Month: July 2024

Even more discussion of Michael Brandsegg-Nygard’s playing future

We’ve discussed two Norwegian-language articles on Nitten.no in which Red Wings prospect Michael Brandsegg-Nygard told Wegard Bakkehaug that signing an entry-level contract with the Red Wings means that he may play for Skelleftea AIK of the SHL, the Grand Rapids Griffins in the AHL or the Red Wings, should he earn a spot in Detroit’s lineup out of training camp.

Then Bakkeheug spoke with Brandsegg-Nygard and Stian Solberg’s GM for the Norwegian “parent club,” Valerenga, and Anders Myrvold (a former Red Wing!) suggested to Bakkehaug that it will be best for MBN to play for Skelleftea after playing a level below for Mora of the Allsvenskan this past season.

Yesterday, we discussed an article in which MBN spoke witth Norran—behind a paywall–indicating that he’s training with Skelleftea this offseason, expecting to play there…

And this morning, Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff discusses the first article from Nitten.no, as well as the behind-the-paywall article form Norren as they apply to Brandsegg-Nygard’s playing future:

Continue reading Even more discussion of Michael Brandsegg-Nygard’s playing future

Wings earn a surprisingly solid ranking in The Athletic’s ‘ranking of current and future goaltending’

I’m a little shocked to report that The Athletic’s Scott Wheeler, Jesse Granger and Sean McIndoe rank the Red Wings as having the 18th-best overall goaltending situation in the NHL, when “current goaltending,” “future prospects” and teams’ “cap and contracts” are taken into account. They aren’t a fan of the Red Wings’ current goaltending situation, however (shockingly, I say, with sarcasm intended):

18. Detroit Red Wings

Current: 32

Granger: The Red Wings enter 2024-25 with four different goalies with extensive NHL experience. Cam Talbot is coming off a strong statistical season, but he did it behind a staunch Kings defense that tends to inflate goaltending numbers (just ask Ottawa how signing Joonas Korpisalo went). Detroit has some incredibly exciting goalie prospects, but the current situation doesn’t inspire that same excitement.

Future: 1

Wheeler: The Red Wings are the only team in the league with two goalies I believe are both top-10 goalie prospects in the sport. They’re also two very different goalies, with Sebastian Cossa’s size, fire, athleticism and raw potential contrasted against Trey Augustine’s stoic, cerebral calm and control. I’d be surprised if both don’t become 1A/1B types and the Red Wings don’t eventually have a tough decision to make on whether or not to turn over the net to two young goalies. Colgate’s Carter Gylander and 2024 fourth-rounder Landon Miller could give them some organizational depth as well. (I don’t see the recently acquired Gage Alexander as much.)

Cap: 11

McIndoe: The Wings have four veterans under contract for a total of $8.8 million this year, although a chunk of that will be buried in the AHL. Only Talbot is signed past this coming season; his $2.5 million deal is for two years, but otherwise, the plan seems to be to clear the deck and reassess in a year, which is probably smart. One question for then will be whether the team wants to recommit to Ville Husso, who’s been just OK on a $4.75 million AAV deal that expires next summer.

Bottom line: You have to love a team covering both ends of the current/future spectrum. For a franchise undergoing an ultra-patient rebuild, the future is probably still the priority, but the current situation will make a playoff run tougher than it probably should be unless one of those veterans steps up.

Continued (paywall); the whole point of having a five-goaltender platoon is to ensure that one of those vets do exactly that.

Who do you call if LCA’s being robbed? Axel Foley!

The Netflix film Axel F, a Beverly Hills Cop sequel, begins with a scene in which the Red Wings’ locker room at Little Caesars Arena is supposedly being robbed, and one Axel Foley, a.k.a. Eddie Murphy, has to foil the caper.

According to NHL.com’s William Douglas, Murphy nailed the scene–in no small part due to the fact that a “hockey guy” wrote the jokes:

Grant Fuhr gave the scene in “Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F” five stars. In the new Netflix film, wisecracking detective Axel Foley, played by Eddie Murphy, tells a band of thieves that he’s the Detroit Red Wings’ new goalie as they attempt to rob the team’s dressing room at Little Caesars Arena.

