Month: August 2024

A couple minutes of fun coaching:

Per the Detroit Red Wings:

SINGLE-GAME TICKETS FOR 2024-25 DETROIT RED WINGS SEASON GO ON SALE MONDAY, AUGUST 12 AT 10 A.M.

• Home Opener presented by Coca-Cola Zero Sugar set for Thursday, Oct. 10 vs. Penguins
• Red Wings home for 22 weekend games at Little Caesars Arena
• Thanksgiving Eve game vs. Flames; New Year’s Eve game vs. Penguins
• Fans can move to top of 2025-26 Winged Wheel Nation waitlist by purchasing 10-game plan for upcoming 2024-25 season

DETROIT – The Detroit Red Wings today announced single-game tickets for the highly anticipated 2024-25 season at Little Caesars Arena will go on sale Monday, August 12 at 10 a.m. at DetroitRedWings.com/Tickets. 

“The home opener at Little Caesars Arena is just two months away, and much like our fans, we’re excited about the return of Red Wings hockey,” said Ryan Gustafson, President and CEO, Ilitch Sports + Entertainment. “Single-game tickets will be in high demand, so we encourage our fans to secure their seats. The energy at the arena last season was at an all-time high, and we know the Hockeytown faithful will continue to create a tremendous home-ice advantage for our players.”

Little Caesars Arena will host 22 weekend games, including five on Friday nights, 10 games on Saturdays and seven contests on Sundays.

The Red Wings will host nine games against Original Six rivals, including two games each against the Rangers (Thursday, Oct. 17 and Saturday, Nov. 9), Bruins (Saturday, Nov. 23 and Saturday, March 29), Maple Leafs (Saturday, Dec. 14 and Friday, Dec. 27) and Canadiens (Friday, Dec. 20 and Thursday, Jan. 23). The Blackhawks will visit Little Caesars Arena on Friday, Jan. 10.

This Tweet from the Red Wings offers a difficult question to Red Wings fans:

⁉️ pic.twitter.com/WdDmdAF40m

— Detroit Red Wings (@DetroitRedWings) August 9, 2024

I’ve got three handfuls of players that I admired throughout the 90’s. At the very least.

Via Red Wings Prospects on Twitter, the SHL’s website suggests that fans of Sweden’s best hockey league pay attention to 10 “Junior-aged” players, including Michael Brandsegg-Nygard and Axel Sandin Pellikka of Skelleftea AIK:

Michael Brandsegg-Nygard, forward, Skelleftea: The Norwegian great talent Michael Brandsegg-Nygard took a huge step in the Allsvenksan with Mora last year. The right-handed shooter had a tentative start, but grew gradually, finishing the regular season with 12 points in 18 games (and 18 points in 41 games total), and he posted 10 points in 12 playoff games. The forward joined the Norwegian World Championship team, and was then selected by the Detroit Red Wings as early as the number 15 in the NHL Draft (and no Norwegian player has been selected that highly before). Skelleftea’s expectations are that the 18-year-old, who turns 19 in October, are high. He’s a really sharp goal-scorer.

Axel Sandin Pellikka, defenseman, Skelleftea: One of last year’s big sensations in the SHL, Axel Sandin Pellikka impressed greatly with his defensive game, not only offensively, where he sometimes excelled on the power play. The 19-year-old thundered in 10 goals and was thus only a goal away from touching the goal record for a junior-aged defender in the SHL (11 goals in 1 season, posted by Tomas Jonsson in 1978-1979 and Nils Lundkvist in 2019-2020). He already is a high-class SHL’er and he will play a prominent role for Skelleftea.

Continued (in Swedish); it’s nice to see balanced praise for two of the Red Wings’ top prospects as key parts of Skelleftea’s build toward repeating as SHL champions this upcoming season.

I’m much less worried about the statistics that MBN or ASP post and much more interested in seeing both players play well and play consistently well for Skelleftea.

DobberProspects’ Ben Gehrels discusses the Red Wings’ most recent NHL Draft haul, the Wings’ offseason moves and the events of note from the team’s Summer Development Camp and the World Junior Summer Showcase. He also offers a rather realistic take on the so-called “Yzerplan” as a full rebuild of the Red Wings’ franchise:

It feels like the “Yzerplan” has lost much of its lustre at this point, as both a gimmicky name and the shiny label on Detroit’s ongoing rebuild. That does not mean that rebuilding is stalling out or going sideways, just that these things take a while and some realism likely needed to creep in around the timeline and capabilities of GM Steve Yzerman.

