As the Hockey News’s Connor Eargood notes, Red Wings coach Derek Lalonde made an interesting point during today’s media availability–he suggested that media and Red Wings fans alike need not despair if their favorite role player or prospect does not make the Wings’ roster out of training camp:
“Everyone makes such a big deal of making the team on day one, and I’ve never understood it,” Lalonde said. “Because Grand Rapids is two hours away. We’ll have played 33 players by Christmas. … Maybe it’s a little old school, maybe that’s where it was 20-25 years ago — you made the team on day one. I think in reality, we’re probably going to have 15 forwards, 10 D that are going to play for us and make our team. So it will be very interesting to see how it all plays out in the next couple days.”
Lalonde isn’t wrong. Unusually lucky on the injury front last season, Detroit still saw 28 different players skate in at least one game. Four goalies, eight defensemen, 16 forwards. Even if a player isn’t on the initial 23-man roster in October, there are 82 opportunities or more to get to the NHL.
For Kasper, Danielson and Mazur, even if they don’t make the roster this weekend, there are still plenty of opportunities for them to reach the NHL later in the year. That’s a product of the skills they flashed since training camp commenced, as well as the upside of their potential growth. But it’s also due to their ability to play a variety of roles, which might be most important.
Ultimately, the Red Wings are going to make decisions in terms of calling up players based upon what roles the players might fulfill when they’re recalled, and, as Eargood suggests, the fact that Marco Kasper, Nate Danielson and Carter Mazur can play in pretty much every situation bodes well for them:
“It’s a reality of development and growing guys in the league,” Lalonde said. “What I like about a lot of our prospects, and I’ve mentioned this a few times, is even though they’re 1A and are high picks or mid-first round picks, they’ve got some two-way DNA already in them. I mean, Marco, Danielson, Mazur — you can see these guys in camp winning battles, having energy, having a little grit to them. That’s what excites me about the development of some of these guys.”
Instead of a question of whether these prospects can deliver in an NHL lineup, their overall versatility changes the question to whether it’s good for them to play a certain role. Because they can defend and influence play at both ends of the rink, they don’t limit themselves to one type of opportunity with their play. They can impact the game from the second line down to the fourth.
At the same time, Lalonde suggested that the Wings won’t go with their younger players by default when it’s time to plug a hole in the lineup:
Role versatility doesn’t automatically mean that these prospects will top the list of call-up candidates. Consider a hypothetical pitched by Lalonde: “I think the tougher decision when we start getting into those call-ups is do you bring Player A knowing it’s a three game road trip and he plays in a lesser role? Or do you bring Player B who’s going to miss out on 20 minutes, both power play and PK down in Grand Rapids?”
Continued; there’s not a simple answer as to “who’s ready” when the Red Wings make call-ups, but we all know that, in due time, anyway, the Wings have three bright prospects in Kasper, Danielson and Mazur, and they’re all likely to make the NHL to stay at some point in the near future.
