Month: September 2023

Meet the doctors who treat the Red Wings in Traverse City

The Traverse City Record-Eagle’s James Cook tells the story of two doctors who volunteer their services to help the Red Wings during the prospect tournament and training camp:

There are few people with more Detroit Red Wings training camp experience in an official capacity than Dr. Michael Peters and Nathan March, D.O.

Maybe Steve Yzerman and a few others could vie for the honor.

Peters and March both have served dutifully at Centre Ice Area during the franchise’s training camp and NHL Prospect Tournament every year since 2001, aside from the years with a labor stoppage or COVID-19 cancellation.

And gratis, no less.

“This was a direct tie-in for me — the love of the game, wanting to be involved,” said Peters, whose sons have played hockey for Traverse City Central. “Also knowing the game and then being able to recognize those kinds of injuries from the hockey coaching and playing perspective. Then also having my kids go through the (hockey) system, it was a perfect fit. That’s why I love getting involved.”

The two Traverse City doctors often can’t go into detail about their work at the tournament and training camp, due to HIPPA laws and just plain old professional sports secrecy.

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HSJ on the power play

The Free Press’s Helene St. James posted an article which discusses the Red Wings’ in-progress power play this morning:

Day 3 of training camp for the Detroit Red Wings was a special-teams affair at Centre Ice Arena, where the depth added over the summer permeated especially onto the man-advantage groupings. As has been his daily discourse since camp began Thursday, coach Derek Lalonde noted it’s a “work in progress,” but at least it is a beginning.

Newcomer Jeff Petry ran the first power play unit on display Saturday, with Lucas Raymond, Robby Fabbri and J.T. Compher, plus Andrew Copp serving in the net-front role. In the second group, Moritz Seider ran a unit with Dylan Larkin, Shayne Gostisbehere and Alex DeBrincat plus David Perron serving in the net-front role. That left the likes of Rasmussen, Daniel Sprong, Jonatan Berggren and Jake Walman on units rounded out with AHL players.

“You will see many different looks,” Lalonde said Saturday. “We will probably give Shayne some looks up top running a power play. We’ll probably get Lucas on both half walls.

“There are a lot more options. We had four power play units today, all with some guys in some comfortable spots. We wanted to get Mo a day on top. I just thought he really progressed with some of his simplicity and decision-making and play on the power play. He really progressed.”

In addition to Petry (who shoots right), there are other options to run a unit.

“We feel Jake Walman, can,” Lalonde said. “Petry has done it with some success in this league already. So there’s all different kinds of looks and combinations. But these are really good problems to be working through.”

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Duff discusses the Red Wings’ push for offense from defense

Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff wrote an article which discusses the Red Wings’ belief that offense from their defensemen will alleviate some of the team’s scoring issues:

Last season, Moritz Seider (5-42-47) was 29th in NHL scorer among blueliners and his totals led the Detroit back end. However, the Red Wings back end additions include Shayne Gostisbehere. Playing for Arizona and Carolina last season, he was 34 among NHL rearguards, posting 13-28-41 numbers. Gostisbehere’s 13 goals were rating him 13th among NHL defenders.

Jeff Petry, an acquisition from the Montreal Canadiens, has hit for double digits in goals and 40+ points in four separate NHL campaigns.

Seider thinks simply having defenseman who are talented with the puck on their stick will improve the club’s luck at both ends of the rink.

“The less we play in our zone, the more time we will have in the O zone,” Seider said. “That’s the ultimate goal. We want to set our guys up in the offense and have the puck more than we had it last year. We want to get better scoring chances. Ultimately, we just want to get some more goals. We want to score, we want to go out there and be the difference makers. If we play less defense, we’ll definitely have a better chance.”

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Two more Wings Tweets of note: different angles

Two more Red Wings Tweets of note: James Reimer being screened by Elmer Soderblom…

And a bit of “mast cam” work:

Impressions from the third day of the Red Wings’ 2023 Training Camp

After engaging in puck possession and tracking drills over the first two days of training camp, the Red Wings switched things up during their final full day of training camp practices at Centre ICE Arena.

