Month: September 2024

Tweets of note from Steve Yzerman’s pre-training camp presser

Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman spoke with the Detroit media this morning, and here are some Twitter-based highlights of his remarks:

Continue reading Tweets of note from Steve Yzerman’s pre-training camp presser

Video stream link: Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman to speak with the media at 10 AM EDT

Per the Red Wings’ YouTube channel:

Update: Per EP Rinkside’s Sean Shapiro:

Do the Red Wings lack ‘a certain je n’ais ce quoi?’

ESPN’s Ryan S. Clark and Kristen Shilton ask “burning questions” for every NHL team this morning. Shilton takes care of the Eastern Conference’s “burning questions,” and she suggests that the Red Wings face a deficit of star power:

What — or who — will be the difference-maker?

The Red Wings have been missing … something. Despite good talent, a solid structure and, at times, long stretches of momentum last season, Detroit managed to fall just short when it mattered most. How will the Red Wings go about fixing that?

It starts with training camp. Detroit is expecting growth from its young players like Simon Edvinsson, Jonatan Berggren and Carter Mazur. Patrick Kane and Vladimir Tarasenko will need to play key roles as veterans on and off the ice. And other returning stars — led by captain Dylan Larkin — have to be better, too.

On the back end, the Red Wings could be minus one significant skater in Moritz Seider. He doesn’t have a contract yet (fellow RFA Lucas Raymond signed his new deal on Monday night), and that’s a potential distraction the Red Wings can’t afford to let derail their progress. Coach Derek Lalonde has enough to sort through as it is identifying how to get Detroit back into the postseason picture.

Continued; I don’t know whether the Red Wings need another star player as much as they need to sort out their goaltending and, once Moritz Seider’s signed, find a second-pair defender to spell Seider…

And Larkin, Raymond, Seider, Kane, et. al. tend to bust their asses when they’re on the ice. Can they all be a little better? Sure, I’ll buy that one. But without improvement from the rest of the roster, I’m not certain whether the Red Wings can satisfy the question as to whether the team can fulfill Shilton’s “je n’ais ce quoi.”

Roughly translated: Marco Kasper discusses his push to make the NHL

An article popped up in German wire services this morning regarding the NHL’s two star Austrian players in Red Wings forward Marco Kasper and Montreal Canadiens defenseman David Reinbacher. The article, which was found in Die Presse, offers two pertinent paragraphs, which offer a quote from Steve Yzerman and a quote from Kasper himself:

“Marco has gotten better and better over the course of the year. He has begun to develop more offensive play, especially in the playoffs. He is a really good two-way player, he drives to the goal, is strong on the puck. We are really satisfied with his development,” explained GM Steve Yzerman, who selected the Austrian 8th overall in the 2022 draft.

The opinion of the boss coincides with the self-assessment of the 20-year-old.

“In the beginning it was difficult to get in–the smaller ice surface, everything is a little bit faster. At the end of the season, I felt comfortable,” said Kasper.

His goal in the next few weeks is clearly defined.

“I want to play in the NHL, that’s what I’m working on,” the native of Carinthia said. For this, it’s important to work on many details.

“At a high level, these are small things. Becoming faster and more powerful, win battles in the corner, play better defensively” were the items Kasper included for improvement before training camp, which begins on Thursday.

More praise for Nate Danielson’s Prospect Games performance

Yesterday, The Athletic’s Max Bultman wrote a fine article regarding the Red Wings’ participants in the Prospect Games this past weekend, and this morning, The Athletic’s prospect experts combined their expertise to share a slate of standout players from each of the NHL’s various rookie tournaments.

Here’s what Bultman had to say about Red Wings prospect Nate Danielson, who definitely stood out from the pack at the Red Wings’ pair of games vs. the Dallas Stars:

Nate Danielson, C, Red Wings: The Traverse City “tournament” this year was really just a two-game set between Detroit and Dallas,  of which Detroit won both games largely on the strength of players who were already pros last year. But one notable exception was Danielson, whose skating and playmaking really stood out, particularly in the second game of the weekend. In the end, he finished with just one assist in two games, but he created a significant number of chances for himself and his teammates. The Red Wings will of course want to see that turn into more point production, and that’s been a trend for him the last couple seasons, but his impact on the game was still clear. He’ll be of considerable interest this preseason, after a strong exhibition showing for Detroit last fall. —Max Bultman

Continued; EP Rinkside’s Sean Shapiro suggested that Danielson’s NHL internship should begin this season. I’m not certain that the Wings will place Danielson in their “bottom six” (even if there is an inevitable injury suffered over the course of training camp or the exhibition season), but I do believe that Danielson will be recalled at some point, and at that juncture, he may end up “stealing a job.”

