I haven’t been doing well over the last couple of days, so you’ll have to forgive me for posting a summary of the articles which came out over the last 12-16 hours or so.
On Monday, I had a massive anxiety attack, one that my three Klonopin didn’t knock down, so I spent a good chunk of the day in bed…And Tuesday, both Aunt Annie and I fell ill, and, given that it’s quiet, I decided to spend more time in bed.
It wasn’t an easy decision, but it is August 20th, and things are only going to get busier from here, so I figured that even though I’m fundraising, sometimes you’ve got to take a couple of 12-hour breaks.
Anyway, here’s what hit the internet today:
1. Detroit News: With many thanks to IceHockeyG on Twitter, we all got to peek behind the paywall of Hockeysverige.se’s Uffe Bodin’s interview with Jonatan Berggren, and today, the Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan discussed IceHockeyG’s quips made by Berggren…
Berggren, 24, was squeezed out of the Wings’ roster last season, though he scored 15 goals in 67 games in 2022-23. Berggren had 28 points that season and looked as advertised, a player being in the right scoring spots with the ability to generate offense instinctively.
But the Wings’ roster being filled with NHL veteran offensive players in the lineup, and Berggren’s defensive inconsistencies made it easy to send him to Grand Rapids last October. Still, Berggren continued to excel in the AHL, with 24 goals (56 points) in 52 games with the Griffins, including five goals in nine playoff games.
“I guess it’s a strength to not just lie down and die, kind of,” Berggren told HockeyNews.se. “That’s easy to do. It was hard, but the guys we had, we had an incredibly fun team (in Grand Rapids). A lot of Swedes and many I’ve played with for almost two seasons.”
As well as those made by coach Derek Lalonde during the Red Wings “Street Hockey in the D” event on August 7th:
“He’s shown the ability to create offense,” Lalonde said. “When he’s been with us, he’s created offense. But again, we have a lot of guys with a similar DNA. We need him to be responsible.
“We’re going to ask the whole team to be conscious of a two-way game, without taking away from some of his offense.”
Lalonde was impressed with how Berggren handled last season.
“It’s a credit to him, he did a really good job in a really tough situation,” Lalonde said. “I’ll never say anyone’s played themselves out of the American Hockey League — it’s just too good of a league. But he’s proven, or maybe more it’s he has earned this opportunity.”
2. Detroit Hockey Now: Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff discussed the ups and downs of earning the “journeyman” title in the NHL, as exemplified by the well-traveled Cam Talbot and Erik Gustafsson, players who are both hoping to create some roots in Metro Detroit:
“It’s been a lot of teams, but it’s always fun to get an opportunity on a new team, an Original Six team, too,” Gustafsson said of arriving in Detroit. “It’s always a challenge to come in as a new guy.”
In Talbot’s case, the Red Wings are his seventh team in eight seasons.
“I seem to be part of it every summer,” he said of the NHL transactions wire. “It’s really nerve-wracking. It has been a bit of a whirlwind lately, moving from team to team.”
For the player, changing teams is impactful.
“I think every experience is different,” Gustafsson said. “I don’t want to come in and be the voice of the room right away. It’s something you have to learn and read, too.”
3. The Hockey News: Connor Eargood and Sam Stockton have been pretty busy over the last two days, to their credit.
Eargood wrote a story about Berggren’s need for a bounce-back season, he discussed Red Wings coach Derek Lalonde’s expectations for the Wings’ young players over the course of 8 exhibition games, and the leadership roles likely to be taken by Lucas Raymond and Moritz Seider this upcoming season, all based upon coach Lalonde’s remarks on August 7th;
Stockton pondered whether the Red Wings might make an unlikely trade for Nashville Predators top prospect Yaroslav Askarov now that the young netminder has gone public with his request for a trade (and the answer is that it is unlikely);
And as the Grand Rapids Griffins signed University of Wisconsin graduate Carson Bantle to a 2-year AHL contract today, we all kind of looked at the EliteProspects page and went, “Wow, another big guy, 6’4,” 194, just like 6’4,” 213-pound Gabriel Seger, and 6’3,” 217-pound winger Hunter Johannes, all three AHL-contracted wingers that are going to either ride shotgun with the Griffins’ young forwards, and/or bolster the Toledo Walleye’s lineup…
Eargood wrote a good backgrounder on Bantle, who’s got some Red Wings company in former University of Wisconsin alums (mostly gone elsewhere in the cases of Brady Cleveland and Sam Stange, but a current U of W player in Owen Mehlenbacher as well).
So that’s a good summary of what hit the net over the last 36 hours. Some of it, I felt was a little redundant; some of it was very good; and a lot of it is stretching some more life out of quotes, because that’s what we all do at this time of year.
Things will get very busy very soon. Don’t lose faith because we’re in the final throes of summer, okay? Matty Beniers just signed his big-ass RFA deal today, and pretty soon, we’ll hear the same about Lucas Raymond and Moritz Seider.
