Month: September 2024

As of Tuesday, the Wings’ only injuries consist of Ondrej Becher and Shai Buium

Detroit Hockey Now’s Kevin Allen posted an article which discusses the Red Wings’ injuries going into training camp–which, as it turns out, involve players who participated in this past weekend’s Prospect Games vs. Dallas:

Youngsters Ondrej Becher (80th, 2024) and Shai Buium (36th, 2021) are the only players listed as injured heading into the start of Detroit Red Wings’ training camp on Thursday.

“Becher has a sprained ankle that he did prior to coming to Detroit,” Detroit GM Steve Yzerman said. “I think skating on his own, so he’ll be out for a little while.”

Buium, projected to be a regular in Grand Rapids this season, was injured blocking a shot in Game 2 of Red Wings’ prospect series against the Dallas Stars.

“He’s kind of day to day,” Yzerman said. “We’re doing some more tests at this stage. It doesn’t look like it’s anything serious, and hopefully it’s not. But still, he potentially might miss a few days.”

Allen also included this comment from assistant director of player development Dan Cleary regarding Buium:

“At the end of the day I watched how he played quite a bit,” Cleary said. “Obviously a very successful career in Denver. He can certainly run a power play. He’s smart — makes his good hockey sense work for him. He’s got a good little feel. He can find the middle of the ice well. And he certainly knows what he’s got to work on. But he’s gotten stronger, he’s gotten quicker, he’s in better shape, but the pro game’s tough. American League is a tough league. It’s hard. So it’s gonna be growing (pains) for sure.

Mid-day news: Quotes and quips from Yzerman and Raymond’s press conferences

Of Red Wings-related note this afternoon:

  1. NHL.com has updated its Lucas Raymond re-signing story with quotes from both Steve Yzerman and Raymond’s mid-morning press conferences, via NHL.com’s Tracey Myers:

“Obviously very happy we got it done ahead of training camp,” Raymond said Tuesday. “Of course, you always want it to get done as quickly as possible but that’s the way it goes.

“I felt a huge difference coming into last year, just the way you see the game, the way you handle yourself off ice. And I mean that on ice as well. There are obviously areas I want to keep growing in, keep developing, taking bigger strides, taking more responsibility and getting higher expectations on myself. For sure, that’s the goal. I’m still 22, so hopefully I have a lot of development to still do.”

Red Wings general manager Steve Yzerman pointed to Raymond’s strong finish to last season, when he had 21 points (14 goals, seven assists) in Detroit’s last 18 games, and completed his campaign with 11 points (six goals, five assists) in a six-game point streak.

“Well, he certainly down the stretch took his game to another level production-wise,” Yzerman said Tuesday. “We didn’t base everything on the last 20 games, but it certainly has an impact. But I felt throughout the season he continued to get better. There was a significant growth from year two to year three. Actually, year two was pretty good (45 points; 17 goals, 28 assists in 74 games), production was down a little bit, but it was a good year for him and a learning season.

“He grinded it out, had a very good offseason last year and came in and played really well and then took off down the stretch. We were not shocked by that. We were obviously very pleased how he finished the season and showed he has the ability to play at a higher level and he did that in all aspects.

“You can never guarantee how production goes, but I expect him to be one of our top players again. I expect his game to continue to grow this year. Last year helped his case a lot. … we were thrilled to see him play that well.”

Continued, with this quip about the Moritz Seider contract negotiations:

Continue reading Mid-day news: Quotes and quips from Yzerman and Raymond’s press conferences

Tweet of note: Griffins recap the Prospect Games

The Grand Rapids Griffins posted a 1-minute video Tweet recapping the Red Wings-Stars Prospect Games this past weekend in Traverse City:

Is Ben Chiarot the Red Wings’ ‘worst contract?’

I don’t think that Ben Chiarot is a “bad” defenseman–I think he’s actually gotten better over the course of his tenure with the Red Wings. That being said, I’m not certain whether he’s the ideal partner for Moritz Seider on the Red Wings’ first defensive pairing, and Bleacher Report’s Adam Gretz seems to agree in deeming Chiarot to be the Red Wings’ “worst contract”;

Detroit Red Wings: Ben Chiarot

Chiarot is the type of defenseman who has an intense hold on the NHL’s general managers. He got traded for big returns and then signed a four-year, $19 million contract in Detroit a couple of years ago.

There was a time when he was a pretty capable defender, but those days are gone. Now he tends to get too many minutes in too many big roles. In Detroit, he has spent way too much time on the team’s top pairing next to Moritz Seider over the past two seasons, a partnership that only limited one of the team’s best young players. This signing was a big miss by general manager Steve Yzerman.

Continued; again, he’s not an ideal defenseman by any means, but I don’t think that he’s been awful…And the Andrew Copp deal seems worse to me, honestly.

