Month: September 2022

DetroitRedWings.com’s Jonathan Mills filed an early-morning article which discusses Red Wings coach Derek Lalonde and GM Steve Yzerman’s desire to implement a new defensive system this season:

Last season, Detroit’s 3.78 goals-against average per game ranked 31st in the NHL while its penalty kill of 73.8 percent was 32nd in the league. But with free-agent defensemen Ben Chiarot, Olli Maatta, Mark Pysyk and Robert Hagg joining a unit headlined by Moritz Seider, Lalonde wants to establish good habits to improve upon last year’s numbers.

“There’s nothing more important on a team-first mentality than team defense,” Lalonde told the media. “I think we’re in a unique spot in that it is right there in black and white. We were obviously one of the worst teams in any defensive category in the league last year, so that’s a good starting point.”

Strong team defense is tied to areas like zone coverage, playing physical and controlling the pace of play.

“A lot of the first couple days of camp, you’ll see play without the puck,” Lalonde said about training camp in Traverse City. “And improving in some of those areas we struggled last year.”

All the while, the Red Wings will continue to play aggressive and opportunistic offensively.

“It’s not like we’re not going to try and score,” Yzerman said. “We’re going to do that as well, but there is a certain responsibility for all players when they’re on the ice to have in the back of their mind, regardless of where the puck is, to be on the right side of the puck.”

Continued

Detroit Hockey Now’s Nate Brown posted an article in which he shares “Two truths and a lie” about Joe Veleno:

Truth: Veleno Will Start the Season on the Roster: It’s certainly going to be a crowded roster and an especially full bottom six grouping, a likely spot for where Veleno will start. Yzerman even specifically named Veleno as one of the young players the team will be relying on to help take the next step.

Regardless of all the competition, Veleno seemingly has the inside track with 71 NHL games to his name. He’ll perhaps have to hold off Jonatan Berggren or even Elmer Soderblom, but he projects to be on either the third or fourth line.

Where he slots in on that line could be the biggest X-factor. It’s something we’ll look at later in the piece.

Continued

Here are a pair of Twitter videos of this morning’s practices from the Red Wings:

Another day of hockey. 😊 pic.twitter.com/c8WOil0qFh— Detroit Red Wings (@DetroitRedWings) September 23, 2022

Mo. 💥 pic.twitter.com/Fq007DbUpF— Detroit Red Wings (@DetroitRedWings) September 23, 2022

Update: Head shots!

New guys. 😎 pic.twitter.com/fegChf1VGY— Detroit Red Wings (@DetroitRedWings) September 23, 2022

pic.twitter.com/XR82lOEHsC— Detroit Red Wings (@DetroitRedWings) September 23, 2022

The teams have changed somewhat:

Per the Toledo Blade’s Mark Monroe, the Toledo Walleye have signed a pair of goaltenders today:

The Walleye have signed a pair of goaltenders, including a netminder that put together a solid campaign for the team last season.

Goaltender Max Milosek, who appeared in 17 games for Toledo last year, has re-signed with the team.  Rylan Parenteau, a rookie goalie who is coming off a solid senior season in college, also has signed with the team.

Milosek joined the Walleye on Dec. 29, 2021, as a free agent. The 29-year-old went on to post a 13-3-1 record with a 2.87 goals-against-average and .903 save percentage for the Walleye.

Milosek, who had been playing in the Southern Professional Hockey League, earned the ECHL’s goaltender of the week award for Jan. 10 to 16. He posted a 2-1-0 record with a 2.01 goals-against average with a save percentage of .945 in three appearances during the month.

Since 2018, Milosek has posted a 70-25-1 record for the Huntsville Havoc of the SPHL with a 2.41 goals-against average and a .918 save percentage. He also went 6-1 in the 2019 playoffs, helping Huntsville to the SPHL championship while earning MVP honors.

Parenteau played for the University of New Brunswick from 2017 to 2022. Last season, Parenteau went 14-1-0 with a 1.31 goals-against-average and a .938 save percentage. He finished his college career with a 37-5-0 record, posting a 1.67 goals-against average, and a .917 save percentage in 53 games.

In an ESPN+ article, Greg Wyshynski makes “bold predictions” for all of the NHL’s 32 teams, and here’s what he predicts will happen to the Red Wings:

Detroit Red Wings

Moritz Seider will be a Norris Trophy finalist

Seider wouldn’t be the first defenseman to win the Calder Trophy one season and then end up as a Norris finalist as a sophomore — hello, Cale Makar. I think Seider is well positioned to be the next one if the Red Wings make their expected leap in quality as a team. He averaged more than 23 minutes of ice time per game and played in all 82 contests last season. He posted 50 points on the 25th-best offensive team in in the NHL.

He’s already on the voters’ radar; if his underlying defensive numbers at 5-on-5 and on the penalty kill improve, he’ll have the stat geek support too.

Continued; a Norris Trophy nomination is definitely in Seider’s future, but I’m not sure whether year two will be the first one for him.

Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff has explained the reason why Derek Lalonde is called “Newsy“:

When the NHL was forming in 1917, Edouard “Newsy” Lalonde was the playing-coach and captain of the Montreal Canadiens. As a youth, Lalonde was working in a newsprint plant. That’s where the original Newsy would be landing his nickname.

