Month: August 2025

On Thursdays, we fundraise

As noted two days ago, we’ve met our server fundraising goal, which is awesome…

But Aunt Annie and I still have plain old bills to pay and $200 in which to survive until the 12th of September, when the State of Michigan sends me a paper check for being her caregiver (yes, they really still send paper checks in 2025), so, a fundraising we will go.

At this point, it’s just survival, but some months I’m able to raise a couple hundred bucks for the bills, and some months, I work for free, so let’s see what happens.

Any denomination of donation will help us, and it’s all greatly appreciated. As I always say at the end of these appeals, thank you for reading. This is a small blog, but we’ve got extraordinarily dedicated and generous readers, and you’re what makes this thing work.

Continue reading On Thursdays, we fundraise

John Gibson, likely to ‘fall off a cliff?’

Daily Faceoff’s Anthony Di Marco answered reader questions for a mailbag feature today, and he’s not a John Gibson fan, that’s for sure:

Fall off a cliff: John Gibson is my pick here, though he hasn’t exactly been in top form in recent years, albeit last year was a strong bounce-back. Detroit Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman was finally the one to pull Gibson out of Anaheim, but I just can’t foresee this particular move working out. The Wings have their fair share of problems defending as is and we just saw several years of a sample size watching Gibson play behind a team with similar flaws. Given his age, injury history and team in front of him, I can fully see Gibson’s game cratering this season. 

The 32-year-old Gibson is definitely a risk as he’s struggled alongside his Anaheim Ducks until Lukas Dostal gave him some relief this past season…But the Red Wings are betting on Gibson’s ability to bounce back behind at least a semblance of a decent defense, and one way or another, his renaissance needs to occur starting this October.

Some old points of emphasis, some new points of emphasis

Pro Hockey Rumors’ Josh Cybulski takes a “deep dive” into the Red Wings’ player personnel this morning, wondering aloud whether the 2025-2026 Red Wings team can make the playoffs as it’s currently constructed:

The Red Wings haven’t made the playoffs since the 2015-16 season and are hoping to break their nine-year drought this year. They came close to snapping the streak in 2023-24, finishing fifth in the Atlantic Division with 91 points, but took a step back last season, falling to sixth in the division and 86 points. This summer, they identified goaltending as an area of concern and quickly traded for veteran netminder John Gibson from the Anaheim Ducks.

Detroit also made a series of depth signings that they hope will close the gap between missing the postseason and making it. It’s hard to say whether general manager Steve Yzerman did enough to get the Red Wings over the hump, but it’s fair to say he was conservative in his approach, opting to steer clear of the heavy bidding in free agency for top-end talent. Whether that was by design or a case of circumstance is unknown, but Yzerman wasn’t able to land any big names, despite a great deal of cap space available.

…

In terms of roster losses, aside from Tarasenko, the Red Wings didn’t lose much, as Alex Lyon, Jeff Petry, Craig Smith, and Tyler Motte left town. The team can easily replace these departing veterans with plenty of young talent and new faces ready to take over the roles those players held. While this summer can hardly be called a failure, it wasn’t exactly a home run either. Detroit improved its goaltending, but Gibson isn’t a guarantee, and the defense in front of him isn’t much better than last year’s. Yzerman is counting on significant growth from young players this season, but that might not be enough to push Detroit to the next level.

Red Wings fans were probably disappointed by the lack of a high-profile signing this summer, but Detroit still has nearly $12MM in cap space (as per PuckPedia) and can make a move if it chooses to. All that to say, Yzerman not managing to lure one of the top free agents to Detroit will be seen as a failure if the team misses the playoffs again, and it might even cost him his job if necessary steps aren’t taken in the right direction.

Continued (at length); again, I do not believe that there is any real heat under Steve Yzerman’s seat as long as Marian Ilitch and Christopher Ilitch own the team. He’s the GM for life, or at least until he decides that he’s had enough…

And the Red Wings definitely need to try to add a top-six forward and top-four defenseman to improve their roster as compared to last year, but as I’ve been saying, with trade prices sky-high this summer, the Wings may not be able to do so until the regular season begins, if not closer to the 2026 trade deadline.

