Month: September 2023

If you hadn’t heard, the Edmonton Oilers replaced Tyler Wright as their director of amateur scouting this past week, bringing in Avs head scout Rick Pracey as their new director of amateur scouting.

Wright was replaced by Kris Draper after Steve Yzerman’s first draft with the Red Wings, and, as Detroit Hockey Now’s Kevin Allen discusses today (in a subscriber-only article), the final years of GM Ken Holland’s administration included more than a few whiffs at the draft table:

A review of the last five seasons of Ken Holland regime drafts shows Detroit made 46 draft picks and managed to find 11 players who have logged 67 or more NHL games.

Joe Veleno (2018), Jonathan Berggren (2018), Michael Rasmussen (2017) and Dylan Larkin (2014) are the only four players drafted by the Red Wings from 2014-2018 that are still on the roster.

The 11-for-46 success rate for draft picks during that period represents a .239 batting average for hitting on a draft pick. If you lower the success standard to any draftee who played at least one game, the Red Wings improve to 12-for-46 for 2014-2018 drafts. (Chase Pearson played three NHL games). That’s a 26% success rate.

The league success rate for that period is roughly 45 percent (with success defined as a draftee playing only one NHL game). The Red Wings were well below the league average.

Continued (paywall); for better or worse, Yzerman came to Detroit with all but an empty cupboard in terms of the prospect department, and his administration, under Kris Draper’s leadership, has built up a very solid stable of prospect players.

It is, of course, the job of both those players, and the Wings’ player development staff, to ensure that Draper’s faith in those players is proved correct.

Of prospect-related note today:

In the Champions Hockey League, Axel Sandin Pellikka had 2 shots and blocked 2 shots, finishing even in 19:54 of ice time in Skelleftea AIK’s 4-3 loss to Dynamo Pardubice.

IceHockeyGifs posted a quick clip of ASP doing his thing:

Skellefteå lost their 2nd CHL game 4-3 against Pardubice. Sandin Pellikka played 19:54 with 2 shots on goal #lgrw pic.twitter.com/MjMLfipYQO

— IcehockeyGifs (@IcehockeyG) September 3, 2023

And in the VHL, Dmitri Buchelnikov made his regular season debut, posting two assists in 16:08 played as SKA Neva St. Petersburg won 5-1 over Zvezda Moscow.

We’ve talked about Red Wings prospect defenseman Antti Tuomisto several times this summer, discussing the fact that the hulking defender chose an unconventional path to “bet on himself” last year.

He left the University of Denver after two seasons spent in North America to head back to Europe, playing in 60 games for TPS Turku of the Finnish Liiga.

Quite a few people wrote Tuomisto off as a prospect who succumbed to homesickness (and earning a quick buck), but the truth was that he played so well as a first-year professional that the Red Wings chose to sign the 6’5,” 205-pound right shooter to an entry-level contract.

This morning, the Free Press’s Helene St. James adds her voice to the chorus, discussing the remarks that Tuomisto made at the Red Wings’ summer development camp:

Continue reading HSJ in the morning: on Antti Tuomisto’s bet on himself

Pro Hockey Rumors is really an unfortunately-named website, because they offer much more content than they do rumors, and their fantasy hockey and general news coverage is superb.

Tonight, Ethan Hetu posted a “summer synopsis” for the Red Wings, assessing the Wings’ draft class, trade acquisitions, free agent signings, departures, and questions for the upcoming season. We’ll examine Hetu’s questions here:

Who will be the Red Wings’ second-line center?: This question isn’t exactly the right one, as we know who will start the year as Detroit’s second-line center: either Copp or Compher. But the important question is who will end up claiming that role moving into the future, seeing as the Red Wings have two quality center prospects in their pipeline in Kasper and Danielson. Will Compher reward Yzerman’s faith and his $5.1MM price tag? Will Copp improve on a first year in Detroit that saw him score only nine goals? Or will both veterans falter as the team pivots towards Kasper or eventually Danielson as Dylan Larkin’s long-term understudy?