“I am a five-time recipient of the Stanley Cup,” Foley says. “… I just want my goalie pads.”

Fuhr, the only Black goalie to win the Stanley Cup five times — with the Edmonton Oilers (1984, 1985, 1987, 1988, 1990) — loved the bit.

“I thought it was pretty funny,” he said. “I had a bunch of friends call me and they were like, ‘Hey, you got to see this.’ I’m, like, ‘Why? I’ve seen all the “Beverly Hills Cop” (movies).’ They’re, like, ‘No, no, you need to see this one.’ I think it’s awesome and a great honor.”

The goalie line in the opening moments of the hit action-comedy sequel is one of several that give a nod to Black hockey history.

They are the work of Kevin Etten, the self-described “hockey guy” on the writing staff of “Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F.” Will Beall, along with Etten and his partner Tom Gormican, wrote the screenplay.

Continued; here’s the trailer:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=KoxhkE_U3Ww%3Fsi%3DHiBY_qwPTGZutHiU

On givin’ up the grind (and Radim Simek)

The Red Wings acquired Czech defenseman and 31-year-old Radim Simek in a trade with the San Jose Sharks this past trade deadline, and the San Jose Barracuda captain continued to play in the AHL this spring, skating in 9 regular season and 8 playoff games for Grand Rapids.

According to Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff, Simek gave a Czech-language interview to iSport.cz’s Miroslav Horak which sounded some very familiar notes regarding European players suffering from minor-league fatigue:

The Detroit Red Wings wanted to keep defenseman Radim Simek in the organization. His point of view, though, was that he didn’t want to keep on riding buses.

“It is true,” Simek told Czech website iSport of the offer from the Red Wings. “It was a two-way contract with a guarantee of a lot of money, which was around the minimum amount in the NHL. But it wasn’t worth the money to me anymore.”

Last season, the Sharks were assigning him to the AHL San Jose Barracuda, where he would serve as team captain. It was the first taste of minor pro hockey in four years for Simek, who’s seen duty in 209 NHL games.

…

“I didn’t see a real future there,” Simek said of the North American pro game. “I would keep flying around the farm, take the bus eight hours round trip. At the age of thirty-two, I didn’t want to go through this anymore. I have other priorities.

“My wife and I are expecting the birth of our second child in October. For me to spend time on the bus and my wife was at home with two daughters, one of them a newborn . . . so I just said no to this.”

You hear this a lot from European players who aren’t too thrilled about their experiences in the AHL.

AHL teams play a 73-game schedule, and for teams like Grand Rapids, who are five to six hours away from Chicago, Rockford and Cleveland, so there’s a fair amount of bus travel, and especially for a player like Simek, who’s used to flying everywhere (though it’s not like San Jose has an easy travel schedule, either), that’s a rough go.

Players are generally on the hook for their own transportation and housing (though AHL teams will help players find a place to live), whereas European teams pay for housing of some sort (usually an apartment), a vehicle lease (though you’re going to be driving around with a sponsor decal on your car), and even bills and groceries on occasion.

There’s usually less guaranteed money in a European contract than the NHL side of an NHL/AHL contract (though veteran players can earn up to $300-$500K), but be

On top of that, Simek, who had 5 NHL seasons to his credit, was pissed off about the Red Wings requiring him to play in the AHL playoffs instead of being allowed to head back to Czechia for the World Championship (quote from iSport):

Continue reading On givin’ up the grind (and Radim Simek)

Holl, Husso likely to remain Red Wings despite Detroit possessing a second buyout window (after signing Joe Veleno pre-arbitration)

The Red Wings are currently enjoying a second “buyout window” after reaching a pre-arbitration contract agreement with Joe Veleno on Friday.

As such, both The Athletic’s Max Bultman and the Hockey News’s Connor Eargood have wondered aloud today whether the Wings should exercise the option to buy out one of the millstones on the roster.

As Bultman notes, it’s not going to be easy to buy out Justin Holl this summer…

Why didn’t Steve Yzerman buy out Justin Holl’s contract? His contract is unmovable. His cap hit is an expensive one for a player sitting in the press box. — Mark F.

