Month: September 2022

Of prospect-related note today:

In the KHL, Dmitri Buchelnikov continues to be used sparingly with SKA St. Petersburg’s men’s team. He took 2 shots in 9:14 played on the 4th line and/or as the 13th forward as SKA St. Petersburg won 4-1 over Dynamo Moscow.

SKA is now 4-and-0 to start the season, and they play next on Monday, September 12th in Cherpovets vs. Severstal. The St. Petersburg MHL (Under-20 league) team, SKA-1946, doesn’t play again until September 14th, so it will be interesting to see whether Buchelnikov is kept up with men’s club, or whether he’s sent down.

Sportsnet’s Justin Bourne posted a column in which he examines the “bottom four” teams of the Atlantic Division, discussing their respective offseason moves to close the gap between themselves and the division’s four playoff teams.

Like most folks, he’s a bit skeptical of the Wings’ moves paying off, but he’s predicting that the days of Detroit being a doormat for Boston, Florida, Tampa Bay and Toronto are over, too:

Detroit Red Wings: You only get to try to lose for so long before people say “OK enough,” and after six straight years of missing the playoffs, the Wings have finally gone in. This will be Steve Yzerman’s fourth season as GM, and he’s seen enough. Now, will they be really good? I’m doubtful. But they have plenty of good young players. Moritz Seider and Lucas Raymond got people excited last year in particular, and look who’s coming to join them:

They’ve added coach Derek Lalonde, goalie Ville Husso, defencemen Ben Chiarot, Olli Maatta and Mark Pysyk, and up front they tacked on Andrew Copp, Dominik Kubalik and David Perron. That’s seven established NHL players just plugged into the NHL lineup around their growing internal talent. The names listed there are big and competitive and capable, exactly the support you need to nurture talent at the sport’s highest level.

From Steve Yzerman: “So Chiarot’s a big body (6-foot-3, 234 pounds). Maatta’s a big body (6-foot-2, 210). Even Kubalik’s an offensive player, but he’s a big, strong guy (6-foot-2, 179). So we want to be harder to play against because we’re better defensively, we’re more competitive and even we have more depth up front that we can match up better, whether it’s strong offensive teams or strong defensive teams.”

Again, I don’t think they’re suddenly better than any team in the top-four, but I’m certain they’re going to be harder to take points off. Particularly if Husso gives them the quality goalkeeping of which he’s shown himself capable.

Continued

DetroitRedWings.com’s Jonathan Mills reports that Red Wings forward Michael Rasmussen helped address the issue of pediatric cancer on Thursday night:

On Thursday night, Red Wings forward Michael Rasmussen stopped by Walled Lake Northern High School in Commerce Township, Mich., for the varsity girls volleyball Gold Out game between Walled Lake Northern and Kettering High School to help kick off Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, as part of the American Cancer Society Gold Together Champions Michigan campaign, presented by the Detroit Red Wings Foundation.

“Whether you’re a pro athlete or anyone in the spotlight, you can help different causes or have a voice,” Rasmussen said on Thursday. “I think it’s important.”

Rasmussen added that being part of the state-wide campaign “means a lot.”

“I think it affects everyone in their own way, personally or someone they know,” Rasmussen said. “It means finding a cure for cancer and helping people with cancer.”

Continued

DobberHockey’s Victor Nuno posted an article in which he discusses the Red Wings’ prospects as part of DobberHockey’s “32 in 32” series. Among his comments:

Graduating Players

Moritz Seider, RD – After winning the Calder trophy, there isn’t much doubt that he is no longer a prospect. He is a full time NHLer and a great one at that. He’s a great role model for being patient with your prospects.

Lucas Raymond, RW – Raymond started off the season hot with 14 points in his first 13 games, but cooled off a bit. He was an early Calder candidate and still received votes and finished 4th, but didn’t have the second half of the season that was worthy. Regardless, he will be a staple in the Detroit top six for years to come.

On the Cusp

Gustav Lindstrom, RD – Lindstrom played 16 and 13 games with the Red Wings in 2019-20 and 2020-21 respectively and this season played all his games (63 total) in the NHL. He is no longer waiver exempt so if he’s not playing in the NHL, he will have to go on waivers.

Risers

Albert Johansson, LD – While Edvinsson is clearly the best defensive prospect outside of the NHL right now, Johansson should get more accolades than he does. He put up 25 points in 52 games for Farjestad BK in the SHL. He was 4th on the team in ice time for defenders. He will be in North America in 2022-23, I expect him to be one of the ice time leaders for the Grand Rapids Griffins of the AHL and should be in the NHL as early as 2023-24. He has top four pairing upside and if it weren’t for Edvinsson and Seider, he could score more than 40 points. With those two in town, his production will likely be more modest.

Elmer Soderblom, LW – After scoring just five points in 28 games for Frolunda HC in 2020-21, Soderblom had a breakout season in the SHL with 33 points in 52 games for the same club. He also scored six points in nine playoff games. He seemed to get better and better as the season went on. Really leaning into his size advantage and at 6-foot-eight, why wouldn’t you. He has come to North America and should get top six minutes with the Grand Rapids Griffins of the AHL.

Carter Mazur, LW – Probably one of the biggest surprises of the tournament was Mazur’s play. He ended the tournament tied for second place in goals with Jan Mysak who played two more games. He was only behind Thomas Bordeleau, Sharks’ prospect, in points for the Americans. Mazur won the NCAA title with the University of Denver Pioneers and scored nearly a point per game in his first collegiate season. He will be back in the NCAA for another season and then will probably look to make his professional debut after that.