During the course of the regular season, power play and penalty-killing drills earn a minority of practice time; today, the emphasis on PP and PK efficiency encompassed the entirety of Team Lindsay, Team Howe and Team Delvecchio’s practices.

The Red Wings boasted 4 power play and 4 penalty-killing units, and they included a couple of “jersey swaps” so the “red jerseys” and “white jerseys” on Team Howe and Team Delvecchio witnessed personnel switches, affording players like Dylan Larkin both PP and PK time.

Continue reading Impressions from the third day of the Red Wings’ 2023 Training Camp

Kulfan on Ville Husso’s bounce-back campaign in-the-making

The Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan focuses on Red Wings goaltender Ville Husso in his training camp notebook. Husso believes that he can learn from his injury-marred, 56-game campaign:

“I had a little injury going and I wanted to play, and tested it out,” Husso said. “I wish we would have won those games. But something for this year, playing 55 games or so is to be the plan, I need every night to give the team a chance to win.”

And the injury?

“I was 100% at the end of last year,” Husso said. “Been healthy the whole summer.”

Husso, 28, had never been counted on to be a No. 1 goaltender in the NHL. With Alex Nedeljkovic and Magnus Hellberg both struggling behind Husso, suddenly the frequency and way Husso was used was totally different.

Husso, and coach Derek Lalonde feel the goaltender is better prepared for the upcoming season, and a likely similar schedule.

“I think highly of Ville,” Lalonde said. “I talked about him being a No. 1 (goaltender), and we’re going to give him a No. 1 workload. In an ideal world, like 56 or 58 starts, but we’ll keep evaluating as the season goes on.”

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Tweets of note: Coffee breaks, equipment pics and more from Bally Sports Detroit

Among Bally Sports Detroit’s Tweets of note this afternoon, well, there’s this “coffee break” from John Keating…

This photo round-up offers a good look at Lucas Raymond and Robby Fabbri’s new equipment…

And they call this kind of Tweet a “teaser Tweet”:

Stockton discusses Wings’ power play, Red vs. White Game structure

Among the Hockey News’s Sam Stockton’s Day 3 of training camp notes is the following about both Saturday’s special teams work and Sunday’s Red and White Game (12 PM EDT):

“You’ll see many different [power play] looks” before camp is up, warned Derek Lalonde.  “It’s a lot more options.  We had four power play units today all with some guys in some comfortable spots.  The added depth five-on-five has also added depth to our power play.”

Lalonde described the state of the man advantage as “a work in progress, but these are really good problems to be working through,” with the team of course preferring to have too many potent options as opposed to too few.

Tomorrow, Detroit will hold its annual Red-White scrimmage (streamed on the team’s social media channels).  Lalonde said the plan is to begin with a period of five-on-five, then play a period of special teams, then close with a period of situational play (e.g. 3-on-3.

When asked what he’d like to see from his group tomorrow, Lalonde said, “Obviously, we’d love to see some of our D-zone [coverage] perform well tomorrow.  Neutral zone is always a work-in-progress.  Kind of just all of our structure, introducing it and teaching it.  We would like that to be ahead of schedule, but…it’s our first step with some extra game action.”

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Khan on Lucas Raymond’s physical evolution

MLive’s Ansar Khan posted a notebook article about Lucas Raymond, who’s added twelve pounds of muscle to his frame. Red Wings captain Dylan Larkin says that Raymond is faster going into his third year as an NHL’er, too:

Coach Derek Lalonde said: “I don’t know if we need him bulking up and putting on a ton of weight, but it’s good weight, which I think is naturally going to come. Sometimes you forget that these guys are so young and their body is still developing.”

Dylan Larkin commented after the first day of camp how much quicker Raymond looks. The added muscle isn’t compromising his skating.

“First three steps, it’s really wowed from what he was at the end of last season to how quick he looks now,” Larkin said. “He’s got the explosive power to go with it.”

Raymond is determined to bounce back after what he called a different season.

“I felt like I grew in some areas and there were other areas I wanted to improve,” he said. “I think it was a good season, a great learning season. I’ll take away things from my second season to my third as well. Keep adjusting and trying to become the best player possible.”

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