That’s not an exciting answer for fans expecting more from a team that raised its ticket prices, but for now, it’s all about getting more out of the players who are already on the roster via a full year’s worth of coach Todd McLellan’s guidance.

Daily Faceoff ranks the Red Wings’ prospect pool 11th-best in the NHL

Daily Faceoff’s Steven Ellis wrote a superb analysis of the Red Wings’ prospect pool way back on July 18th, and today, he ranks the NHL’s prospect pools from 1 to 32.

The Red Wings earn the 11th overall spot in his rankings, mostly because Marco Kasper and Simon Edvinsson graduated to full-time NHL’er status:

11. Detroit Red Wings (2024: 5th)

Key Prospects: Axel Sandin-Pellikka, Trey Augustine, Sebastian Cossa

While the Yzerplan hasn’t panned out into any tangible NHL success, you can’t argue with the talent waiting in the wings. The most exciting element is the arrival of top prospect Axel Sandin-Pellikka in North America. He looked good in his two-game AHL stint after putting up excellent numbers in the SHL and with Sweden at the World Juniors. The Red Wings have always shown a willingness to play the patient game with their star blueliners, and it has worked out quite well for Edvinsson and Moritz Seider so far. I’m excited to see what’s next with ASP. They also have two of the best goaltending prospects in the NHL in Trey Augustine and Sebastian Cossa, and I feel highly about Carter Bear and Michael Brandsegg-Nygård. It’s a good pool, even if it’s not as deep as it was maybe a year ago.

Continued; while the Red Wings’ prospect pool is reloading after the graduations of Kasper and Edvinsson, I’m bullish on 2025 draft picks like Bear and Eddie Genborg, and I do believe that the Red Wings’ prospect pool is finally competitive after almost a decade’s worth of stocking it after so many misses during the late Ken Holland regime.

Allen: Michal Pradel to remain in the USHL this upcoming season

According to Detroit Hockey Now’s Kevin Allen, Red Wings goaltending prospect and 2025 draft pick Michal Pradel has decided to remain with the USHL’s Tri-City Storm after being drafted by the WHL’s Regina Pats in the CHL import draft:

Detroit Red Wings Slovak goalie draft pick Michal Pradel (75th, 2025) will stay with the Tri-City Storm rather than join the WHL’s Regina Pats. Pradel was the fourth overall pick in the CHL Import Draft.

That’s probably good news for the Red Wings because former Detroit assistant and NHL head coach John Torchetti is the Storm’s new head coach and director of hockey operations. This is a coach who understands the NHL development process.

Pradel was recently runner-up for Slovakia’s junior player of the year. He finished second to St. Louis Blues forward Dalibor Dvorsky who made his NHL debut at the end of the 2024-25 season.

Continued; Pradel eventually wants to play NCAA Division 1 hockey, but right now, he’s going to continue his USHL career. Pradel went 9-and-4 last season for Tri-City, finishing with a 2.41 goals-against average and .899 save percentage.

On retiring the Eurotwins’ numbers

Bleacher Report’s Joe Yerdon offers a list of 11 NHL alumni who should have their numbers retired by their NHL employers, and two of his picks are more or less “slam dunks”:

Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg, Detroit Red Wings

Seeing how long it took the Detroit Red Wings to honor Sergei Fedorov and retire his number made us wonder how long it might take for them to do the same with some of their more recent greats.

We’ve already seen them retire Nicklas Lidström’s No. 5 in 2014 and he wasn’t elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame until the following year. But two other more modern Red Wings are worthy of number retirements as well.

Pavel Datsyuk was elected to the Hall as part of the Class of 2024 and Henrik Zetterberg has been eligible for election since 2021. Both players were vital to helping them win the Stanley Cup in 2008 and returning to the Final the following year as well. Datsyuk was also part of the 2002 Cup championship team and was a human highlight reel throughout his career in Detroit.

