The Athletic posted several articles which are Red Wings-related this morning.
- First, The Athletic surveyed its NHL beat writers to determine the “biggest question” facing each of the NHL’s 32 teams heading into training camps, which begin today and tomorrow across the league.
Max Bultman suggests that the Red Wings need to be concerned about their defensive corps, as opposed their offensive deficit after David Perron, Daniel Sprong and Shayne Gostisbehere left the organization as free agents:
Detroit Red Wings
Is the team’s defense improved? The Red Wings lost a lot of production this offseason, and while they’ll hope to replace that scoring with contributions from Vladimir Tarasenko and via internal improvements, their bigger short-term priority will be defending better as a team. Detroit gave up the league’s ninth most goals per game last season (3.33), and too often gave away easy scoring chances via turnovers and defensive breakdowns. They’ll certainly hope the full-time arrival of Simon Edvinsson can help on the blue line thanks to his length and mobility, but a big part of the equation will need to come from their forwards, who last season tended to be more offensively tilted. Tyler Motte will help there as a matchup forward who can kill penalties, and Christian Fischer will return in a similar role. From there, it’s about getting a little more responsibility out of some of the more skilled forwards, a task which will fall to Derek Lalonde and his staff to execute. — Max Bultman
Continued (paywall); even Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman suggested that the Wings need to focus on the team’s defensive play this upcoming season when the GM spoke with the media on Tuesday.
2. Second, Bultman zooms in perspective-wise while discussing the state of the Wings’ defense and four more questions which the team faces before training camp begins tomorrow. In this case, hope always springs eternal for a player to “earn a spot” on the team, even with its 12 forwards mostly set:
4. Can an unexpected young player steal a role?
…
But there are three young forwards — Nate Danielson, Marco Kasper and Carter Mazur — who will be especially worth following in this regard.
Mazur is the oldest of the bunch, a gritty 22-year-old winger who can really shoot the puck, and whose summer work to get stronger earned praise from Yzerman on Tuesday. He could fit on the third line as a way to keep its identity and add offensive potential. Kasper profiles similarly, but younger (20) and a true center. He really came on in the AHL playoffs last spring and could fit in a similar third-line role, but Detroit will have to decide if it would prefer that or giving him more minutes and a power-play role in Grand Rapids.
Danielson is the wild card, a smooth-skating two-way center who certainly can handle defensive assignments but projects to bring the most offense of the three. His playmaking stood out in Detroit’s prospect games. Could he carve out a middle-six role? It’s not impossible, but it would probably take a big-time showing in the preseason to prove he’s ready.
It’s not a traditional position battle, but whether one of these three young forwards can displace someone this fall is going to be a major storyline.
Bultman asks four more questions (paywall)…
3. Third and finally, The Athletic’s Jesse Granger discusses goaltending battles of note as training camps begin:
Detroit Red Wings
Motor City is the home of the most crowded crease in North America. The Red Wings enter the season with four netminders with extensive NHL experience. Ville Husso, Cam Talbot, Alex Lyon and Jack Campbell have 887 combined starts between them, and that’s not mentioning one of the top goalie prospects in the world: Sebastian Cossa.
Husso should have the inside track to the starting job (or at least the 1A in a tandem). He enters the final year of his contract with the largest cap hit of any goalie on the team ($4.75 million) and probably has the highest ceiling of the group. Husso signed that deal immediately after his breakout season with the Blues in 2021-22, when he received votes for the Vezina Trophy, but has followed it up with two seasons with a sub-.900 save percentage.
The biggest problem for Husso has been health. He made only 18 starts last season due to several lower-body injuries, but if he can stay on the ice, he has the talent to be the Red Wings’ top option. His underlying numbers last season were actually better than his .892 suggests. He stopped 80.7 percent of high-danger shots (above the league average of 78.8) and saved 2.3 goals above expected, according to Evolving-Hockey.
Adding Talbot to the fold was an astute move by GM Steve Yzerman, especially considering Husso’s injury history. Talbot is 37 (the third-oldest goalie in the league behind Jonathan Quick and Marc-André Fleury) but is coming off a strong season in Los Angeles. If Detroit is going to end its eight-year playoff drought, having a dependable second goalie is key, and Talbot fits the bill.
The Red Wings carried three goalies for most of last season, but Yzerman has said he prefers only two, which means Lyon and Campbell could both be destined for the minors. Both have obvious talent and will be hoping to impress enough in camp to make that a tough decision for the front office. Lyon is still only a couple years removed from starting playoff games in Florida, and Campbell hopes to make the most of a fresh start. Seeing how Detroit deploys its goalies in the preseason will be one of the more interesting storylines.
Continued (paywall); at this point, I’m of the “anything can happen” mind regarding the Red Wings’ crease. I hope that training camp and the 8-game exhibition season afford the team some time to iron out its wrinkles and determine who’s going to start this upcoming season…
But I also think that it’s more likely that it will take 10-20 regular season games for the situation to truly be settled.
