Austin Watson spoke with the Red Wings’ media corps on Wednesday, and MLive’s Ansar Khan posted an article about Watson’s attempt to earn an NHL contract via his pro try-out. Watson says that he chose the Red Wings for more than simply his birthplace, which happens to be Ann Arbor…
“Having played against this group for a while in Ottawa, you saw the core group of guys, the high-end talent,” Watson said. “You see the young guys coming up, you see this team just getting better and better. For me, being able to bring that element of some physicality, jam, being hard to play against, sticking up for guys when that’s necessary, I thought that could be a good fit for both sides.”
Watson, 32, has played two preseason games (one assist, no penalty minutes) and will get one or two more to state his case. The Red Wings (3-1-1) finish with three games in three nights starting Thursday at home against Toronto (7 p.m., Bally Sports Detroit).
The 6-4, 210 pound forward earned a contract while on a PTO at Tampa Bay’s camp last year and appeared in 33 games (two goals, two assists, 93 penalty minutes, seven fighting majors).
“I didn’t expect to be on a PTO last year,” Watson said. “I came off two years where I scored 10 and nine goals and fought a bunch (in Ottawa), so a little caught off guard. This year, having only played 30-some games, I kind of had an expectation that this might be the case and having gone through it before has made it a little bit easier. You just do what you can and let the cards fall where they may.”
Khan reports that Watson would prefer to earn an NHL contract over a two-way deal…
Watson is focused on earning a one-way contract and playing in Detroit. He’ll consider the possibility of a two-way deal and playing in Grand Rapids after.
“I like playing in the NHL and I prefer that to riding buses,” Watson said. “It becomes part of your identity. I changed a bit coming out of the minors 10 years ago to finding a way to help the team to stick around in the NHL, whether that be hitting, blocking shots, penalty killing, sticking up for teammates, fighting when need be. I feel the game evolves but that kind of stuff is always at a premium and I’ve been good at it for a while now.”
And I can’t deny that it’s possible that Watson will impress another team and earn a contract out of camp regardless of whether he makes the Wings’ roster. He played a very competent two-way game against the Penguins last night, and if he continues to show strongly, he may yet impress, Wings’ roster crunch included.
Update: Here’s a bit of a critique from Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff:
While he’s certainly capable of being a deterrent, the Red Wings braintrust is more concerned about whether he’ll be a detriment. Watson’s 5-on-5 analytics data over the past two seasons is, to be frank, dreadful.
His 5-on-5 SAT for Tampa Bay last season was 41.8%. That was 17th out of the team’s 18 forwards. The previous season in Ottawa, his 5-on-5 SAT was 19th out of 20 forwards at 45.7%.
Certainly, those numbers are of concern to Detroit coach Derek Lalonde.
“We expect the hard from him,” Lalonde said. “We expect him to win battles, wall battles. But one important viewing for us was he’s got to be able to help us five-on-five and through two games so far, he’s done that. He’s done that well.
“It’s helped our team in the two games he was in.”