Both players were brilliant defensive players and could score like mad. Datsyuk did so with moves that left jaws dropping while Zetterberg was more of a classic offensive player with a healthy mix of style and ability. Those Red Wings teams were a wealth of riches, but Datsyuk and Zetterberg joining the likes of Lidström made them frustrating to game-plan against.

The Red Wings have been mired in playoff darkness the past nine seasons and, sure, retiring Fedorov’s number could be seen as a way to help fill the building by more cynical fans, but if they were to honor Datsyuk and Zetterberg similarly, we doubt there’d be any complaining.

Continued; I don’t think that honoring Datsyuk or Zetterberg would be a cynical celebration, but the fact that the Red Wings are only offering single-game tickets to the Fedorov retirement game as part of a 5-game plan does make me roll my eyes at the team’s…Inflexibility.

I understand that the Wings are a business and that they’re here to make money as much as anything, and part of the team-fan marriage is acknowledging that you pay to watch hockey in some way, shape or form through your tickets, FanDuel Sports Network bill, etc., but I just think that tucking the Fedorov game into a 5-game plan is a little ruthless.

Again, that’s part of the bargain, but it strikes me as the wrong way to do things. When the Eurotwins’ numbers are retired, I don’t know whether things might change ticket-wise, but I can always hope.

Two days, two harsh critiques of the Red Wings organization

Yesterday, the Hockey News’s Adam Proteau suggested that Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman might very well be fired if his team isn’t at least playoff-relevant this upcoming season. Today, Proteau is deeming Yzerman’s team to be a franchise stuck in the “mushy middle“:

Detroit Red Wings

The Red Wings haven’t made the playoffs in nine seasons. Only the Sabres have spent more time out of the post-season.

At the same time, Detroit has picked in the top five of the draft just once in the past 35 years.

It’s difficult to land a generational talent when you’re not picking in the top five. The Red Wings have managed to get lucky and draft Simon Edvinsson (sixth overall in 2021), Lucas Raymond (fourth overall in 2020) and Moritz Seider (sixth overall in 2019) in recent years, but imagine what this team would look like with a few top three picks.

Don’t expect that trend to change anytime soon.

The Red Wings’ additions this summer, which include signing goalie John Gibson, won’t move the needle for them in the highly competitive Atlantic Division. Unless something drastic changes, Detroit is almost assuredly headed for another mediocre season.

Even if they do sneak into the post-season, the Wings will probably be roadkill against superior opponents. And that means more mushy middle developments for a franchise that once was the gold standard for NHL organizations.

Continued; I’m not going to deny that the Red Wings have had a tough road back from the late Ken Holland era, in which the last few years of drafting and developing were quite poor, to building up the Wings’ currently deep pool of prospects who are at least near developing into NHL players to reinforce the roster…

But if we’re gonna call Detroit “lucky” for drafting Edvinsson, Raymond and Seider, and we’re going to call them “roadkill” if they make the playoffs…

Continue reading Two days, two harsh critiques of the Red Wings organization

Tweet of note: NHL Network names Dylan Larkin 15th-best center

Good to see:

Per the NHL Network and NHL.com:

15. Dylan Larkin, Detroit Red Wings

The Red Wings captain is the ninth player in team history with four consecutive 30-goal seasons and the first to do it since Henrik Zetterberg from 2005-09. Last season, Larkin played all 82 games for the second time, finishing with 40 assists and 70 points, and had a goal and an assist in four games at the 4 Nations Face-Off to help the United States reach the championship game, a 3-2 overtime loss to Canada.

Continued; Larkin just turned 29, so he’s going to be a little older when the Red Wings return to playoff contention (hopefully this upcoming season?), but he should have many productive years ahead as he becomes one of the “old guard” holding up the mantle of the winged wheel.