Red Wings-Maple Leafs morning skate Tweets and articles: Leafs bring ‘B Team’ to Detroit as Wings experiment with Kasper, Edvinsson

The 3-1-and-1 Detroit Red Wings begin a set of home-and-home games with the 2-1-and-1 Toronto Maple Leafs this evening (7 PM EDT on Bally Sports Detroit).

The Maple Leafs are bringing a mixed roster to Detroit…

And Toronto’s “game day group” the ice around 9:45 for their morning skate:

Also:

TSN posted a short game preview…

Max Pacioretty and Easton Cowan are among the notable players in the lineup for tonight’s preseason contest against the Detroit Red Wings. 

Joining them up front for tonight’s game are Nikita Grebenkin, Roni Hirvonen, Calle Jarnkrok, David Kampf, Steven Lorentz, Bobby McMann, Alexander Nylander, Cedric Pare, Jacob Quillan, Nick Robertson and Alex Steeves.

The defensive corps will be Timothy Liljegren, Mikko Kokkonen, Nicolas Mattinen, Philippe Myers, Topi Niemela, Marshall Rifai and Cade Webber. Anthony Stolarz and Artur Akhtyamov are the two goalies heading to Detroit for the game. 

The Maple Leafs are 2-1-1 in preseason and will face the Red Wings one more time on Saturday night before they kick off their regular season on Oct. 9 against the Montreal Canadiens. 

And DetroitRedWings.com’s Jonathan Mills posted a longer preview:

The Detroit Red Wings will begin a stretch of three preseason games in three days, first welcoming the Original Six-rival Toronto Maple Leafs to Little Caesars Arena on Thursday night.

Following Thursday’s 7 p.m. puck drop (broadcast coverage on Bally Sports Detroit and 97.1 The Ticket in Detroit), Detroit will host the Ottawa Senators on Friday before wrapping up its eight-game exhibition slate in Toronto on Saturday.

The Red Wings return home after goalie Ville Husso’s 43-save night helped the club defeat the Pittsburgh Penguins, 2-1, at PPG Paints Arena on Tuesday.

“We talk about [goaltending battle] being a blank slate, and you want to execute and perform,” Detroit head coach Derek Lalonde said. “[On Tuesday], Ville Husso played at an extremely high level. Obviously it’s just one game, but all of our goalies have shown very well in camp. This is why these guys are getting reps and opportunities. They’ll get more opportunity. We have three more games to let this play out.”

Detroit reduced its expanded Training Camp roster to 55 players on Wednesday. Austin Watson, a 32-year-old forward who is in camp on a professional tryout contract, is among those looking to prove they belong in the NHL. Watson earned a contract while on a PTO with the Tampa Bay Lightning last season, finishing with four points (two goals, two assists) in 33 games. He said he believes his style of play would serve the Red Wings well.

“Having played against this group for a while in Ottawa, you saw the core group of guys, the high-end talent, the young guys coming up and this team just getting better and better,” Watson said. “For me, being able to bring that element of 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.”

Mills also posted a profile of Red Wings defenseman Ben Chiarot:

One of Ben Chiarot’s strengths as a leader is his ability to hold himself and his teammates accountable, a skill that the Detroit Red Wings defenseman believes he’s developed over time.

“It’s a process, for sure,” Chiarot said on Sept. 27. “Building that trust that you’re not just coming down on a guy because he’s not doing something right. Knowing that you’re coming from a good place when you’re doing it. Having that relationship with each guy. You can be hard on them and know after the game that you’re still one of the guys. It’s nothing personal. Once you have that built, once the team is a close unit off the ice, then I think on-ice things go a little smoother when you’re trying to keep each other accountable.”

An 11-year NHL veteran, Chiarot naturally morphed into the Red Wings’ leadership group after signing a four-year free-agent deal with Detroit ahead of the 2022-23 campaign. He’s seen clear growth from the club since then, especially after last season, when the Red Wings pushed for a Stanley Cup Playoffs spot.

“The experience that [the returning players] got down the stretch playing important games, sort of a lite playoff experience, where every game matters,” Chiarot said. “You need those points desperately. The first piece to learning what it takes to play in the playoffs and win in the playoffs is having that desperation.”

Chiarot, who recorded 20 points (five goals, 15 assists) in 77 games last season, is confident the Red Wings have the makeup to get where they want to go in 2024-25.

“Some scoring goes out, some veterans go out, but we have guys come in that are very similar to those roles,” Chiarot said. “In saying that, having similar makeup, how close we were, we get a little bit more buy-in defensively. We had a tough streak there at the end of the season through March. I wouldn’t say that’s a normal circumstance by any stretch. Avoiding those long streaks like that, and buying in defensively, those are going to be two keys for us.”

The Red Wings’ “game-day group” hit the ice around 10:40 AM…

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George Malik

My name is George Malik, and I'm the Malik Report's editor/blogger/poster. I have been blogging about the Red Wings since 2006, and have worked with MLive and Kukla's Korner. Thank you for reading!