Red Wings drop Sunday’s Prospect Games finale 6-5; here are some thoughts and impressions from the game

The Detroit Red Wings’ prospects cruised to a 6-2 victory over the Dallas Stars’ prospects on Saturday night, but Sunday night’s affair was a very different matter.

Detroit battled their way back from a 2-0 1st period deficit to push their way into a 5-3 3rd period lead, but Dallas would respond with 3 3rd period goals to swipe a 6-5 victory from the Red Wings’ prospects.

MLive’s Ansar Khan posted a fine recap:

Shai Buium, Carson Bantle, Liam Kilfoil, Nate Danielson and Ondrej Becher scored for the Red Wings, who converted three times on the power play.

The Red Wings scored a pair of power-play goals in the first period, which ended tied 2-2.

First, Buium capped a nice passing play with Amadeus Lombardi and Bantle to score his second goal in as many games. Then Bantle, from the edge of the crease, banged in a rebound. Buium is preparing for his second season with the Griffins after tallying two goals and 29 points in 67 games in 2024-25. Bantle appeared in 23 games with Grand Rapids (one goal) and 39 games with the ECHL Toledo Walleye (21 goals, eight assists).

Kilfoil snapped a 2-2 tie by roofing a backhand shot off the rush at 6:28 of the second period. Kilfoil, 18, invited to camp on a tryout, plays for Halifax of the Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League.

Danielson added to the lead with his team’s third power-play goal, cutting to the middle of the ice and firing in a wrist shot from the slot at 11:46.

Becher fired in a one-timer on a pass from Lombardi to put the Red Wings ahead 5-3 at 5:03 of the third period.

Minus PointStreak, which provides detailed stats when the teams are in Traverse City, we’ll rely on Red Wings Prospects on Twitter for the goals and assists…

Here are short Twitter highlight clips of the Wings’ goals as well:

Some thoughts:

  1. First and foremost, as everybody’s been saying, these games are much more about giving the Red Wings’ prospects (and the free agent try-outs) some runway with which to step into training camp ready to go when the NHL’ers hit the ice than the 2-game tournament is about anything else. The Wings and Stars alike want to give their prospects a couple games’ worth of play against their relative peers (with a few exceptions) in order to get the muscle memory going and the juices flowing.
  2. In terms of tonight’s lineup…

–I really liked what I saw from the “top line” of the plucky, speedy and stocky Emmitt Finnie, Nate Danielson, who looks NHL-ready, and while Michael Brandsegg-Nygard’s sights were off shot-wise (the boy has to work north-south in North American hockey instead of east-west), when he did connect physically, he was a bull moose out there.

–On the 2nd line, Bantle was good, as you would expect from a 23-year-old who stands at 6’5″ and 216 pounds, but Lombardi was tremendous, utilizing every ounce of his 5’11,” 178-pound frame to skate, score, pass, crash, bang and forecheck and backcheck like a little demon out there. Doucet had a rough game, however, and he’s got to be more assertive.

–On the 3rd line, Kilfoil scored the best backhand goal I’ve seen in a while, and the free agent tryout had some dimension to his game, inconsistent as he was; Becher was very good and looked like someone who’s been in the AHL for a year; Collard wan’t very visible, if I may be honest.

–Since the Wings went with 11 forwards and 7 defensemen, Kevin Bicker didn’t see that much ice time, but when he worked onto the 3rd line, he was bombastic and fast; Robinson-Palmer is coming out of elite high school hockey to play on the Moncton Wildcats with Kilfoil and goaltender Rudy Guimond, so there’s going to be an adjustment period for him.

–In terms of the team’s defense, Buium looked slick out there, with polish, poise and determination to make the smart play and to utilize his large frame to overpower opponents. Sandin Pellikka had an OK game; there were times that he made some beautiful plays and was really headsy, and there were times that the narrower ice and faster pace of play meant that he held onto the puck for too long or placed pucks onto opponents’ sticks trying to go up the middle at his own blueline.

–Truscott is a Grand Rapids Griffins-contracted player, like Carson Bantle, and he was steady, coming out of a season in which he was the captain at the University of Michigan; Justice Christensen is only 5’9,” but the Prince Albert Raiders’ captain has a little bit of Brian Rafalski in him as a short but smart right-shooting defenseman.

–Will Murphy is massive and blasted some big, heavy checks, but he was quiet for the most part; free agent try-out Wyatt Kennedy was a bit quieter, and was overshadowed by Maxim Dirracolo, a heavy (6’4,” 216-pound) defender who was really good when he was good and a bit porous when he was not so good.

–It’s incredibly hard to judge goaltenders based upon one whole game, but the 6’5,” 199-pound Pradel, who will be heading back to the USHL’s Tri-City Storm, did the best that he could. There were some squeakers that got through, but there were also times when he sealed the post well, looked quite maneuverable for his size, and balanced his size and reflexes quite well. It wasn’t a great game when you give up 6 goals against, but there’s some real promise there.

As far as the scratches are concerned:

Landon Miller needs to restore the roar, so to speak, after a shitty season in the Soo;

I wonder whether Carter Bear’s fully healed from his partially torn Achilles tendon given that we didn’t see him this weekend;

Jakub Rychlovsky’s got a lot of AHL scoring potential, and we’ll see where he goes after a rough AHL debut season;

Guimond was excellent on Saturday and he wins, wins, wins in goal;

Carl-Otto Magnusson is an odd situation because the massive defenseman is still eligible for next year’s draft, but he’s going to be attending this year’s Red Wings training camp;

And I just can’t say that I know much about Florent Houle, who’s a 6,’ 181-pound right winger from the Sherbrooke Phoenix.

I know that I’m late to this, but I will try to put together a “Getting to Know You” piece when the Wings announce their training camp roster with some free agent invites, and I do hope it helps.

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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!