Month: July 2024

It looks like we all ought to bookmark Nitten.no, because the website has posted a second Norwegian-language story about Red Wings prospect Michael Brandsegg-Nygard in three days.

On Saturday, Red Wings Prospects on Twitter spotted an article in which Brandsegg-Nygard explained that his signing to an entry-level contract by the Red Wings means that he may end up playing for the Grand Rapids Griffins instead of Skelleftea AIK this upcoming season, presuming that he has a good training camp with the Wings.

This morning, Red Wings Prospects alerts us to a second article in which reporter Wegard Bakkehaug asked Anders Myrvold, the former Red Wings defenseman and GM of Brandsegg-Nygard and Stian Solberg’s “parent club,” Valerenga, whether MBN and his friend Solberg (an Anaheim Ducks draft pick) should play in the SHL this upcoming season.

Here’s a rough translation of the article:

Myrvold: This will be perfect for both boys

Anders Myrvold believes that playing in the SHL this upcoming season is the perfect “next step” for the Valerenga boys Stian Solberg and Michael Brandsegg-Nygard

Stian Solberg will move to Karlstad, Sweden on August 1st and will play for Farjestads BK next season, even though he recently signed an “entry-level contract” with the Anaheim Ducks.

Michale Brandsegg-Nygard signed the same kind of three-year deal with the Detroit Red Wings just before last weekend.

The signings trigger around 4.2 million Norwegian Kroner in compensation for Valerenga, who are very proud to have produced two 18-year-olds who both became historic when they were drafted in the 1st round earlier this summer.

“It’s a fantastic opportunity for them. This will be perfect for both boys,” says Valerenga GM Anders Myrvold to Nitten.no.

Believes in SHL games

This morning, MLive’s Ansar Khan opens what will be a 3-part series of articles which will estimate the Red Wings’ opening-night lineup for the 2024-2025 season.

This morning, Khan discusses the Red Wings’ probable forward lineup (as well as those who will miss the cut, if only barely):

First line: Lucas Raymond-Dylan Larkin-Vladimir Tarasenko

The Red Wings signed Tarasenko for two years ($4.75 million average annual value) to help compensate for the offense they lost in the offseason. He tallied 23 goals and 55 points between Ottawa and Florida last season but should be capable of returning to his 30-goal form of 2021-22 with St. Louis (34 goals), playing on a top line and with more power-play minutes. Raymond took a huge step last season (31 goals, 72 points), particularly during the stretch run when the team was fighting for its playoff life. He will sign a huge contract this summer and be expected to continue his progression. Larkin, despite missing 14 games, scored a career-high 33 goals and averaged a career-best 1.01 points per game.

Second line: Alex DeBrincat-J.T. Compher-Patrick Kane

Kane and DeBrincat, former linemates with the Chicago Blackhawks, had good chemistry at times last season but can be better together. DeBrincat needs to be more consistent after a late-season slump (one goal and six assists in 19 games, with a 2.1 percent shooting percentage). Kane did remarkably well, coming off hip resurfacing surgery (20 goals, 47 points in 50 games) and figures to have a little more offense in him following a normal off-season and a training camp. Compher has averaged 18 goals and 50 points in the past two seasons. You’d like more production from a second-line center, but he still is their best option there.

Continued; I’m always a little cringe-y about making my own estimations of lineups in the middle of the summer given the ups and downs provided by preseason performances and injuries suffered over the course of the 8-game preseason schedule, but that’s probably a lack of confidence on my part.

How do you think that the Wings’ “top six” and “bottom six” forwards will shake out? You can use PuckPedia’s Wings page as a good reference in terms of the team’s depth chart.

The Red Wings drafted 6’3,” 212-pound forward Charlie Forslund with the 176th overall pick in this past June’s NHL Draft, “taking a flyer” on a player who dominated in an under-18 league and then Falu IF of the HockeyEttan, which is two steps removed from the SHL.

At this point, Forslund has signed with Mora of the Swedish Allsvenskan, and, as Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff notes, the Red Wings are hoping that better on and off-ice training should help Forslund fulfill his potential as a Swedish-born power forward:

Forslund will be taking his game to another level next season. A higher level. He’ll be skating with Mora in the top Swedish junior league. That’s the same club for which Red Wings top pick Michael Brandsegg-Nygard was performing last season.

“That organization has done well with good, young hockey players,” Draper said. “That kind of played into it and that’s going to be important development-wise. Going into a good organization, he’ll continue to develop.”

With the possibility of an NHL future now a realistic dream for Forslund, this new challenge is also exciting to him.

“I look forward to doing that,” Forslund said of playing for Mora. “It’s not so far from home. It’s gonna be big. They take care of the junior players.I think that’s a good step for me.”

