Red Wings 2023 draft pick Brady Cleveland is a hulking defenseman at 6’5″ and 209 pounds, but Cleveland has a lot of rough edges to his game, in no small part because he only played in a limited role in 16 of the University of Wisconsin Badgers’ 36 games last season.
Cleveland had an option to kick-start his college career via the NCAA transfer portal, and he chose to make the jump to the Colorado College Tigers, where Cleveland believes he’ll play more regularly under CC’s coach, Peter Mannino, as he told DetroitRedWings.com’s Jonathan Mills…
“Entering the portal, I formerly had a relationship with (Colorado College assistant coach) Peter Mannino so I had some contact with him,” Cleveland said during the Red Wings’ 2024 Development Camp last month. “After talking to him, there’s not really much you can’t like about what they have going on out there. Brand new facilities recently built. Over the last four years since (Mannino) got there, they’ve been on the up climb and I think that’ll continue when I get there.”
Cleveland, who appeared in 17 games at Wisconsin last season, said he believes he can elevate his game through more ice time.
“Just getting out there every game and playing more minutes is what I would like to do,” Cleveland said. “Just helping my team win and being better offensively, I know I can work on that. But also defensively cleaning up some things and being a good first pass, shutdown defenseman.”
Cleveland felt he was more self-aware entering his second Development Camp since being selected by the Red Wings in the second round (No. 47) of the 2023 NHL Entry Draft.
“Previously what I learned from Wisconsin is there’s things you need to work on that you don’t know before,” Cleveland said. “Different coaches have different assessments of every player. Just coming back here with that information now, (Development Camp) is a really different experience for me. Obviously I knew some things that I wanted to work on before coming into last year. Now it’s kind of building off what I’ve already been working on and adding some new things.”
Continued; if Cleveland develops his skating skills and overall strength, he’s got the chance to develop into a big, mean shut-down defenseman, but he needs to play first and foremost.