That’s really been GM Steve Yzerman’s bottom line regarding prospects–that they have to push out an NHL’er in order to earn a spot on the team. I don’t expect that to change for Nate Danielson, Marco Kasper, Carter Mazur, William Wallinder, Sebastian Cossa, etc.

Roughly translated: Raymond’s European agent weighs in

As noted last night, Red Wings executive VP of hockey operations Nicklas Lidstrom spoke with Expressen’s Gunnar Nordstrom regarding Lucas Raymond recently. Overnight, Nordstrom updated his article with comments from Raymond’s European agent, Peter Werner:

“Lucas is very happy that this became clear [was signed] and he can focus on what he wants, to win hockey games for the Detroit Red Wings,” said Raymond’s agent, Peter Werner at CAA Sports in Stockholm.

About the content of the agreement and high salary, Werner says this:

“The terms are good and reasonable given how he has performed.”

When will Lucas go to the United States and Detroit?

“It could be either day. Everything has happened at high speed, and now it’s about getting him over before training camp in Detroit that starts at the end of the week.”

Roughly translated: a single sentence (from Nicklas Lidstrom) sometimes tells the story

Lucas Raymond’s 8-year, $64.6 million contract extension was announced in the middle of the night in Sweden, so the news hit Stockholm a little late for the Swedish evening news cycle.

It’s also highly likely that Lucas Raymond himself is spending his morning traveling from Gothenburg to Detroit, so there aren’t any comments from Raymond himself as of yet.

This morning, Expressen’s Gunnar Nordstrom reacted to the contract with an article and a quip from Nicklas Lidstrom, and sometimes a couple of sentences get the gist of an article. That’s the case for these next couple of sentences, even when translated from Swedish:

“He was our best player in the second half of the season last spring. He’s starting to become a star in the NHL, and is fiercely checked by opponents, but I think he’s managed that challenge very well,” team icon Nicklas Lidstrom told Expressen last week.

“Lidas” belongs to the Red Wings’ management in the role of Vice President of Hockey Operations. He’s General Manager Steve Yzerman’s right-hand man.

No lies detected.

Summarizing the media’s takes on Lucas Raymond’s 8-year, $64.6-million contract

The Red Wings signed Lucas Raymond to an 8-year, $64.6 million contract on Monday evening, and as you might expect, the media had a fairly unified take on the deal: good for both sides.

First, there’s such a thing as taking too much credit, per The Fourth Period…

The Detroit Red Wings have signed restricted free agent forward Lucas Raymond to an eight-year, $64.6 million contract, as first reported by TFP’s David Pagnotta.

Pagnotta reported on NHL Network that the two sides were working towards a long-term extension, and the Red Wings and Raymond finalized their new deal, which comes with an $8.075 million average annual value, less than an hour later.

97.1 the Ticket’s Will Burchfield left the comments to a certain somewhat reclusive GM who is probably not going to speak until the first day of training camp, and after that, the trade deadline…

Continue reading Summarizing the media’s takes on Lucas Raymond’s 8-year, $64.6-million contract

Shapiro: Should Danielson’s NHL internship start now?

EP Rinkside’s Sean Shapiro shares a slate of observations from the Red Wings’ Prospect Games, including the following, on Substack:

Daniel Cleary said the quiet part out loud.

While meeting with media members on Sunday in Traverse City, the Detroit Red Wings director of player development mused about where top prospects Nate Danielson will play this season.

“I have inner thoughts that I don’t want to say out loud,” Cleary said. “But not a lot would surprise me.”

Reading between the lines on that statement, my conversations with others at Traverse City, and watching Danielson play myself, it feels like a decent bet the 19-year-old is actually part of the NHL plans this season.

A member of the Dallas Stars brass, who closely watched the games, told me Danielson was the best player in the Traverse City prospect games and that the first-round pick, “looked NHL ready to me.”

It makes sense, in the long-term the Red Wings need Danielson to become the No. 2 center that unlocks their lineup. Why not start that process this season?

Continued; I don’t think that Danielson will end up playing in the NHL unless he’s playing in the NHL, but stranger things have happened.