Month: July 2024

Via Red Wings Prospects on Twitter, Nitten.no’s Wegard Bakkehaug took part in an interview with Red Wings 2024 draft pick Michael Brandsegg-Nygard. Here’s a rough translation thereof, and:

As you and I discussed the other day, the Red Wings signed MBN to an entry-level contract at only 18 years of age so that they can control his playing destinations. According to Brandsegg-Nygard, he’s going to attend training camp, though he expects to play with Skelleftea AIK of the SHL when all is said and done:

Brandsegg-Nygard travels to a new Red Wings camp–could play in the AHL

Michael Brandsegg-Nygard will battle for an NHL job at the Detroit Red Wings’ training camp this autumn, but he could also end up playing in the AHL or SHL.

This week Michael Brandsegg-Nygard signed a so-called “entry-level contract” with the NHL’s Detroit Red Wings.

The 18-year-old was informed that the Detroit Red Wings wanted to sign him already during development camp following the NHL draft in Las Vegas, and after some negotiations, the contract was signed this week.

“There was nothing to wonder about. I’m very satisfied with the agreement,” says Brandsegg-Nygard to nitten.no.

How was the development camp?

“It was good to see my level [of play] compared to the others who were drafted. It was also great to be trained by and meet legends such as Pavel Datsyuk and Niklas Kronwall. The last few weeks have been a dream come true. It’s been incredibly exciting and one of the coolest things I’ve experienced.”

This morning, Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff discusses free agent signing Erik Gustafsson’s likely role as the Red Wings’ power play quarterback and de-facto replacement for Shayne Gostisbehere:

[The Red Wings] foresee that like Gostisbehere, Gustafsson will be filling a third-pairing role and be quarterbacking one of their power-play units.

“Erik Gustafsson will replace the Ghost as that offensive, probably on the power play guy,” Detroit GM Steve Yzerman said. “We expect him to be on one of the power play units.”

Knowing he’ll be filling that role and that more will be expected of him is a factor that Gustafsson finds to be exciting.

“I have been playing power play ever since I came over here,” Gustafsson said. “It’s something I like to do and something my game is meant to do. I like to run it and try to give the puck to the forwards to shoot, create lanes and stuff like that. I feel very confident playing on the power play. While I don’t know what’s going to happen, hopefully I can get an opportunity.”

Continued

According to Marquette’s WZMQ 19 News, the Detroit Red Wings’ Alumni are going to play against “Yoopers United” to raise money for the United Way of Marquette County on Friday, September 13th. And the “Yoopers United” team will have a special guest in the lineup:

The Yoopers United Hockey Team and the United Way of Marquette County are excited to announce that former Marquette Iron Ranger and retired NHL forward, best known for helping Paul Newman earn his first Oscar winning performance for their real world antics from their time in the United State Hockey League with Marquette and the Johnstown Jets of the North American Hockey League, Steve Carlson of the infamous Slap Shot Hanson Brothers will be lacing up the skates for their game against the Red Wings Alumni Association. 

Carlson, 68, and his wife, Vicki, will be making their way north this September to join the Yoopers United team and help raise funds for our local community. 

Carlson appeared in 66 games for Marquette, recording 34 goals and 53 assists for 87 points in his only season with the Iron rangers before heading to Johnstown where he helped the Jets win the championship in ‘75. Carlson would go on to have a long professional career spanning 14 seasons, including 5 seasons in the World Hockey Association and 1 season with the LA Kings in the NHL. Carlson, who was diagnosed with Squamous Cell Carcinoma (SCC) in 2021, was able to put on the foil to beat his cancer this year. 

One of the many organizations that the United Way of Marquette County supports is Cancer Care of Marquette County. They will be hosting a Showing of Slap Shot at Blackrocks Brewery on Third Street of September 14, 2024 at 5:30pm to celebrate Carlson’s remission. 

…

The Marquette County Hockey Night will take place on Friday September 13 at 3:30 p.m. with a block party at the Berry Events Center. Red Carpet Player Entrance to follow, with a Sled Hockey Game and the Red Wings Alumni game dropping at 6:30 p.m. Tickets for the events are $25/adult and $15/youth 12 and under are available through NMU’s ticketing website.

Continued

This one is worth your time:

Red Wings alumnus Marty Pavelich passed away at 96 years of age this past June due to complications from ALS. We’ve talked about his legacy through NHL.com’s Dave Stubbs’ “in memoriam” piece, as well as a Sault Star interview with his nephew, Burnie Thorpe…

And today, the Globe and Mail’s Tom Hawthorn posted a tremendously thorough obituary of the player who may have been the Red Wings’ first Kris Draper:

For hockey stars of the 1950s, the only thing clingier than their hockey sweater was Marty Pavelich.

Mr. Pavelich, who has died at 96, was regarded as one of the best checking forwards of his era, an energetic and fast-skating left winger whose assignment it was to keep rivals off the scoresheet.