Who claims the backup goalie role?: A 475-game NHL veteran, Reimer is undoubtedly the front-runner here. But after posting an .890 save percentage last season, he’s vulnerable. Alex Lyon has largely been a third goalie throughout his pro career. Will that finally change this season in Detroit?

Continued; in both situations, the front office’s answer to the questions as to who plays behind Dylan Larkin and who tends goal behind Ville Husso seems to be the same: “Add depth and see how things shake out.”

In both cases, the Red Wings have two options, whether it’s Andrew Copp and J.T. Compher, with Kasper waiting in the wings (so to speak), or James Reimer and Alex Lyon, who are both viable options in goal.

With the free agent class not offering many high-end offerings in terms of available game-changing talent, the Wings chose to over-build their middle ice position, and begin to establish some depth in front of Sebastian Cossa in Grand Rapids and John Lethemon in Toledo.

I’m not expecting Nate Danielson to enter into the equation as to the Red Wings’ second-line center’s job for a couple of years, mostly because he’s playing Major Junior hockey with the WHL’s Brandon Wheat Kings this upcoming season, but one never knows with goaltending and injuries, so don’t count Cossa’s NHL debut out until the 24-25 season. We may see him in the NHL this season.

I wasn’t expecting Dmitri Buchelnikov to play in Saturday’s SKA St. Petersburg KHL game, and Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff confirms that Buchelnikov did not play today, nor did Philadelphia Flyers prospect Matvei Michkov.

SKA is really the KHL’s flagship franchise, and their roster remains almost perpetually stacked, so it’s hard for younger players to earn regular ice time. As Duff suggests, as KHL teams can dress 20 skaters, their youngest players usually earn time as the 13th forward or 7th defenseman.

Right now, Duff wonders whether Buchenlnikov’s time in St. Petersburg will be short:

Buchelnikov’s name is not currently showing on the list of players populating the SKA St. Petersburg roster on the KHL website and there are 20 forwards included on that list. If Buchelnikov is in fact that far down the SKA depth chart, there certainly remains the chance that he will be going on loan to another KHL club. That’s what SKA did last season with the highly-touted Michkov, sending him to play with HC Sochi. Offseason reports from the Russian media have also been linking Buchelnikov with a move to that club.

Last season, Buchelnikov was posting 1-1-2 totals in 10 KHL games for SKA St. Petersburg. He was playing all but two of those 10 games during the first month of the season. He spent the majority of the 2022-23 campaign with SKA-Neva in the VHL, the Russian second division. Buchelnikov was also seeing some time with SKA-1946 in the MHL, the Russian junior league.

The 19-year-old left-winger was the 52nd overall choice Detroit in the 2022 NHL entry draft. He’s under contract with SKA St. Petersburg until the conclusion of the 2024-25 season. He put his name to a two-year extension with the club last season.

My best guess right now is that we ought to check SKA Neva St. Petersburg’s box scores to see whether Buchelnikov earns ice time there.

My aunt is, for better or worse, usually right when she makes observations, and as we talked about fundraising yesterday, AA suggested that the mysterious benefactor’s $2,000 donation might actually make raising funds for the Traverse City trip more difficult, because people might think that those kinds of donations happen all the time.

She’s not wrong; over the past two days, we’ve raised about $50, and the GoFundMe has stagnated.

We’ve also been discussing the state of our 17-year-old Chrysler Pacifica, whose power steering is acting weird, whose right rear passenger side brake whines, and which needs an oil change rather desperately after spending so much time on the road due to Aunt Annie’s hospitalizations over the past year.

I’ve got to get my Pacifica into Norm’s Total Auto for a once-over before I leave, and it’s not going to be cheap, no matter how little we ask him to actually fix.

But there’s something that I want to address on a larger level, too.

After spending much of yesterday with the covers pulled over my head due to an anxiety attack, I got up and wrote a sprawling explanation of the fact that Aunt Annie and I live a spartan life, and that we really are absolutely blessed by a once-in-a-lifetime gesture by our mysterious benefactor.

Continue reading In the middle (of fundraising)

The Brandon Wheat Kings’ website re-posted an article from the Brandon Sun’s Perry Bergson, in which Bergson discusses the WHL team’s outlook for the 2023-2024 season.

