Month: July 2025

Press release: Red Wings hire Michael Leighton as goaltending coach

Per the Detroit Red Wings:

RED WINGS HIRE MICHAEL LEIGHTON AS GOALTENDING COACH

  … 2025 AHL Hall of Fame Inductee Spent Parts of Three Seasons as Goaltending Coach with OHL’s Windsor Spitfires …

DETROIT – Detroit Red Wings Executive Vice President and General Manager Steve Yzerman today announced that the team has hired Michael Leighton as Goaltending Coach.

Leighton, 44, joins the organization after spending parts of three seasons as Goaltending Coach of the Ontario Hockey League’s Windsor Spitfires from 2021-24. During his tenure with the Spitfires, Leighton helped the team win back-to-back Western Conference regular-season titles in 2021-22 and 2022-23. The Spitfires also clinched a berth in the 2022 OHL Championship Series, falling to the Hamilton Bulldogs in seven games. Leighton began his coaching career after playing 18 seasons of professional hockey from 2001-19.

Originally selected by the Chicago Blackhawks in the sixth round (165th overall) of the 1999 NHL Entry Draft, Leighton posted a 37-43-10-4 record with a 2.98 goals-against average, a 0.900 save percentage and four shutouts in 110 regular-season appearances with the Blackhawks, Nashville Predators, Philadelphia Flyers and Carolina Hurricanes. Leighton became the first goaltender in Blackhawks history to earn a shutout in his NHL debut, stopping all 31 shots he faced in a goalless tie on Jan. 8, 2003 vs. Phoenix. He also logged an 8-4 record with a 2.54 goals-against average, a 0.913 save percentage and three shutouts in 16 postseason contests, helping the Flyers reach the 2010 Stanley Cup Final. Leighton tied an NHL record for most shutouts in a single Stanley Cup Playoff series, collecting three shutouts in five starts during the 2010 Eastern Conference Final vs. Montréal.

Continue reading Press release: Red Wings hire Michael Leighton as goaltending coach

James van Riemsdyk tries to emulate Tomas Holmstrom

As the Hockey News’s Michael Whitaker notes, new Red Wings forward James van Riemsdyk is a big fan of a former Detroit mainstay:

A veteran of 1,082 career NHL games, van Riemsdyk has made a living by being an effective net-front presence, a role that he’s not only accustomed to but has grown into over the years.

“I feel like the more I’ve done it, the more natural it seems to become,” he said. “And like I mentioned before, especially down the stretch and into the playoffs, it seems like that’s where you need to go to have the success and score the goals. So I think that’s ultimately why it’s for me, just an attractive place to be on the ice.”

Perhaps the most effective net-front presence in recent NHL history was former Red Wings forward Tomas Holmstrom, who made life a living nightmare for opposition goaltenders by routinely taking up residency at the edge of the crease. 

van Riemsdyk, who scored 16 goals as a member of the Columbus Blue Jackets last season, acknowledged that he used to pay close attention to how Holmstrom parked himself at the front of the net. 

“That was a guy over the years I watched and kind of how he went about his craft and pulled different things from him,” van Riemsdyk said.

Continued

Rudy Guimond had to ‘buck the trend’ of attending college as a developmental path

Red Wings prospect goaltender Rudy Guimond had to “decommit” from Yale University this past spring, choosing to stay with the QMJHL’s Moncton Wildcats for another season, and his decision came down to dollars and cents, as Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff noted:

His stinginess between the posts has turned goaltender Rudy Guimond into a legitimate Detroit Red Wings prospect. But even if he were to be equally stingy with his finances, Guimond just couldn’t figure out a way through which he’d be able to afford to attend Yale.

He went to the Memorial Cup with the Moncton Wildcats in May. And as much as that was an exciting experience, it wasn’t the deciding factor as to why he was opting to decommit from playing NCAA hockey next season at Yale.

“Yeah, I mean, there were other reasons as well,” Guimond explained. “Kind of a financial issue. I wasn’t able to afford what they were offering me. But, I mean, we also saw it as a very great opportunity to play a lot of games (in Moncton), get a lot of reps.”

Ivy League schools like Yale don’t offer full-ride scholarships like the majority of NCAA programs. Student-athletes are required to ante up a portion of the expenses for attending Ivy League institutions. As a Canadian, Guimond’s stipend would be even more expensive since he’s a foreign student.

Continued; Guimond went 16-and-0 in the regular season and 8-and-1 in the playoffs for Moncton, so he’s got a winning legacy to keep heading into this upcoming season.

Trey Augustine wants to ‘go out’ of college hockey as an NCAA champion

MLive’s Ansar Khan posted an article about Red Wings prospect and Michigan State University goaltender Trey Augustine this morning, noting that Augustine remains at MSU for his junior season for a reason:

“[Our season] obviously ended on a negative note, and there’s still something to prove there,” Augustine, 20, said. “I want to go back and win a national championship. But there’s a lot of good things that happened throughout the year. I got better as a hockey player and as a person and looking to do that again next year.”

The Spartans, with Augustine in net, became the first team to win the Big Ten regular season and tournament in consecutive years. But a 4-3 loss to Cornell in the first round of the NCAA tournament stung.

He considered signing with the Red Wings, which would have launched his pro career with either AHL Grand Rapids or ECHL Toledo. But after speaking with the Red Wings, Michigan State and his agent, Augustine decided it was best to go back to school.

“It was an open conversation and just kind of talking through it, and I think both sides, the MSU guys and my agents and the Red Wings, all kind of wanted me to have all the information possible to make a decision,” Augustine, drafted in the second round in 2023 (41st overall), said.

