Month: September 2024

Sportsnet’s Fox praises the Moritz Seider contract

From Sportsnet’s Luke Fox’s “Quick Shifts“:

With only the Sabres (13 seasons) owning a longer post-season drought than the Red Wings (eight), the growing discontent with Detroit’s rebuild under icon Steve Yzerman comes honestly.

No playoff games for you, spectacular Little Caesars Arena. 

But Stevie Y earned an emphatic boardroom W this week, locking up star forward Lucas Raymond (eight years times $8.075 million) and stud defenceman Moritz Seider (seven years times $8.55 million) for the prime of their careers.

Yzerman, remember, came from Tampa Bay, and his Lightning crafted a hard internal cap that would yield deep rosters and, soon after he moved on, championships. Now he’s doing the same thing in Michigan. 

Yzerman drew a hard line. No player was to rake a higher AAV than captain Dylan Larkin ($8.7 million). That meant not giving Seider an eighth season of term, but it keeps the team’s pay scale in place and sets the tone for the next negotiation.

Seider, in particular, is a steal. 

A big, edgy righty with offensive flair and an ironman streak that traces back to his NHL debut and Calder Trophy campaign?

With the cap on the rise, Seider is going to be one of the sport’s greatest bargains before too long. I seem to remember another German RFA turning into a steal of a deal, too…

Continued

Coach Lalonde wants Albert Johansson to ‘keep it simple’

Amongst the Hockey News’s Connor Eargood’s “odds and ends” from training camp:

Albert Johansson is going to make the NHL roster this season because his waiver eligibility would otherwise allow a team to claim him if he were sent down. Whether or not he gets into games is a different story — as general manager Steve Yzerman explained Tuesday before camp. In terms of what they want to see from Johansson right now, his coaches feel that less is more.

“Simple game. Being able to move a puck,” Lalonde said Thursday. “He showed it in practice today. He had a couple eye-popping, breakout type plays in some very tight situations, but to be able to defend, it’s a little heavier at this level than it was last year.”

Johansson has never played in an NHL game, a product of both the depth chart and the NHL blue line’s unusual health last season. In Grand Rapids, he was a dependable two-way defender who teammates consistently praised. He made the simple play — the right play — and didn’t risk too much. Lalonde feels that Johansson’s best path to playing as a rookie is for that simplicity to build trust through the way it shows dependability.

“(I was) really impressed with him as a player last year,” Lalonde explained. “I was able to see him quite a bit down the stretch last year and we feel he’s ready to help us. He’s gonna have to go earn it. I want to see it in camp. But I just want a simple game out of him. Being able to transport a puck for us, being able to defend, and he did that at a pretty consistent level in Grand Rapids, and we want to see it at our level.”

Continued

Training camp Tweets of note: Saturday, the third day + a little ASP action from Sweden

As I did on Thursday and Friday, we’re going to go with a single thread for most of the training camp Tweets/X posts this morning, so check back on this post as it will continue to be updated until at least 2 PM.

Here we go…

Meanwhile, in Sweden…

Day 2: on building chemistry and the goaltending competition

As we prepare for the 3rd day of training camp to begin, DetroitRedWings.com’s Jonathan Mills posted an article which summarizes the storylines on day 2:

“The details have been pretty sharp for the first two days of Training Camp,” J.T. Compher said. “Sometimes there’s a little bit of sloppiness. I can only speak for our group that I’ve skated with the last few days, but it’s been sharp and I feel the focus has been there, which is important. These are important days to hammer down the systems and learn. It’s really good to see the guys ready to go right from the start of camp.”

Training Camp also provides an early look at possible line combinations. During the first two days of camp, Compher skated on the second line between Patrick Kane and Vladimir Tarasenko.

“That’s what camp is about — learning each other’s tendencies,” Compher said. “Whether the lines switch up or stay the same, you want to try to get as much familiarity with guys as possible. The first day was maybe more feeling each other out, then today I feel like us three were a little more vocal with each other and talking through things.”

…

“That top-four [defense] could be fluid a little bit at times,” [coach Derek] Lalonde said. “Sometimes guys have chemistry, just puck support, being able to get pucks out on a breakout. Of course you’re starting to envision some pairs. No different from my conversation and comments about our offensive lines yesterday. We’ll be looking at some different things, could be fluid, and try to get a combination there.”

Among other things that Lalonde and his coaching staff will evaluate through Training Camp and the preseason is Detroit’s goaltending situation.

“Ville [Husso], Cam [Talbot] and Alex [Lyon] have had really nice stretches in this league,” Lalonde said. “They’ve proved they can win in this league, and we’ll look for one to step up. Jack [Campbell] has done that also. Obviously, we have some numbers in camp, which is a little unique, but it’s a positive. I still look back to last year, we kept the three goalies around for a while. It wasn’t ideal, getting in the net at times, but again, it saved our season. It’s going to be a healthy competition. It’s going to be wide open, and it’s a clean slate.”

Continued

Roughly translated: Leksands IF’s GM, ‘Tjomme’ Johansson, discusses son Anton Johansson’s potential

As the SHL season begins this morning, Leksands IF GM Thomas “Tjomme” Johansson spoke with Hockeynews.se’s Andreas Hanson about the relative lack of changes on his team over the course of the summer, as well as the potential for growth in “Tjomme’s” son, Red Wings prospect defenseman Anton Johansson:

His son Anton is one of the most exciting players on the team for this season. The 20-year-old played 46 games last season, and many LIF fans hope that he will start where he finished in the playoffs, when he posted 4 points in 7 games.

“Yes, Anton has huge potential. But he’s still young. He needs to build on his experience. I think last year he was a bit shaky initially, mixing highlights with some junior mistakes, but he sanded it away the longer the season went, and into the playoffs, so he was probably one of our best defensemen. So I hope that we can continue to give him the environment that allows him to continue taking the steps forward, so that he can become a huge force on our defensive side.”

The challenge for Anton will be to be patient, thinks Tjomme. “Above all, daring to keep his game simple and not make too much of it. Be patient in your own game. I think that he showed a lot of stability in his game. So I hope he keeps developing, and if he does, then he will be a huge asset for us.”