Continued (paywall story); very few people other than Draper and the Red Wings’ scouts have actually seen Forslund play in person, so he’s something of a mystery prospect. He could end up being a diamond in the rough, and, as Duff suggests, he could end up being just all-round rough, too.

NHL.com’s Dave Hogg posted a profile of Red Wings 2024 1st-round draft pick and recent signing Michael Brandsegg-Nygard, who’s now the first of two Norwegian-born prospects drafted in the first round (alongside his best hockey pal, Anaheim draft pick Stian Solberg):

“It has been a dream for so long,” Brandsegg-Nygard, who was born in Oslo, told the Red Wings website at the draft. “Now I am living the dream, so I’m just going to work hard, do what I always do and hopefully I’m going to be an NHL player someday.”

Detroit believes it has a player who can help at both ends of the ice.

“I think he plays a pretty responsible game for a young guy,” Red Wings general manager Steve Yzerman said. “When we all played junior, we worried about scoring. We didn’t check. He’s just got a really well-rounded game to him. I just think he’s a guy who could play in all situations. He can play either wing, a lot of different spots on the power play.”

Brandsegg-Nygard played against men as an 18-year-old last season with Mora IK in Sweden’s second-highest professional league, with 18 points (eight goals, 10 assists) in 41 games. He picked up his game in the playoffs, with 10 points (four goals, six assists) in 12 games.

“I like his game,” Detroit director of player development Dan Cleary said during Red Wings development camp earlier this month. “Watching him play, you can see he’s strong, protecting the puck, he can shoot it very well.”

Cleary sent Brandsegg-Nygard back to Sweden with some specific things to work on this season.

“Like every young kid, we look at their testing, they’ve got to get stronger, which they will as they get older and more mature. His skating, he knows he’s got to work on it. He’s driven to work on it. Those are the ones that will get better.”

Continued; as we know now, the Red Wings signed MBN to ensure that he’ll play where the Red Wings want him to play, be that with Skelleftea AIK or Grand Rapids this upcoming season–and he’ll attend training camp, as he told Nitten.no’s Wegard Bakkehaug recently.

Both the Free Press’s Helene St. James and Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff discuss Red Wings forward Patrick Kane’s decision to re-sign with Detroit late last month, framing their stories with comments made by Kane during his conference call with reporters last week.

St. James focuses on Kane’s motivation to re-sign with Detroit…

His decision on the eve of free agency to return to the Detroit Red Wings was a big win for the organization, and it came after Kane heard what general manager Steve Yzerman had to say about the direction of the team: That it needed to be a squad with the potential to build on last season, when the chase for a playoff spot lasted all the way till Game 82.

“We all want to build on last year,” Kane said last week. “That was the message I got as well. I think there’s definitely expectations going into this season, and that’s always a good thing — you want those expectations. You want, whether it’s the fans or the media or just players in general, to expect the team, the organization, to take the next step. I’m excited to be a part of that and hopefully have a chance to have a good regular season and play playoff hockey again.”

As well as Kane’s maturation into something of a salesman for the appeal of joining the Red Wings’ organization:

The Red Wings drafted Emmitt Finnie out of the WHL’s Kamloops Blazers because, in 2023, the 6,’ 170-pound center looked like a promising and plucky speedster, albeit of average size. So they selected him 201st overall, and he’s looking like a real “sleeper” pick.

Finnie grew in production from 35 points in 64 games in 22-23 to 19 goals and 40 assists for 59 points in 62 games in 23-24, and he grew an inch to 6’1″ and added 13 pounds to his 183-lb frame.

Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff profiled the “most intriguing sleeper prospect” on Sunday morning, and he noted that Red Wings assistant director of player development Dan Cleary loves what Finnie brings to the mix…

The seventh round of the draft is when teams roll the dice, take a shot on a player they hope could ultimately develop into something. It isn’t supposed to happen as fast as it’s happening with Finnie, however.

“He’s looked good,” Cleary said. “For me, when you go watch him play, say you go in October and you’re back again in December, it feels like he just grew each time you meet him. He started getting bigger, his chest fills out. When he was in Grand Rapids for the games he played, he didn’t look out of place at all because he’s smart, he knows where to be positionally. All it’s going to take is a little more experience, a little more maturity but he’s a nice player. I really like Emmitt.”

The one thing the Red Wings want Finnie to add isn’t height or weight any more–it’s “swagger”:

“When I talk to him, he’s really quiet,” Cleary said. “He’s a really good strong player but I’d like him to have a little more swagger to himself. We keep trying to instill that confidence in him. He believes he’s a good player. Once they start to believe it, they’ll start to show it more on the ice.”