The forward won four Stanley Cup championships with a Detroit Red Wings dynasty remembered for the scoring of Gordie Howe, the defensive play of Red Kelly and the goaltending of Terry Sawchuk.

While Mr. Pavelich was overshadowed by teammates, he revelled in his role as a shadow of opposing scorers, most notably as an ardent foe of Maurice (Rocket) Richard of the Montreal Canadiens. The pair – a little-known role player versus hockey’s most dynamic player – conducted a long-running feud. The checker knew he faced a determined scorer in the Rocket.

“He had arms and forearms on him like steel and his eyes flashed when he streaked to the net,” Mr. Pavelich told Tom Keenan of the Sault Star newspaper in 2010. “It was my job to stop him, and I worked all my life to hone my skills.”

A top goal scorer himself in junior hockey, Mr. Pavelich was assigned checking duties when promoted to the Red Wings during the 1947-48 season. He quit after 10 seasons when management threatened a demotion to the minors as part of a purge of players seen to be in favour of a union. Mr. Pavelich then went on to have success as a supplier of plastic products to the automotive industry in the Motor City.

Continued; give this one a read. It’s a fantastically-written obituary.

Per the Hockey News’s Rowan McCarthy, the OHL’s Saginaw Spirit are bringing their Memorial Cup championship trophy to fans on Wednesday, July 24th:

The Saginaw Spirit announced yesterday, that fans are invited to join the team at the Dow Event Center for a free screening of the Memorial Cup Final on July 24. 

Season ticket holders will be able to interact with players and get their autographs at a 6:00 PM on the arena floor. Meanwhile the rest of the public will be allowed to enter at 7:00 PM. 

While the event is free, fans will be able to purchase refreshments at a cash bar throughout the night. 

At 7:15 PM, there will be a jersey presentation for the players followed by the screening of the game which will include live commentary from players and coaches. The Memorial Cup will also be present at the event.

The Spirit won their first Memorial Cup in style. Not only did they defeat the London Knights, who beat them in six games in the Western Conference Final of the OHL playoffs, but they did it on home ice. They became the 13th team to win the Memorial Cup while hosting the tournament.

Daily Faceoff’s Matt Larkin attempts to discern the “Stanley Cup windows” of the Eastern Conference’s teams today, and he suggests that the Red Wings, Buffalo Sabres and Ottawa Senators are rebuilding teams with a “foggy window” ahead:

Detroit Red Wings: I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Wings GM Steve Yzerman made his move too early in the rebuild, before he’d assembled enough true star-grade prospects, and has painted himself into a corner now. It started in summer 2022 when he signed Andrew Copp, Ben Chiarot and David Perron. It continued the next summer with the big contract for J.T. Compher. All those moves made Detroit better – but only enough to push them to the playoff bubble while taking them out of the running for Draft lottery picks.

Now you have a strange hybrid operation in which the Wings have built around Dylan Larkin, Lucas Raymond, Alex DeBrincat and Moritz Seider but are supported by a brigade of modest-ceiling veterans, including Kane, Compher, Copp and new additions Vladimir Tarasenko, Erik Gustafsson and Cam Talbot. If you look at Detroit’s incoming prospects, there are plenty of good ones, from Marco Kasper to Nate Danielson up front to to Simon Edvinsson on defense to goaltenders Sebastian Cossa and Trey Augustine. But there is no future scoring champion in that group. Detroit became a middle of the road team a bit too early, and I’m not convinced it’s good enough to escape that tier.

Continued; I would like to see the Wings play with a younger and leaner roster, but I just don’t think that the Wings are as screwed as Larkin suggests.

I understand that the Wings have had to rebuild their prospect pool as well as their roster, and while yes, Yzerman has been too aggressive in signing veterans in 2022 and 2023, this summer’s signings were more judicious, despite the players’ ages, and I think that the Red Wings are indeed in the “mushy middle”…

But it’s up to the team to get out of it by incorporating younger players and continuing to improve the roster via trades and free agency as the team slowly builds its way back to playoff contention.

In the interim, it’s going to take the Red Wings proving a lot of people wrong, as they did in 2023-2024, to make progress in the eyes of pundits.

The Detroit News is promoting its “OctoPulse” podcast, in which Dearborn Heights native Mike Leone discusses his rise among the coaching ranks to the coach of the AHL’s Rochester Americans this upcoming season…

And Detroit News Red Wings scribe Ted Kulfan discusses the fact that the Red Wings added older players in free agency, bringing the team’s composite age up to 28.5 years of age, which will make the Wings one of the oldest teams in the league on average.

