The Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan attempts to discern which players who will begin this season with the AHL’s Grand Rapids Griffins might end up playing important injury replacement roles on the Red Wings’ roster.
Among Kulfan’s picks are the following players:
▶ Carter Mazur, left wing, 2021 third-round selection: The Jackson native made the NHL in March, but in his first game dislocated an elbow and missed the rest of his hockey season.
Mazur, 23, would seem to have a legitimate shot at grabbing what looks like one available forward spot on the roster. But the Wings, understandably, usually don’t like to put young players in a spot where they don’t regularly play. Better to play regularly, and get plenty of playing time, at the AHL level.
Mazur has gotten stronger physically this summer, something that was important. Injuries have set Mazur (6-foot, 170 pounds) back; otherwise he possibly would have been in the NHL already.
“He’s a great kid and a good player,” said Dan Cleary, the Wings director of player development. “He’s had some tough luck with injuries during his pro career which has been unfortunate. I tell him it stinks, but you have to start over and dig in and rehab and keep going. He was in such a good place last year and had put in tremendous work. He’s put good weight on his frame and been able to keep it, and he’s going to need it. For him, it’s just he has had some bad luck. I’m hoping he can get past the bad luck, and I know he does too, and I believe he will.”
▶ Nate Danielson, center, 2023 first-round selection: The Wings’ first-round pick in 2023, Danielson had 12 goals and 39 points in his first pro season in Grand Rapids. Danielson, 20, is a sound two-way center who impressed on the defensive side of the rink and overcame a slow start offensively in the AHL. Danielson (6-foot-2, 185 pounds) can make the NHL if he impresses in training camp and can win a regular spot in the lineup.
“It’s just learning to do it, particularly as a centerman, to do a lot of the little things with and without the puck, that really make you effective maybe at the pro level,” said Yzerman said of Danielson. “When you’re a good skater and junior or any lower league, you can kind of skate your way through everything, and you need to do more than that. It’s been a good year for him. He’s worked hard. Early in the season, he suffered a pretty significant injury, a facial injury, and to his credit, I don’t know that he missed the game. He put the face mask on and away he went, which is very encouraging for us.”
Continued; Kulfan also lists Axel Sandin Pellikka, Sebastian Cossa, Michal Postava, Michael Brandsegg-Nygard, William Wallinder and Amadeus Lombardi as possible call-ups.