Dig your own Holl

EP Rinkside’s Sean Shapiro offers a theory to solve the Red Wings’ potential roster difficulties if they are to carry 12 forwards, 8 defensemen and 3 goaltenders this upcoming season–moving defenseman Justin Holl:

Holl only played 38 games last season and only played three after Jan. 31, essentially living in the press box as a healthy scratch. Holl makes $3.4 million against the cap, and still has another year remaining. In a perfect world the Red Wings would find a way to move him out to open up cap space for the 2025-26 season.

Right now Holl has limited value and isn’t a great trade candidate. According to some people I’ve spoken to around the NHL any trade for Holl would require a pretty large sweetener from the Red Wings to make it work.

In the short-term, Detroit could waive Holl and punt the issue down the road, especially since cap space is expected to open up next summer when Husso’ deal expires and Jeff Petry will also likely be off the books.

Continued (paywall); great stuff from Sean as always.

Traverse City Prospects Tournament faces an uncertain future

Among the Hockey News’s Connor Eargood’s “5 takeaways” from Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman’s press conference with the media today:

Traverse City Future is “Up in the Air”

At one time, as many as eight teams played in the Red Wings-hosted NHL Prospects Tournament in Traverse City. But if you watched it over the weekend, you probably noticed that there are only two now — Detroit and the Dallas Stars. The future of the tournament — if you can still call it that — is uncertain.

“The tournament obviously appears to have run its course,” Yzerman said. “A lot of that, over the last three or four years, we’ve gone from eight (teams) down to two for different reasons. Teams wanted to do different things. Some didn’t want to play four games. Some wanted to save the expense and not have to travel to Traverse City. They’re able to do different things.”

What does the path forward look like? Yzerman said there might be interest in a third game, and he and Nill talked about adding a third team to the mix. He also said that a future game in Dallas might be on the radar, too. All this is to say, there are a lot of ideas for how to approach the future of a dying tournament, but the exact steps aren’t defined. As far as a timeline goes, Yzerman said he will reevaluate the situation after training camp.

Continued; at this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Red Wings move the tournament to Little Caesars Arena’s BELFOR Training Center.

Quick quip: Yzerman doesn’t think Seider, Wings are ‘terribly far apart’

There will be much more from the Red Wings’ media corps regarding the press conferences held by Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman and recently re-signed forward Lucas Raymond as the day progresses, but this note from WXYZ’s sports department merits its own entry:

Detroit Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman spoke to the media ahead of training camp on Tuesday morning and addressed the contract negotiations with defenseman Mo Seider. Yzerman said that they hope to have a deal with Seider very soon.

“We continue to talk. I’m hopeful we can get a deal done at some point, sooner rather than later would be better for both parties. I don’t think we’re terribly far apart,” Yzerman said.

Seider, 23, has played in every game for the Red Wings over the past three seasons, scoring 21 goals and adding 113 assists, with an average of just under 23 minutes time on ice per game.

Also:

Raymond, 22 skated in all 82 games for the Red Wings last season and was second on the team in goals and assists with 31 goals and 41 assists respectively. His 72 points were the highest on the team.

“I think he’s just entering the early stages of his prime. I fully expect him to become a better hockey player for a couple reasons,” Yzerman said. “I think he’s an extremely drive, extremely bright player. His motivation and what not will continue to get better over the next few years.”

He also said there’s an expectation with these long-term deals that the player will take his game to another level.

Tweets of note from Lucas Raymond’s presser

Lucas Raymond spoke with the Red Wings’ media corps after signing an 8-year, $64.6 million contract yesterday evening. Here are the pertinent Tweets from his presser:

Talking about a DeBrincat resurgence from a fantasy hockey perspective

ESPN’s Sean Allen discusses the resurgence of potential “rebound” candidates from a fantasy hockey perspective, and he includes Red Wings forward Alex DeBrincat in his list:

Alex DeBrincat, W, Detroit Red Wings (2021-23 FPPG: 2.15, last season FPPG: 1.85): As mentioned above already, DeBrincat has already had a bounce-back campaign on his resume, when he had a down season in 2019-20. He’s actually scored 27 goals for two consecutive seasons, but we know he can do closer to 40 if the circumstances are correct. Assuming the Red Wings sort things out with Lucas Raymond and Moritz Seider as RFAs, this team will have more than one line of offense for opponents to think about and, hopefully, a more potent power play.

Verdict: I think DeBrincat gets a pass for a situational downturn in his first season with a not-so-hot Red Wings offense. Above 2.0 FPPG should be the expectation again.

Continued; Allen also believes that Vladimir Tarasenko may be a good pick for “Fantasy Points Per Game”:

Vladimir Tarasenko, W, Detroit Red Wings (2021-23 FPPG: 2.08, last season FPPG: 1.66): He didn’t earn fantasy roster spots last season, but should be heavily involved in the Red Wings top six for this coming campaign.