They likely didn’t want to be on the hook for four years of dead cap that would have come with a buyout. It wasn’t a massive number ($1.13 million each year), but four years is a long time to pay dead cap. The Red Wings’ management team likely believes Holl can play. Whether Lalonde uses him is another question, but I don’t get the sense from Yzerman that he thinks Holl is a lost cause.

Your point about the cap hit sitting in the press box is good, but the Red Wings probably don’t expect to be quite as lucky injury-wise this season as they were in 2023-24 — and if that’s the case, Holl could play more this season.

But if he doesn’t and he’s again a $3.4 million scratch for most of the season, I’d have to imagine they’ll explore a buyout next year, for just two years of dead cap at the same $1.13 million cost.

And Eargood wonders whether the Wings will buy out goaltender Ville Husso:

Continue reading Holl, Husso likely to remain Red Wings despite Detroit possessing a second buyout window (after signing Joe Veleno pre-arbitration)

Tweet of note: NHL Network’s ‘Brett Hull Day’ includes two Red Wings games

Per the NHL Network:

Tweets of note: A little bit of MBN’s interview with Norran and WJSS roster news

Of prospect-related note from Twitter/X:

  1. IceHockeyGifs shares the headline from Michael Brandsegg-Nygard’s interview with Norran yesterday:

2. And Red Wings Prospects shares some news regarding the World Junior Summer Showcase:

Time ticks on regarding the Raymond and Seider extensions

The Athletic’s Max Bultman posted a mailbag feature this morning, and the first question he answers involves the time that it’s taking for the Red Wings to sign restricted free agents Lucas Raymond and Moritz Seider to long-term contract extensions:

In my view, the biggest reason they have yet to be completed is because of their importance: If Seider and Raymond sign long-term, their new deals (along with Dylan Larkin’s contract, which runs through 2031) will form the long-term foundation of Detroit’s cap structure. From Seider and Raymond’s perspective, such deals would cover the majority of their prime earning years.

Both sides need to try to maximize the potential value of a long-term deal. As with any contract, it’s hard for both parties to do that at the same time.

Another potential reason it’s taking this long involves the effects of the rising salary cap — this year and the expected rises in the future. It’s easy to see the potential for wide discrepancies between team and player on what a fair deal should look like in this new market, especially one that could stretch up to eight years, with the potential for seven new cap raises in that span. Using percent-of-cap adjustments helps to mitigate that in Year 1, but there’s still some potential for sticker shock on the team side, compared to what Seider and Raymond’s peers have signed for in the past few years.

Detroit will get deals done with both players. But the big question at this stage is whether it leads to a bridge for Seider and Raymond. I wouldn’t recommend that route with Raymond, as his production seems the likeliest to shoot up again, but it would involve less long-term guesswork for all parties.

Continued (paywall); if I may be blunt, the Red Wings are negotiating against some pretty dumb $10+ million-average deals that other young players have been awarded by teams like the Sabres, and those “comparables” are definitely tying up some time in terms of negotiating more realistic cap numbers for Raymond and Seider.

Augustine earned rave reviews this past season

Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff posted a subscriber-only profile of Red Wings goaltending prospect Trey Augustine this morning, with Duff noting that Augustine played in 35 NCAA games for Michigan State University, 4 games at the World Junior Championship and 4 games at the men’s World Championship:

Taken to the senior worlds as the third goalie for USA Hockey. Augustine, 19, was pressed into action by an injury to Red Wings goalie Alex Lyon, and managed to win a couple of games.

“I’ve had some pretty unbelievable opportunities,” Augustine admitted. “I’m super glad for everyone that’s helped me get to this position I’m in today. It’s super cool and obviously I’d like to have some more cool ones in the future.”

Teaming with Augustine at the worlds, Lyon remarked at how wise beyond his years the teenaged puckstopper was proving to be.

“Obviously when I hear stuff like that it means a lot to me,” Augustine said. “Alex is a great guy. He kind of taught me a lot in the time he was there. I think just kind of seeing him prepare, seeing how serious he takes it on game days, it was super different than what I’ve seen from my past teammates. Very grateful that he was around.”

Continued (paywall); as Duff notes, Augustine is a kind of quiet young man, but he’s sharp and is a bit of a rink rat (according to teammate Red Savage), which may have something to do with his tremendous work ethic.