Here’s a bit of what Kulfan has to say about the Wings’ “treading water” in free agency:

“In some ways, I do think it’s about a wash,” Kulfan said. “You have Vladimir Tarasenko replacing David Perron. You probably lose a little bit defensively but Tarasenko is capable of scoring more goals. Defensively, you wonder if that’s going to be a significant loss there, losing Shayne Gostisbehere. He really seemed to inject some life into the power play. He’s kind of a wizard with the puck. I’ve always liked Gustafsson. He’s a fine player but I’m not quite sure he’s Gostisbehere. You’ll have Edvinsson for a whole season, so that will help.

“Cam Talbot has had some good years but he’s 37 and kind of slumped the second half of last season. I’m not sure if that’s a huge upgrade over what they already have. You haven’t replaced Daniel Sprong’s 18 goals. It’s still such a competitive division. Doesn’t seem like those four teams ahead of them (Florida, Tampa Bay, Boston, Toronto) have slipped that much and Ottawa and Buffalo are nipping at their teams. If Tarasenko and Kane slump and don’t reach the levels they’re kind of expected, it’s going to be a tough road to hoe.”

Continued; I’m not too concerned about the Wings’ situation, though I do believe that they need to add a two-way, right-handed defenseman to bolster the right side of the blueline.

To me, Tarasenko’s lack of defensive prowess is worth adjusting to if he doesn’t take the kinds of ill-timed penalties that Perron did; I agree with Kulfan that the combination of Edvinsson and Gustafsson (and Johansson) will have to make up for Gostisbehere’s decision to chase a Cup with Carolina; and I’m just not worried about Talbot’s age–he’s been durable for a long time now, and if last year’s playoff run with LA was an anomaly, then he posted a near-Vezina-worthy regular season’s worth of stats, and that should help stabilize the Wings’ crease.

Sure, the Wings have some goals to make up for, and they need to tighten up defensively, but we already knew that they weren’t going to be able to keep everybody, and that they were going to have to improve their defensive game to compete in the tightly-packed Atlantic Division.

The Red Wings’ signing of Michael Brandsegg-Nygard to an entry-level contract doesn’t mean that they want to bring him over and have him play in the NHL; it means that the Red Wings want to have a measure of control over his playing situation in Sweden.

As such, via Red Wings Prospects on Twitter, Hockeysverige’s Simon Eid reports that Skelleftea AIK’s GM is a little concerned about what happens next for MBN:

Skelleftea’s answer: it means that Brandsegg-Nygard has signed an NHL contract

Being drafted in this year’s NHL draft and now signed by Detroit through a rookie contract, what does Michael Brandsegg-Nygard’s new situation mean for Skelleftea [where he will play this upcoming season]?

“Now it’s Detroit, and not us, who decides, says Erik Forssell to Norran.

Overnight on Friday, the news was released by the Detroit Red Wings. Michael Brandsegg-Nygard has signed his first NHL contract with the team, only two weeks after being selected in the NHL draft. It comes as a reward after a strong season in the HockeyAllsvenskan, but at the same time, it means uncertainty for Skelleftea and sporting director Erik Forssell.

“It’s not really surprising that they chose to sign him when they chose him as the 15th player in the draft. Good for Michael and proof that he has done good things, he tells Norran.

Hoping for games in the SHL

The 18-year-old Norwegian was presented as a Skelleftea player in May, but has since been part of a few eventful weeks, where he participated in Detroit’s development camp, among other things. Whether Skelleftea will even get him back is not non entirely certain, but Forssell is positive.

“I don’t think that the contract makes that much of a difference for us, but I both believe and hope that he will play for us next season. There are the indications that we’ve received as well.”

Long story long, again, the entry-level contract gives the Red Wings control over MBN’s playing situation, and if they have to formally loan him to Skelleftea AIK, they’ll do so. For the present moment, learning to play at Sweden’s highest professional level is important for him, and is perhaps the ideal place for him to develop (alongside fellow Wings prospect Axel Sandin Pellikka).

Update: For what it’s worth, Norway’s TV2’s Mina Finsted Berg wrote an article which ostensibly discusses Michael Bransegg-Nygard and Stian Solberg being drafted this past month in Las Vegas by Deroit and Anaheim, respectively…

But the article is really about the “Mats Zuccarello effect” upon developing Norwegian hockey players in Oslo, the capital of Norway.

Finsted Berg does mention that MBN’s father, Kjell Richard Nygard, was a legend for the Norwegian team Valerenga, playing over 400 games for the team, but that’s about all the substantive stuff on MBN’s situation.

I’ve been a bit busy this week between covering the Red Wings’ news cycle and doing caregiving stuff, but I’ve had this idea that it might be interesting for you to read a follow-up to my development camp impressions.

I’d like to discuss the probable trajectories of the prospects we discussed last week, and I’m checking in to see whether this sounds good to you, or whether too much time has passed since development camp, and it’s time to move on to the next thing.

Please let me know, because I’d really like to dig in and write the follow-up, but this blog’s direction is about what my community wants, too.