Of brief Red Wings-related note from my short anxiety-attack-induced hiatus:
DetroitRedWings.com: Jonathan Mills recapped Saturday and Sunday’s Prospect Games results, and he profiled both Shai Buium and Amadeus Lombardi;
Detroit Free Press: The Free Press’s Helene St. James listed 5 topics which she believes the Red Wings need to “figure out” over the course of training camp and the exhibition season:
Where do the new forwards slot?
The Wings added 36-year-old James van Riemsdyk for one year, $1 million in free agency. He’s intriguing – he has size (6 feet 3, 209 pounds); experience (327 goals, 338 assists in 1,082 games) and a knack for going to the net to score. That could be a really good fit on a line with Dylan Larkin and Lucas Raymond.
The other new guy up front is Mason Appleton (two years, $5.8 million). His résumé shows 400 NHL games played (entirely with the Winnipeg Jets barring 47 with the Seattle Kraken), with 57 goals and 81 points. Appleton (6-2, 194) is a right shooter who played for Michigan State from 2015-17. A defensive-minded grinder type, he projects to get looks in the bottom six.
Game management
McLellan has talked at length about how players need to learn to manage games better – in mid-March, to give one example, the Wings let in three goals in a seven-minute span, allowing a manageable one-goal deficit with more than half a period to go to blow up into a 4-1 defeat to the Washington Capitals. “You can’t pout and get lazy,” McLellan said afterwards. He elaborated after the season ended: “The mental fortitude, the resiliency has to come from us.” That’s going to be a focal point as the Wings move forward with a nine-season playoff drought tarnishing the franchise.
Detroit Hockey Now: Bob Duff praised Emmitt Finnie and explained why Carter Bear and Jakub Rychlovsky did not participate in the Prospect Games;
Kevin Allen offered 4 takes from Saturday’s 6-2 Prospect Games win;
Prior to the Prospect Games, Allen filed a subscriber-only article which discussed the stakes for Axel Sandin Pellikka, Carter Bear, Emmitt Finnie, Jakub Rychlovsky and Shai Buium in terms of translating strong Prospect Games and training camp/exhibition season performances into spots on the Red Wings’ roster:
Defenseman Axel Sandin Pellikka (17th, 2023)
When Lucas Raymond came to his first Red Wings training camp, he set an early tone by being a dominant performer in the prospect tournament in Traverse City. That was a springboard to a memorable training camp and productive NHL preseason. He forced GM Steve Yzerman to put him on the opening day roster.
The Red Wings would love to see Axel Sandin Pellikka follow a similar path and force his way on the Detroit roster. After a stellar season in the Swedish Hockey League, he looked like he needed more experience in his brief time in the AHL. Will the added strength he picked up in offseason training make him better prepared? We will know more after Saturday and Sunday.
Defenseman Shai Buium (36th, 2021)
With William Wallinder seemingly ready for a shot at the NHL and Sandin Pellikka perhaps close to ready, there’s an opportunity for Buium, 22, to be a bigger factor at Grand Rapids this season. The Red Wings are looking for him to seize this chance to earn an expanded role. In his one season with the Griffins last season, he showed he can be a two-way defenseman. A strong performance against the Stars would send the message that he’s ready for the new challenge.
Duff also recapped the opening day of the SHL’s regular season, in which Anton Johansson and Eddie Genborg faced off, and Allen noted that Dmitri Buchelnikov and Jesse Kiiskinen have yet to post points for CSKA Moscow and HPK Hameenlinna, respectively;
The Athletic: The Athletic asked its beat writers to posit a “burning question” for each and every one of the NHL’s 32 teams going into training camp:
Detroit Red Wings
Will the blue line hold up?
The Red Wings made a couple of additions around the edges of their defense corps, bringing in veteran Travis Hamonic and young blueliner Jacob Bernard-Docker. Still, it remains to be seen if those players will actually amount to an upgrade on a unit the Red Wings really needed to improve. If they aren’t, Detroit will be counting on internal improvements from young defenders Simon Edvinsson and Albert Johansson — who really came on in the second half last season — as they try to snap a nine-year playoff drought. — Max Bultman
Shap Shots: the multi-talented Sean Shapiro both spoke with Dallas Stars GM Jim Nill and he asked two Red Wings prospects about the adjustment from European rinks (which measure 200 feet long by 100 feet wide) to North American rinks (200 feet long by 85 feet wide):
“I think we both got our first taste of it with those games in (Grand Rapids) [last spring],” Sandin-Pellikka said. “And I think you kind of find what the challenges really are when you jump into that right away (from the SHL).”
So, what are those challenges? What actually hinders or bothers a player making that change?
“Honestly, it’s still hockey,” Brandsegg-Nygård said. “And I think if you just think about it as hockey, it’s not really an adjustment at all. We actually play on the smaller rinks in Norway, so when you’ve bounced back and forth between the two, is it really a big deal?”
If anything, Brandsegg-Nygård said he felt Sandin-Pellikka is even better on North American ice, noting that a player with Sandin-Pellikka’s puck possession and vertical passing becomes more important in the NHL-style game.
“I think I saw that in the five games (with Grand Rapids),” Sandin-Pellikka said. “You see the game, you can push the puck quicker, guys are ready for you to push the puck quicker. I think I’m smart enough with my transitions, can kind of take that space that other players aren’t ready for a (defenseman) to take.”
Multimedia: The Red Wings posted clips of their prospects introducing themselves and naming good “goal songs”…
And they posted highlights of Game 1 and Game 2 of the Prospect Games, which Detroit won 6-2 and lost 6-5, respectively:
