Month: July 2024

Of brief Red Wings-related note on the last evening of July:

1. According to NHL.com’s Adam Kimelman, Red Wings prospect Jesse Kiiskinien did not play during for Finland on Wednesday at the World Junior Summer Showcase, and that’s…okay. We’re not going to know much in terms of what ails a young player during a Summer Showcase game, but, at this point, it’s far better to hear that the HPK Hameenlinna forward did not wear the captain’s “C” for Finland due to a minor injury than hear that he tweaked something major on July 31st.

2. Earlier today, the WHL Tweeted out a set of five Red Wings prospects with WHL ties. They actually missed one, and the WHL’s website included him in their webpage about the Wings’ WHL alumni:

Cross Hanas: Left Winger Cross Hanas built up his foundation in his second season in the AHL. The Dallas, Texas product tallied eight goals and eight assists for 16 points in 58 games while tying his single-game high with two assists against the Cleveland Monsters on March 27. Hanas, who turned 22 in January, is coming off a prolific WHL career that saw him put up 58 goals and 103 assists for 161 points and a +56 rating in 196 games over four seasons with the Portland Winterhawks. Hanas wore the ‘A’ for the perennially dangerous Hawks and was named a U.S. Division First-Team All-Star in 2022. He scored nine times and dished eight assists for 17 points in 30 games in his rookie AHL season after being drafted in the second round, 55th overall, of the 2020 NHL Entry Draft.

This is a pivotal season for Hanas in the AHL with Grand Rapids. The Griffins forward is 22 now, and the 6’1,” 181-pound winger hasn’t posted more than 17 points over the course of two AHL seasons played now.

He was an assist machine in the WHL, but the Red Wings have a constellation’s worth of young forwards who grind well and have possessed some offensive chops in the past, and Hanas needs to at least find some scoring form to remain relevant as a Wings prospect over the course of the 2024-2025 campaign.

3. Finally, Sportsnet’s Emily Sadler posted a list of 13 active NHL players who are “Hall of Fame locks,” and we’re riding on the coattails of this one:

Patrick Kane | Chicago Blackhawks, New York Rangers, Detroit Red Wings

His longtime captain, Jonathan Toews, is a first-ballot Hall of Famer, too, no doubt, but as noted in the introduction Toews isn’t on this list because he’s not technically an active NHLer right now. 

While you won’t see Kane’s name topping any of the Blackhawk’s all-time statistical leaderboards — Stan Mikita and Bobby Hull pretty much have those Original Six franchise records on lockdown — there is no doubt his decade-plus run of success with the club changed the league’s landscape. The decorated goal-scorer propelled Chicago to three Stanley Cups within a six-year time frame, also adding a Conn Smythe, Hart Trophy, and Ted Lindsay Award to his resume in the process. He became the first American-born player to lead the league in scoring in 2015-16 and currently sits second in assists (813) and third in points on the all-time U.S. player leaderboard. 

We can dream on riding those “coattails” to some all-time scoring numbers registered by Kane while wearing the Winged Wheel, can’t we?

This is simply a little bit of Twitter fun on a very hot July Wednesday. The WHL posted a set of spotlight Tweets regarding five Red Wings prospects with WHL ties:

These six @DetroitRedWings prospects put the 'motor' in Motor City!

— The WHL (@TheWHL) July 31, 2024

In doing so, they may remind you of a prospect who you forgot about in Gage Alexander…

Before Gage was stopping pucks with the @tulsa_oilers, he was manning the crease with the @SCBroncos! pic.twitter.com/SSqtuBL8hO

— The WHL (@TheWHL) July 31, 2024

The Hockey News’s Connor Eargood spoke with Red Wings prospect Max Plante’s summer hockey school compatriot and those around Plante regarding the plucky young forward’s busy summertime schedule, and strong performance at the World Junior Summer Showcase:

So far, Plante has impressed. In the showcase’s first two games, he played in the top six and on the first power play unit alongside high-level returners like Ryan Leonard, Gabriel Perreault, Zeev Buium and presumptive 2025 No. 1 pick James Hagens. The big dogs, and Plante is running right alongside them. For a young player in his first showcase camp, Plante’s coaches recognize that what he’s doing is impressive.

“To play with players of that caliber, sometimes there can be a level of pressure that comes with it. I don’t think we saw that today,” USA coach David Carle said Friday on the opening day of the showcase. “You know, if you’re playing with Ovechkin, you feel like you gotta put every pass in the perfect spot. As a player, there can be that level of pressure where you want to be perfect. And we have really good players on this team, and him being the younger guy playing with three of the guys on the team a year ago, there can be that little bit of pressure. But again, I didn’t see that today.”

Neither did Plante show signs of pressure later in the camp. In Sunday’s scrimmage against Sweden, he scored the opening goal for a USA Blue squad full of returners. Playing the bumper on that squad’s top power play, his unit scored in each game against the Swedes and Finland on Monday. Plante looked the part of a regular, which is encouraging for a player in the middle of July.

Away from the puck, Plante’s positioning and hockey IQ have stood out. Those are the traits that got Detroit excited to select him 47th overall in the draft last month, and those are traits that will help him get far in his hockey career. They have been apparent for years to those who watched him at Hermantown High School, including [GRIT Hockey Club’s Jasen] Wise himself.

“I think from the neck down, his skill set speaks for itself, but from the neck up, it’s his hockey IQ on the ice — awareness,” Wise said. Wise’s young sons are frequent viewers of Plante’s film online because of this. “He’s always moving. He’s always reading the plays. He’s reacting. He’s good at anticipation, just knowing what’s going to happen before it happens or he can see things developing. From the neck up, I think he’s probably one of the smartest guys on the ice all the time. And just (his) compete level, he wants to win. And I think he elevates the guys around him.”

Continued

The CBC Windsor’s Desmond Brown interviewed Dr. Murray Howe recently, and the youngest Howe brother has a simple, succinct “nickname” for the Gordie Howe International Bridge:

The youngest son of late NHL legend Gordie Howe has the perfect nickname for the bridge connecting Windsor and Detroit that bears his father’s name — The Gordie.

“I would just call it The Gordie. From the second I heard that it would be named after him, I just said we’re going to go across The Gordie now,” Murray Howe said on Windsor Morning.

The Gordie Howe International Bridge is inching closer and closer to its expected fall 2025 completion date. Last week, Howe family members were among scores of guests and dignitaries on hand to mark another milestone in the construction — the completion of the road deck connecting both sides.

“The bridge really symbolizes how big he was. I mean, he was just larger than life, and if he was in a room, you just immediately recognized his presence because he was just like a giant gorilla,” Howe said. 

“He just filled up the room in the same way that that bridge [does], you can’t miss it when you’re anywhere around Metro Detroit or southern Ontario, you’re going to see that, you’re going see The Gordie.”

Continued with an 8-minute audio interview with Murray…

The Athletic’s Harman Dayal discusses “seven NHL teams that will shed bad contracts and gain major salary-cap relief in 2025,” and the Red Wings make his list. Here’s the text part of what he has to say:

Inefficient contracts expiring: Ville Husso ($4.75 million), Jeff Petry ($2.343 million)

Dead cap reduction: Justin Abdelkader and Kailer Yamamoto’s buyout cap hit shrinks from $1.58 million to $1.05 million

Projected cap space (assuming a $92 million cap ceiling): $39.9 million (12 players signed)

2025 pending UFAs: Patrick Kane, Christian Fischer, Tyler Motte, Husso, Olli Määttä, Petry, William Lagesson

2025 pending RFAs: NoneThe Red Wings will be able to spend more efficiently in net once Ville Husso’s $4.75 million AAV contract expires.

Husso has registered a save percentage below .900 in both of his seasons with Detroit and was limited to just 19 games because of injury in 2023-24. If top prospect Sebastian Cossa looks ready for NHL duties by 2025-26, the Red Wings can allocate Husso’s cap savings to upgrade other parts of the roster.

Detroit’s glut of veteran third-pair quality defenders will also start to clear up. Jeff Petry and Olli Määttä’s contract expiration will open up an additional $5.3 million in cap room.

However, the $39.9 million of projected cap space for next summer is misleading because both Moritz Seider and Lucas Raymond are currently unsigned. Seider and Raymond are projected to sign long-term extensions in the $8.1 million and $7.75 million cap hit range, respectively, according to AFP Analytics.

With those cap hits plugged in, Detroit would be left with $24 million to spend in the 2025 offseason, which is still some serious dough. The 2025-26 campaign will mark Steve Yzerman’s seventh season as Red Wings general manager, so he’ll likely be feeling pressure at that point to capitalize on that cap space and ice a playoff team.

Continued; it could be argued that next year will be the year in which Detroit makes its first real playoff push due to some inevitable turnover on the roster, but I can’t imagine that the GM and management group will feel any more pressure than they already do to end the Wings’ playoff drought.

That, and one way or another, Husso will either be playing for the Red Wings as a healthy goaltender, he’ll be buried in Grand Rapids, or he’ll be traded by the end of December. The Wings are going to rectify his situation this season.

The Red Wings drafted 20-year-old Ondrej Becher, a center who played for the Prince George Cougars this past season, with the 80th overall pick in this past June’s NHL Draft.

It’s a little unusual to see NHL teams draft 20-year-old players, but the Red Wings watched Becher post a 64-assist, 96-point season with Prince George (and then post 19 points in 15 playoff games), and they decided to take the plunge and draft the Czech center.

MLive’s Ansar Khan posted a profile of Becher this morning, quoting Red Wings assistant GM and amateur scouting Kris Draper regarding Becher’s realized potential:

“Just looked like everything potentially that he had as a 17-, 18-year-old kind of hit as a 19-year-old,” Kris Draper, Red Wings assistant general manager and director of amateur scouting, said. “He got a great opportunity and took advantage of it and was really comfortable in it. He certainly put up great numbers. His skating is something that when you watch him play, he has that extra gear.

“Just another guy that you’re sitting there and you watch him and he’s able to bring that speed and skill-set. One of those late-bloomers. He’s just starting to come into his own and starting to feel comfortable about the type of player that he could possibly be.”

Becher described himself as a “two-way playmaker,” more of a passer than a shooter. He was a big fan of fellow Czech and former Boston Bruins forward David Krejci.

“He was an amazing player,” Becher said. “He played two ways like I think I’m playing now.”

As Khan notes, the Red Wings may have to sign Becher to a contract in order to afford him a place to play this upcoming season. WHL teams can only have three 20-year-old players on their rosters, so Becher may move around the league as an “over-ager”:

“We’ll see what transpires here in terms of where he’s going to play,” Danny Cleary, Red Wings assistant director of player development, said.

It’s also a little difficult to say whether Becher developed into the point-per-game player that he could become at the pro level, or whether he simply had a tremendous year’s worth of statistics playing as a player a little older against his peers…

But at this point where Becher was drafted, it can’t hurt to take a chance on a young man whose potential explodes into realized results.

NHL.com correspondent Stan Fischler offers a collection of “top forward lines” from the NHL’s Original Six–as well as a sextet of modern-era teams–and Fischler’s suggestion for the Red Wings’ Original Six era is a simple one:

Detroit Red Wings: Gordie Howe, Ted Lindsay and Sid Abel

Unlike the Ponies, “The Production Line” was physically intimidating. That style meshed with their overall talent and turned the Red Wings into Stanley Cup champions in 1950 and 1952. 

The line came into its own in 1949-50, Lindsay’s 78 points leading the NHL ahead of Abel (69) and Howe (68). However, a severe head injury sustained during Game 1 of the 1950 Semifinals against the Toronto Maple Leafs nearly ended Howe’s career. Thanks to the offense provided by Abel and Lindsay, Detroit won the Cup.

A year later, Howe began dominating NHL scoring. He had 86 points in 70 games in 1950-51, 20 ahead of runner-up Maurice Richard, Abel and Lindsay also among the top 10. Their mastery reached its peak the following season. The Red Wings finished first by 22 points and won the Cup in an eight-game sweep of first Toronto and then Montreal.

“This was my greatest team,” said general manager Jack Adams, “and the Production Line was the reason for that.”

Continued; if Jack Adams wasn’t such an inveterate (i.e. habitual) tinkerer, the Wings probably would have won more than the four Cups from 1950-55. Ol’ Jack couldn’t leave well enough alone.

That being said, the Production Line’s original iteration was a masterpiece of chemistry, scoring touch, work ethic and plain old Detroit grit, and I can’t begrudge Adams the credit for crafting the Red Wings’ most famous forward line.