“I didn’t feel there was a wrong answer. Just what worked best for me and my career. Still need to get stronger on and off the ice. And I think staying in college gives me a little bit of a better opportunity to kind of develop my body and get ready for the professional game.”

Continued (paywall)

Post-free agency gloom and doom from HSJ and the Hockey News’s Proteau

Both the Free Press’s Helene St. James and the Hockey News’s Adam Proteau suggest that the Red Wings’ underwhelming free agency performance has already doomed the team to another season without playoff hockey.

It’s way too early to make that determination in my books, but St. James believes that the Atlantic Division is too stacked for the Wings to make a meaningful move up the standings…

Consider the competition within the Atlantic Division: The Florida Panthers look like they’ll be a playoff lock for years to come. The Toronto Maple Leafs lost Mitch Marner, but are still a playoff team. The Montreal Canadiens have added defenseman Noah Dobson to their rebuild. The Tampa Bay Lightning still have an elite players and Andrei Vasilevskiy in goal. The Ottawa Senators are a team on the rise.

That’s five teams just within the division who project to finish ahead of the Wings in the 2025-26 standings. In the Eastern Conference’s other division, the Metropolitan, the Carolina Hurricanes, Washington Capitals, New Jersey Devils and New York Rangers all look like they’re capable of making the playoffs.

Things change, of course, and there’s often a team that looks playoff bound only to drop out (like the Rangers last season). But almost everything would have to go right for the Wings to make it: Both Gibson and Cam Talbot stay healthy – in fact, everybody stays healthy – and there’s more growth in the performances of the younger players, like Seider, Kasper, Raymond, Johansson, Söderblom and Berggren.

The harsh reality is that it’s incredibly hard to build a winning team. The Panthers were forged around Aleksander Barkov (second overall pick in 2013) and Aaron Ekblad (first overall pick in 2014) and it wasn’t until 2023 they had enough surrounding pieces to win the Cup. The Wings haven’t drafted that high since their playoff streak ended in 2016, and suffered severe setbacks by the previous administration flubbing on first-round picks in 2015 (Evgeny Svechnikov), 2016 (Dennis Cholowski) and 2018 (Filip Zadina) – all of whom washed out of the organization without any return.

it is a sad outlook for the franchise, but unless Yzerman finds a way to swing a trade for at least one elite player, the playoff drought appears headed for a 10th year.

And the Hockey News’s Adam Proteau feels that the Wings’ personnel is simply deficient as manged by GM Steve Yzerman:

Continue reading Post-free agency gloom and doom from HSJ and the Hockey News’s Proteau

Audio: Friedman, Bukauskas discuss the Red Wings’ free agency moves

Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman and Kyle Bukauskas discussed the free agency moves made and not made by each and every one of the NHL’s 32 teams on Sunday, and, at the 53:02 mark of the latest episode of 32 Thoughts, they address the Red Wings’ offseason plans…

So, the Hockey News’s Michael Whitaker reports the summary of comments made by the Sportsnet duo: Nikolaj Ehlers was never a realistic option; Friedman never had a doubt that Patrick Kane was going to stay; the Red Wings had interest in Viktor Arvidsson and Mason Marchment, who were traded to Boston and Seattle, respectively, so there were some things he wanted to do and wasn’t able to do; James van Riemsdyk and Mason Appleton were signed for 1 and 2 years, respectively, so Yzerman wasn’t planning on giving term to any of the free agents unless there was a “home run”; he says it’s a hard sell in Detroit, it’s been too many years without the playoffs, but Yzerman still believes in himself, no matter what the doubters suggest, and he’s drafting and developing, and unless it’s an Ehlers, Yzerman is betting his reputation on the young players are coming; even John Gibson is a situation where there’s not a lot of term, and he has to say healthy; the Wings had to move Vladimir Tarasenko, who wasn’t happy in Detroit; and Bukauskas notes that Derek Lalonde praised Detroit’s young core after he was fired.

A quick quip from Carter Bear

CBC Indigenous’s Stefan Richard spoke with Red Wings 1st round draft pick Carter Bear and Montreal Canadiens draft pick Hayden Paupanekis regarding their statuses as Manitoban First Nations picks in this past June’s NHL Draft, and Bear suggested that his work ethic is what sets him apart:

CBC Indigenous asked the players what separates their game from anyone else.

Bear said, “I just want to win every shift. I don’t like to take a shift off at all. I don’t want to be lazy so I think it’s just me not taking a shift off and I wanted to win every battle, every shift.”

Continued; Bear busts his butt on every shift, and that’s a very good characteristic with which to define one’s game.

Praise for Carter Bear’s potential

DobberHockey’s Puneet Sharma discusses the NHL’s mid-range draft picks from the 2025 NHL Draft in Los Angeles today, and Sharma is bullish on the potential of Red Wings pick Carter Bear:

Pick No. 13 – Detroit Red Wings

Carter Bear – LW

Much like [the Philadelphia Flyers], the Red Wings stuck to their identity selecting winger Bear from the Everett Silvertips, a pick that fits Detroit’s blueprint to a tee. Bear was one of the WHL’s most dangerous offensive threats this season, piling up 40 goals in just 56 games before a lacerated Achilles cut his year short. He blends high-end skill with a competitive, hard-nosed game, making him exactly the type of winger Detroit continues to covet. He is a constant threat around the net, is not shy about engaging physically, and shows the instincts of a future top-six forward.

Bear’s ability to play both wing and center add even more value to the pick and with some time to build strength and refine his stride, he could project as a 65-point top-six winger who brings skill, grit, and versatility to a Detroit lineup built on exactly that.

Continued