Yzerman was asked in a recent interview whether he felt it was “playoffs or bust” for the Wings headed into 2024-25, and he characteristically tempered that question with a dose of his sound, steady realism: “I’m trying to build the nucleus of a team that can make the playoffs on an annual basis.” Detroit is obviously not going all-in on short-term success, selling off picks for expensive free agents and whatnot just to make the playoffs and appease the season ticket holders. They have a core, they have a vision, and they are building for the long-term.

That core is beginning to take shape, too. 

No longer is this once-proud franchise icing a mediocre team consisting of Dylan Larkin and almost literally no one else. Up front, in addition to their speedy captain, they now boast Alex DeBrincat and Lucas Raymond as elite pieces to build around. On the back end, not many teams feature as many young, high-upside defenders as Detroit does, with Mo Seider, Simon Edvinsson, Axel Sandin Pellikka, William Wallinder, Shai Buium, and more on the way. Finally, they have Sebastian Cossa and Trey Augustine moving up through the ranks in goal in case Ville Husso cannot rediscover the impeccable form from his St. Louis days (+14.95 GSAA in 2021-22) and lock down the starter’s role in Detroit longer term.

While this team might still miss the playoffs in 2024-24, Yzerman’s vision is slowly starting to emerge. And there is more help on the way with each successive draft.

Continued; Gehrels offers a very good read.

This Tweet from “The Hockey Samurai” on Twitter certainly bears noting today:

1951-52 Detroit Red Wings. Stanley Cup Champions and the first team to go 8-0 in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. pic.twitter.com/mw2YFpERs7

— The Hockey Samurai 侍 (@hockey_samurai) August 9, 2024

What a list of legends. Sawchuk, Lindsay, Abel, Howe, Skov, Tibbs, Leswick, Prystai, Pavelich, Reise, Kelly, Woit, Pronovost, Goldham, Glover, Stasiuk, Delvecchio…

Off the top of my head, I believe that Sawchuk, Lindsay, Abel, Howe, Kelly and Pronovost are in the Hockey Hall of Fame, as is Jack Adams, and at least growing up, names like Tony Leswick, Metro Prystai and Marty Pavelich were just a notch down from the immortals.

In the words of whoever the hell said it, “Wow, just wow.” Truly a legendary team, and the team that inspired the Cusmano brothers’ octopus-tossing at that.

The immortals got around, too. There’s a family story that I don’t know the truth of, but my uncles and aunt insist that Gordie and Ted used to come over to grandpa and grandma McElgunn’s for dinner from time to time. They got kicked out for scrapping with each other.

The Free Press’s Helene St. James takes note of more of Red Wings coach Derek Lalonde’s remarks during the team’s “Summer Hockey in the D” event several days ago, with St. James discussing the Red Wings’ three-headed goalie monster of Cam Talbot, Alex Lyon and Ville Husso this morning:

“That’s going to be a healthy competition,” coach Derek Lalonde said this week. “I’ve been speaking with all three goalies. I think Steve did a a pretty good job of explaining to them the situation, that it’s going to be a competition. All three goalies over the last couple years have proven to play at a very high level.”

Husso, 29, is entering the last year of a deal carrying a $4.75 million salary cap hit. He was, for the most part, very dependable in his first year in 2022-23, until he appeared to get worn down towards the end, when the Wings kept relying him on because neither Alex Nedeljkovic nor Magnus Hellberg rose to the role of backup. Last year, Husso again was the starter, outplaying Reimer while Lyon sat on the sidelines as the No. 3 guy, until leaving a game Dec. 18 with what turned out to be a season-long ailment. (He supposedly was ready to play Feb. 13, but left the game after less than 10 minutes in net.)

Lyon, 31 and going into the last year of a deal with a $900,000 cap hit, emerged as the starter. He was a huge reason why the Wings banked 34 of 44 possible points in January and February, posting a .912 save percentage in 19 of those 22 games.

Talbot, 37, is starting a two-year deal with a $2.5 million annual cap hit.  He appeared in 54 games and posted a 27–20–6 record with a .913 save percentage with the Los Angeles Kings last season, and was named an All-Star for the second time in three years.

