace the privilege of being here, but it ain’t easy, and I’m trying to work to pay off my hotel bill and my bills, so:

If you’re are willing to lend an assist toward those ends, you can use PayPal at https://paypal.me/TheMalikReport, Venmo at https://venmo.com/george-malik-2, Giftly by using my email, rtxg@yahoo.com, at https://www.giftly.com. And you can contact me via email if you want to send me a paper check. I’m also on Cash App under “georgeums” (an old nickname).