Red Wings prospect and US National Team Development Program alumnus Max Plante spoke with FloHockey.tv’s Chris Peters at the World Junior Summer Showcase in Plymouth, MI:

Yesterday, MLive’s Ansar Khan filed an article which discussed Christian Fischer’s desire to provide more offensive “pop” to the Red Wings now that he’s looking forward to his second season in Detroit. This afternoon, the Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan notes that Fischer is popular on the Red Wings team for his work ethic:

“He’s a very popular player on our team,” [Red Wings GM] Yzerman said. “He’s very versatile on the ice. You saw he played on that third line (with Andrew Copp and Michael Rasmussen). That was a good, effective checking line when Ras was healthy. He’s predominantly a winger, but we used him at center at times and he’s a good penalty killer. Ultimately we like his character and his personality and the role he’s going to play on our team.”

Fischer understands his role and embraces his responsibilities.

The checking line alongside Copp and Rasmussen was a valuable weapon to have for coach Derek Lalonde, as is Fischer’s versatility. Fischer’s role in the locker room is equally important.

“The guys love Christian,” Lalonde said during the season. “He plays the right way.”

Fischer understands what he brings to the lineup.

“I know what my duties are and my role on this team,” Fischer said. “That was big for me coming back. I really enjoyed my role with those two (Copp and Rasmussen) and even when I wasn’t with them. But with those two I thought I had some success, kind of hunkering down that bottom six and doing some things that all bottom-six players have to do. I look forward to taking another step in that and penalty killing and matchups and all this other stuff that I really embrace.”

Continued (paywall); Fischer does his job and does his job well, but there’s no doubt that he’s a bit of a bench/locker room guy as well. With David Perron moving on to Ottawa, the Wings are going to need as many “rah-rah” guys as they can get.

NHL.com’s Mike G. Morreale’s notebook article about the 3rd day of the World Junior Summer Showcase in Plymouth, MI features 2 topics of Red Wings-related note.

Morreale spoke with Red Wings prospect and Michigan State University goaltender Trey Augustine about his status as the incumbent starter going into his second World Junior Championship experience this December in Ottawa…

Augustine won all four starts with a 1.75 goals-against average and .936 save percentage in helping the United States to a gold medal at the 2024 WJC in Sweden. He made 19 saves, including several in the final minutes of a 3-2 win against Finland in the semifinal round, and 24 saves in a 6-2 win in the gold-medal game against Sweden.

“I think having that experience helps,” Augustine said. “It’s going to be my third World Juniors so I kind of feel like I’ve been through it all. It’s knowing how I have to prepare, then seeing a team jell like we did last year. I think that’s the most important thing, trying to get every guy on the same page, locked in together and build that brotherhood from the ground up.”

The 19-year-old earned team MVP, Outstanding Rookie, second-team All-Big 10 and All-Freshman Team honors in his first season at Michigan State in 2023-24. He ranked fourth in the Big 10 and 15th in the NCAA with a .918 save percentage and fifth in the Big 10 with a 2.96 GAA.

Selected by the Detroit Red Wings in the second round (No. 41) of the 2023 NHL Draft, Augustine is one of five goalies on the United States roster invited to the Summer Showcase. He’s expected to make the team and will be joined by two other goalies after final cuts are made in December.

“We’re here to go win and it obviously starts now and we’re going to keep building,” he said. “Every guy is going to work on their game throughout the first half of season and then we’re going to get back together and December, have a great camp when we go there, and then go win a gold medal.”

And Morreale spoke with Red Wings coach Derek Lalonde, who helped U.S. National Team coach David Carle by heading behind the bench to assist the coaching staff for two games on Monday afternoon:

“I did the same as last year, but this was my first time behind the bench, so I’ve upgraded,” Lalonde said. “Any time USA asks me to do anything, I’ll always say yes. I have a little more of a personal relationship with David Carle, but also assistant coach Steve Miller, too. I was with Steve five years at the University of Denver, and I recruited David … we brought David to Denver. He was an assistant, and I gave him his first job as an assistant with me in Green Bay (of the United States Hockey League). 

“I enjoy spending time with the kids, but also just seeing their process. Any time you can find opportunities to grow in the summer, you do it, and this is an opportunity for me.”