That’s three pretty good resumes, and gives the Wings confidence they’ll be fine in net. With eight exhibition games, all three goalies should get at least one full game and one half game, and from there, barring injury, they will be competing for the starter’s net. It can be tricky to get enough reps for three goaltenders in practices, but the Wings, after all, figured out how to do so when last year began.

“I think we did a pretty good job by our group last year in having three goalies,” Lalonde said. “It was very unique. It worked for us last year and I think we’ll go into the season with that mentality and let it play out.”

Continued; the Red Wings will also want to see how Sebastian Cossa has progressed during their usual 8-games-in-12-nights exhibition season slate of games, and AHL-bound Jack Campbell and ECHL-bound Gage Alexander will vie for time as well.

The truth of the matter is that the Red Wings have six goaltenders signed going into the upcoming season, so the team will probably need not only the exhibition season but also the first 10-25 games of the regular season to sort out its goaltending.

Injuries will of course play a huge role in the sorting thereof, but the sense here is that Talbot and Lyon will be the duo that come out of the competition as goaltenders #1 and #2, barring a resurrection of Husso’s game.

If Husso can regain his form, the Wings may feel compelled to move a goaltender given that Campbell and Cossa will remain “in the wings,” ready and waiting in Grand Rapids.

As previously noted, Red Wings alumnus Jimmy Howard appeared on the “Cam & Strick” podcast on Tuesday morning, and he told some stories about coach Mike Babcock being his arrogant self during Babcock’s tenure with the Red Wings.

At the same time, Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff reports that Howard was somewhat insulated from Babcock’s antics thanks to the fact that Babcock rarely interacted with the team’s goaltenders…

Howard sheepishly admitted that some of those stories were news to him.

“All the stuff that came out publicly, I was kind of like, ‘Whoa. Was I that naive? Was I living in my own little world that much that I didn’t notice what was going on?’” Howard said. “But then, a lot the stuff that went on was during the game, and I was 90 feet from the bench, standing in the crease. So I had no idea any of that was going on.”

Thought Howard also noted that some of Babcock’s coaching decisions raised eyebrows throughout the team:

The Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan posted a list of his top 15 Red Wings prospects this morning, and it should be noted that NHL graduates Jonatan Berggren, Simon Edvinsson and Albert Johansson are not included given their status as no longer waiver-exempt for the upcoming season.

In any case, Kulfan’s top four are pretty much locks at this point, though their respective offensive “upsides” are yet to be determined:

▶  1. Marco Kasper, center, 20 years old, 2022 first round (No. 8 overall): After a slow start in Grand Rapids, Kasper got acclimated to the North American pro game and had a fine season, particularly in the playoffs. Kasper may not be an offensive wizard in the NHL, but he does many things right and plays with an edge. It wouldn’t be shocking to see Kasper in the NHL this season.

▶  2. Axel Sandin-Pellikka, defenseman, 19, 2023 first round (No. 17): Sandin-Pellikka is the type of offensive defenseman so many teams want, a guy who can drive the play and create offense out of nowhere. He’ll play this season in Sweden, then likely come to North America. There are questions about Sandin-Pellikka’s defense, and he isn’t big (5-foot-11, 176 pounds), but Sandin-Pellikka’s offense can compensate.

▶  3. Nate Danielson, center, 19, 2023 first round (No. 9): Danielson was so impressive in training camp last year, he stuck around until the final cuts of the final weekend. He’ll begin this season in Grand Rapids, but it’ll be interesting to watch Danielson’s development and see how long it’ll take before he gets an NHL promotion. Danielson is effective at both ends of the rink, which is important to the Wings’ organization.

▶  4. Carter Mazur, left wing, 22, 2021 third round (No. 70):  The Jackson native has progressed and developed steadily since being drafted, and is likely to some day wear the Wings jersey. An injury in training camp last year deprived Mazur an outside chance of making the roster. An agitator with a good offensive game, Mazur was impressive for Grand Rapids in the playoffs (eight points in nine games).

Continued (paywall); what does your list of the top Red Wings prospects look like?

Pretty good call here, even though I like actual cats in general (dogs are nice, too!):

Nothing says International Cat Day like a Cat-trick! pic.twitter.com/4qhhcr4oPP

— Detroit Red Wings (@DetroitRedWings) August 8, 2024