Bergson points out that the Wheat Kings’ captain, Red Wings 9th overall draft pick Nate Danielson, is literally and figuratively “front and centre” in terms of the Wheat Kings’ forwards:

Everything starts with Danielson, the co-captain last season who led the team in scoring with 78 points on 33 goals and 45 assists. He was then selected ninth overall in the National Hockey League draft by the Detroit Red Wings.

“Nate is a special player,” Wheat Kings head coach and general manager Marty Murray said. “It’s not too often you get a top 10 NHL pick coming back to your team. We’re expecting him to have a real big year, although you don’t want to put too much pressure on a kid. We just want him to play his game. He’s developed into one of the best players in the league and I’m really excited to see him after a good summer.

“Part of it with him too is the weight of the draft being off his shoulders.”

For Brandon fans, the worst possible scenario occurs if Danielson finds a spot in Detroit in his 19-year-old season, something that happened with previous Wheat Kings stars such as Nolan Patrick and Wade Redden.

Murray is hopeful Red Wings history points in a different direction.

“Detroit typically has a path for these guys where they like them to season themselves a little bit in the American Hockey League,” Murray said. “We fully expect Nate back, but it’s a crazy game, as we all know, and sometimes those kids turn into men over the summer and Nate was on the verge of doing that last year.

“Would it absolutely surprise me if he made an NHL roster this fall? No, but at the same time, we expect Nate to be back and a big part of our hockey team.”

Continued; per the NHL-CHL agreement, Danielson would have to either make the Red Wings out of training camp, or he must return to the Wheat Kings.

There’s no AHL middle ground for Canadian Hockey League-playing players (an exception was made for players who played during the pandemic, like former Wings prospect Donovan Sebrango) for their 18 and 19-year-old seasons, and Danielson doesn’t turn 19 until September 27th, so this year, at least, he’s either an NHL’er or WHL’er.

All of that being said, I don’t expect Danielson to make the Wings out of training camp due to Detroit’s new-found depth at forward. Danielson still has a ways to go physically, and while he’s drawn some recent comparisons to Ryan Kesler, he’s not there yet.

Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff took note of the fact that CSKA Moscow, the Sergei Fedorov-coached defending Gargarin Cup champs, played goaltender Ivan Fedotov, who’s supposed to be playing for the Philadelphia Flyers this year (per the International Ice Hockey Federation’s rules), against the Ak Bars Kazan in the KHL season-opener today, in clearly flouting the IIHF’s ruling.

Fedorov also made a comment to the TASS news agency after CSKA Moscow lost 5-2, and Duff translated it:

After the game, Fedorov went on a tirade against the IIHF. He was also speaking cryptically in support of the Russian regime and President Vladimir Putin. Fedorov even went as far as to reference Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“Reading certain things over the past month, I can say with confidence, in my opinion, everyone needs to wake up a long time ago,” TASS reported Fedorov saying. “A special military operation is underway, the world has changed. Therefore, here everyone needs to wake up and understand what realities we live in, and who rules in our country – we or some laws from the other side?”

Two key members of the Russian Five that helped Detroit win the 1996-97 Stanley Cup, Fedorov and Viacheslav Fetisov, have both now spoken strongly in support of the Russian government.

There’s been speculation about NHL interest in Fedorov as a coach following his Russian success. This episode certainly is likley to put any any such talk on the back burner. The NHL won’t look kindly upon someone who is deliberately violating a ruling that was in their favor.

Put bluntly: CSKA stands for the Central Red Army team. They’ve already been used in campaigns supporting the Russian invasion of Ukraine, as have the Ak Bars, and it doesn’t matter what Fedorov might think on his own.

The “Special Military Operation” is something that he absolutely has to support, he absolutely has to support Putin, and that’s the way things are.

As Duff suggests, this isn’t going to help Fedorov earn an NHL resume, and the same is true for Igor Larionov, who coaches Nizhny Novgorod. But in Russia, prominent hockey personalities have taken sides, and it should not surprise us that they’ve made the predictable choice.