Continued

Per the Vancouver Canucks:

Vancouver, B.C. – Vancouver Canucks General Manager Patrik Allvin announced today that the club has signed defenceman Danny DeKeyser to a professional tryout contract.

DeKeyser, 32, played 59 games for the Detroit Red Wings last season, recording 11 points (0-11-11) and 26 penalty minutes. He ranked second on the Red Wings in blocked shots (102) and fifth among defencemen in hits (49) while averaging 18:30 in time on ice.

In 547 career NHL regular season games, all with Detroit, DeKeyser has accumulated 146 points (33-113-146) and 266 penalty minutes. The 6’3″, 183-pound blueliner has also appeared in 19 career NHL playoff games across four postseasons with the Red Wings, collecting a goal and an assist.

A native of Detroit, Michigan, DeKeyser represented the United States at the 2014 and 2017 World Championships, appearing in 16 games.

DeKeyser was originally signed by Detroit as an undrafted free agent on March 29, 2013.

Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff penned an article regarding what will likely be a division of labor between Ville Husso and Alex Nedeljkovic in the Red Wings’ crease this upcoming season:

The Detroit Red Wings are going into the upcoming NHL season uncertain of who their No. 1 goalie will be and GM Steve Yzerman is fine with that reality. In fact, Yzerman is of the belief that having two quality NHL goaltenders might just be better than having a No. 1.

“There’s so much responsibility on the goaltender,” Yzerman said. “It’s a hard position to play. There’s a lot of pressure on them, regardless of who they are.”

Last season, circumstances – mostly the various injuries and illnesses that felled Thomas Greiss – ended up forcing Alex Nedeljkovic to tend the Detroit goal in a total of 59 games.

It was a hefty workload, one that Nedeljkovic had never faced before as a pro. And the impact of that workload took a toll on the 26-year-old netminder.

“I don’t think you really understand the grind, the mental grind an 82-game season in the NHL is,” Nedeljkovic said. “I played a lot of games before. In junior I played 50-60 games a season. In the American League I played 55, almost 60 games a season, went through a long run playoff run in the American League and in junior, too. I’ve played a lot of hockey before but nothing like this. You can’t really compare it.”

Continued

According to Rakapuckar’s Henrik Leman, Red Wings prospect Liam Dower Nilsson is at least earning a chance to stick with Frolunda HC’s men’s team as coach Roger Ronnberg is keeping the youngster in the team’s stacked lineup:

Already when Frolunda scored the 1-0 goal (Ryan Lasch to Tom Nilsson at 1:29 of the 1st period), Liam Dower Nilsson was involved, using strong preliminary work to keep the puck in the attacking zone.

Otherwise, yesterday’s win featured clearly an improved effort by the 19-year-old, who centered Lasch and Jere Innalla in the absence of the ill Patrik Karlsson. 11:00 of ice time may sound meager for Dower Nilsson, but there was some penalty-killing, and quite a lot of power play time, where Lasch’s unit dominated, but not many 5-on-5 chances, but the teenager from Boras has looked grown-up and good.

Surely, Dower Nilsson will earn another chance against Mountfield on Saturday?

“I think so. Probably because I’m crazy, but I won’t have time to get that much crazier,” coach Roger Ronnberg joked.

More seriously about Dower Nilsson:

“He’s very promising. He had a good game on the best line where Jere Innala had his best game. Liam takes steps toward becoming a senior player, with all that entails.

Continued

14 minutes’ worth of discussion:

Put bluntly:

Over the last week, fundraising for the Traverse City trip has gone very poorly. I’ve raised enough money to get my vehicle’s headlights fixed and do the pre-trip grocery shopping so that I can live in my hotel room like a good correspondent…

But I’ve not raised nearly enough funds to pay for even the half of the hotel room price that will be due when I arrive in Traverse City next Wednesday.

So it’s entirely possible, and becoming more probable every day, that I may not be able to attend the prospect tournament and/or training camp at all.

I stated on Thursday that I was trying to break even and nothing more, and that’s accurate, so here’s the bottom line:

I need to raise about $1,200 before Tuesday afternoon, or I need to cancel my hotel reservation, and if we can make that goal, I’ll need to raise another $1,300 to pay for the rest of the hotel bill and get home.

Over the past week, we’ve raised about $500, which has had to go to legitimate expenses, and I’ve got about $120.00 saved up. The rest is going to fix the car and stock it with stuff in this inflationary period, which is frustrating as hell, but the way of the world.

If you can’t find a way to lend a hand, or at least spread the word that a blogger in need is trying to get up to Traverse City to be your eyes and ears, I’m not going to be able to go at all. That’s just reality for this lower-income caregiver to an 80-year-old and full-time blogger on a blog with no ads.

If you’re are willing to assist, 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.

Okay, so we’re going to get this out in the open and then we’re going to shut up about it, because I really don’t care about a player’s personal life unless what he does in his personal life is affecting his own well-being or the well-being of the team.

The charming Finnish gossip magazine Seiska.fi (“Stop!”) has an article in which “adult entertainment star” Sandra Bay says that Ville Husso was her boyfriend this past summer. All is apparently revealed in the online edition of the magazine, which one has to purchase to read.

Now I don’t give a flying flurk about who’s dating whom, but it’s out there, it’s apparently over, and now you can Google whatever the hell you want.

Edit: I’m aware that this is gossip garbage, but you were gonna hear it somewhere. You might as well hear it from someone who believes that we should leave the damn thing alone and move on.