Twice – in 1918-19 and 1920-21 – Lalonde led the NHL in scoring. He scored six goals in a game and five goals in another game. He’s enshrined in the Hockey Hall of Fame and in 1950, was named Canada’s lacrosse player of the half century.

At least Derek knows the connection. “Obviously, the Hall of Famer Newsy Lalonde (from the), Montreal Canadiens,” he said. “It went from there.”

He’s quite happy for his players to refer to him as Newsy.

“I’m comfortable with it,” Detroit’s Newsy said. “I don’t mind Coach. But coach feels very old. It feels a little more personal when guys call me Newsy.”

The Athletic’s Dom Luszczyszyn and Shayna Goldman posted a Red Wings season preview, and they feel that Detroit “isn’t ready” to take the next step yet:

Slow and steady wins the race, but for the Red Wings rebuild it feels like it’s time to start getting a move on. Detroit has missed the playoffs in six straight seasons now and all signs point to that streak extending to seven by year’s end. The Red Wings have just an 11 percent shot at making the playoffs.

To be fair, that’s not quite the goal yet for this franchise. Slow and steady, right?

Detroit has been methodical with its process and this season’s plan is merely to start turning things around. Start is the keyword. Becoming a true bonafide playoff team usually doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time to put all the pieces into place. The goal isn’t to just be a playoff team either. It’s to build a perennial contender. That takes a lot of patience, which means understanding when to keep things cooking in the oven for a little longer.

Detroit isn’t ready yet.

For this season, the plan is to simply stop losing and start winning. A playoff berth would be fantastic, but it’s a bit unrealistic still at this stage. An 82-to-83-point season would be a massive stepping stone for this club. It means inching closer towards average, keeping games tight and a lot of moral victories. That’s unfortunately still the stage the team is in, but that’s OK because it will likely all be worth it soon enough.

The Red Wings are much deeper this year, which is the primary cause of the jump in projected points, but there’s still a lot of work to be done before the team is on par with other playoff teams. That’s especially true in a competitive Eastern Conference where the field ahead of Detroit is extremely strong. The average playoff team in the East is projected for 102.3 points with the lowest at 94.5 points. Detroit is still pretty far away from that level.

Continued (paywall)

The Free Press’s Helene St. James filed her early-morning-posted column today, and in it, she discusses David Perron’s desire to become an impact player for the Red Wings, both on an off the ice:

David Perron made an immediate, favorable impression on the first day of training camp.

The veteran forward exuded energy, helping to feed the freshness that permeates the Detroit Red Wings after a makeover that extended to players at every position and the coaching staff. Perron, 34, is the oldest player on the team, and has played 973 career NHL games, but he is eager to prove how much of an impact he can make as the Wings move forward in the rebuild.

“I think for me at the stage of my career that I am at, I want to be a difference maker on the ice, still, bring some of the stuff that I was doing in St. Louis,” Perron said Thursday. “Team-wise is really where I want to make a difference also, leadership-wise, team identity, talking about some of the details. Kind of being an extension if you will, kind of preaching the right stuff in the room by talking and by my play. Making sure that the staples defensively and throughout our system are there consistently.”

Perron’s enthusiasm on his first day in a new job earned rave reviews from coach Derek Lalonde.

“Even in his want to push practice today, what’s been really exciting about David in talking to him throughout the summer, he’s self-admitted that he’s had to evolve in his career,” Lalonde said. “I think it’s an unbelievable example —here he is now, he expects practice to be at a high pace, he wants guys to work throughout the entire practice. I think he’s embracing that role. It’s something we talked about, something he wanted to embrace in the offseason, and Day 1, he stayed true to his word.”

Continued

The Traverse City Record-Eagle’s Jordan Puente filed a morning article which covers the basics surrounding the opening of training camp here in Traverse City:

[David] Perron played and helped lead the St. Louis Blues to their first Stanley Cup in 51 years. He’s aware that coming into a new team takes time to build chemistry with the players. Perron joked that coaches were eager to get started days before.

“All the coaches I’m sure had many opportunities but picked to come here. They are excited to help this team take the next step, and the same thing for me,” Perron said.

After signing with Detroit, Perron kept an eye to see which players the Red Wings had on the roster, but he didn’t expect to be with old teammates from St. Louis.

“It makes the transition easier when I saw who got traded and signed a few days before, and I saw there was an opportunity for me,” Perron said. “At the end of the day, I’ve been in different situations throughout my career where I did not know anyone or I knew some guys, but I am excited to join a group and hearing Steve talk all that stuff. Hopefully the dog days are over.”

[GM Steve] Yzerman hopes those days are over too. Players during camp on Thursday played with an energy that had fans excited for what’s to come. Some were in awe of the players who would crash each other into the boards this early.

“You can tell in today’s practice how there is a lot of energy, and there’s been a lot of buzz — even at the rink for the last two weeks,” goaltender Alex Nedeljkovic said. “Very intense practice. Very high pace and high energy. I think that’s what you are going to see throughout the year.”

Continued