They’re going to flip off the IIHF, they’re going to support the Russian war with Ukraine, and they’re going to support Putin, like any prominent Russian has to do, because in Russia, sports are political, and political messages are sent through sports. It’s always been that way.

The Athletic’s Front-Office Confidence Rankings came out yesterday, and Dom Luszczyszyn reported that the Red Wings finished 11th in the rankings, with some fans expressing their displeasure with Steve Yzerman’s slow-building approach:

12. Detroit Red Wings

Last Year: 3rd

Confidence in the Yzerplan is at an all-time low, especially from the public. It’s hard to build a true contender without the lottery luck to nab franchise players, but it feels wrong to attempt to turn the corner without them. That’s seemed to be Detroit’s plan the last two summers with the team making a lot of additions via free agency — many of which don’t look great (hello Ben Chiarot). A big-time trade for Alex DeBrincat signifies the team is gunning for a playoff spot this year which begs the question: Is this it?

For better or worse, this is the team, and while they will be augmented in the future by a strong prospect pipeline, the team is still missing true elite difference-makers — the ones that contenders are built around. Maybe it’s enough to be a playoff team, but it feels like it limits Detroit’s ceiling beyond that.

That brings about questions regarding the team’s vision, something that even the fans are relatively lower on than in years past. A 4.4 rating suggests high confidence in the Yzerplan and maybe that’s the only number needed, but the middle-of-the-pack ranking means they’re much less zealous than other fan bases.

This is a make-or-break year for the Yzerplan and the confidence that it’s instilled in the past. The Red Wings have missed the playoffs for seven straight seasons and it doesn’t feel likely the streak will break this season.

Continued; I’m not thrilled that the Red Wings haven’t been able to bring in many “difference-makers,” but the fact that the team turned over half its roster to bring in more and more depth this offseason showed me that the Wings’ front office is still committed to doing its best to improve the team’s talent base.

Without the blessing of great luck in the draft lottery, the Wings are having to build a team the hard way, and through some sparsely-talented free agency summers at that, and I still feel that the entire front office and coaching staff are doing their best to build a base for the stars that may become available over the next couple of summers.

Is that a fast enough rebuilding effort for anyone’s level of patience, mine included? Definitely not, but it’s a realistic one for a team that really started from scratch when Yzerman took over. Patience isn’t Detroit fans’ strong suit, but it’s still required.

This afternoon, the Hockey News’s Sam Stockton examines the Red Wings’ looming contract extensions for Lucas Raymond and Moritz Seider as the Auston Matthews extension–a four-year contract instead of a max-term, 8 year extension–applies to the Wings’ young stars:

So, how does all this affect Raymond and Seider?

The short answer is it’s hard to say.  ELCs are mostly boilerplate, dictated by a player’s draft positioning and the Collective Bargaining Agreement; they don’t offer much insight into an individual player’s approach to contract negotiations.  With that in mind, it’s difficult to say what Raymond and Seider will prioritize in their second contracts.  

Neither Raymond nor Seider will be in a position to command a $13 million+ salary, but, if they want to max out their career earnings, they would both be well served to follow some portion of Mattthews’ lead and getting themselves back to free agency.

For Yzerman and the Red Wings, the challenge will be securing a healthy portion of each players prime at a number that entices them to remain in Detroit, without over-committing.

As I said from the outset, there is no serious risk of either Raymond or Seider playing elsewhere in 2024-25 (unless that is an option the Red Wings select themselves). Instead, Seider and Raymond’s next deals will be all about the money that remains to flesh out the roster beyond them.

Continued; I’m gonna be honest, with all respect to Sam, who does wonderful work every dang day:

I think that Matthews is in a very different situation as someone who is looking to continue to maximize his value as the salary cap climbs upward in the next couple of years. Raymond and Seider are still developing into star players, and they may very well sign “bridge deals” of similar length, but they don’t have the kind of leverage of one of the NHL’s brightest stars to completely dictate the term and terms of his contract.

What will happen this season, though? As Sam suggests, Raymond and Seider will be asked to afford the rest of the team some cap space to be built around them.