Continued; sometimes players like Finnie and Kevin Bicker pan out; sometimes they don’t. But it’s always a bonus when they do.

Well, this is cheery. SI Now’s Jacob Punturi examines three players who Punturi believes will “regress” during the 2024-2025 season, and his crosshairs land upon Red Wings restricted free agent forward Lucas Raymond, Florida Panthers forward Sam Reinhart, and Edmonton Oilers defenseman Evan Bouchard:

Lucas Raymond, Detroit Red Wings: The Red Wings are high on Lucas Raymond and are depending on him to keep improving his game in 2024. He’s a playmaking top-six forward with two 20+ goal and 50+ point seasons to begin his NHL career. In 2023, he jumped from 23 to 31 goals and 57 to 72 points.

Raymond is due for a regression in 2024. The Red Wings have a solid group of forwards that improved in the offseason. He could see his ice-time eaten up by the veteran duo of Patrick Kane or Vlad Tarasenko.

The real issue, like Bouchard, is Raymond’s shooting percentage skyrocketed last season. In his first two seasons, he had 12% success rate shooting the puck. In 2023, 19% of his shots on goal went in. That’s nearly one in every five shots finding the back of the net. Raymond is a quality player and still improving, but don’t count on him to record 70 points or more in 2024.

Continued; I don’t mean to be Debbie Upper here, but why not? Raymond is going to be playing with Kane or Tarasenko, most likely, and if he isn’t playing with one of those players, he’s added size and strength to his game, as well as maturity and poise.

No, he’s not going to score at nearly 20%, but he’s shown that he’s a master of adaptation to the hardest league in the world. He’ll find a way to “get ‘er done.”

Bleacher Report’s Hannah Stuart chose to “check in” on each and every one of the NHL’s 32 first-round draft picks from the 2023 NHL Draft, and as you probably know by now, Red Wings first-rounder Nate Danielson will be “turning pro” this upcoming season with an abundance of self-confidence:

#9 Nate Danielson, Detroit Red Wings: Nate Danielson had quite a run during the 23-24 season. While he started out his WHL season with the Brandon Wheat Kings, the trade deadline saw him heading to the Portland Winterhawks, with whom he would reach the WHL Championship before getting swept by the Moose Jaw Warriors. All told, he ended up with 67 points in 54 regular-season games. He also fit in a stint with Team Canada at the World Junior Championships, and logged two games with the Grand Rapids Griffins, the Red Wings’ AHL affiliate, after the end of his WHL season.

Danielson made it to the final round of cuts during training camp with the Red Wings last season. If his performance at the team’s recent development camp is any indication, he clearly intends to come into training camp ready to push the envelope further and ensure he’s in conversation for one of those opening night spots. Whether he can convince general manager Steve Yzerman to take the chance is something we’ll all have to find out together in the fall.

Continued; I don’t know whether Danielson will end up as a center or a winger in the NHL, but his grit and playmaking abilities indicate to me that he’s likely to jump to the best league in the world sooner than later.

Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman’s biggest job this offseason involves attempting to re-sign restricted free agents Lucas Raymond and Moritz Seider.

Yesterday, Detroit Hockey Now’s Kevin Allen posted a subscriber-only article discussing the leverage (or lack thereof) that Raymond and Seider have in terms of signing an offer sheet (very little because the Wings have the cap space to match any offers), and he estimated the actual amounts of Raymond and Seider’s contracts…

Yzerman has $19.9 million (puckpedia.com data) left to pay RFAs Seider, Raymond, Jonatan Berggren and Joe Veleno. Just in general terms, Detroit Hockey Now uses a $17 million projection combined for Seider and Raymond, $2 million for Veleno and $775,000 for Berggren.

AFP Analytics projects Seider at $8.1 million per season on a long-term deal, while Raymond was at $7.758 million per season on a long-term contract.  Using comparables, AFP Analytics does a good job of projecting. But it’s plausible that Raymond and Seider are asking for more.

The compromise could be a shorter bridge deal. For example, AFP Analytics sees a Seider bridge deal at three years at $5.425 million. Because of Raymond’s scoring numbers, his short-term deal (according to AFP Analytics) projects to be at $6.1 million per season for a three-year deal.

Allen continues (paywall); it’s hard to assume anything less than the fact that Dylan Larkin’s $8.7 million is the team’s informal salary cap limit, but some of the restricted free agent contracts thrown around of late (I can think of the Rasmus Dahlin deal, which gives the Sabres defenseman an $11 million cap hit) might require a new “internal cap” to be set, probably in Seider’s case.

What do you think will happen in terms of the Raymond and Seider deals?

From Alex Wood on YouTube comes over half an hour’s worth of Alex DeBrincat’s 2023-2024 season highlights: