Of note from Detroit Hockey Now this morning:
- According to Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff, the Red Wings’ AHL affiliate, the Grand Rapids Griffins, should have a stacked roster this upcoming season, even given the likely NHL graduations of players like Carter Mazur, William Wallinder and Michael Brandsegg-Nygard:
The Griffins’ website currently lists 34 players as signed with the club.
That list includes 20 forwards: Carter Bear, Ondrej Becher, Tag Bertuzzi, Kaden Bohlsen, Michael Brandsegg-Nygard, Cameron Butler, Nate Danielson, Noah Dower Nilsson, Kienan Draper, Sheldon Dries, Dylan James, Jesse Kiiskinen, John Leonard, Carter Mazur, Nolan Moyle, Sutter Muzzatti, Theo Rochette, Dominik Shine, Wilmer Skoog, and Chase Stillman.
Then there are 10 defensemen: Ronnie Attard, Shai Buium, Justice Christensen, Marcus Crawford, Anton Johansson, William Lagesson, Alex Kannok Leipert, Axel Sandin-Pellikka, Jacob Truscott, and William Wallinder.
The four goalies are Trey Augustine, Carter Gylander, Jonathan Lemieux, and Michal Postava.
Continued; the AHL has no roster limit for teams, but it’s highly likely that some of the players signed to AHL contracts would be assigned to the ECHL’s Toledo Walleye for playing time.
2. Duff also reports that the Red Wings haven’t replaced radio color commentator Paul Woods yet. With training camp approaching, Duff believes that the Wings will platoon several voices alongside Ken Kal this upcoming season:
Just as there is discussion that the Wings may look to move Tigers executives Jeff Greenberg or Andrew Thomas from Comerica Park to Little Caesars Arena to fill roles on the Red Wings hockey operations staff, there’s also speculation that the Wings may look to the Tigers blueprint in replacing Woods.
A source familiar with the situation told Detroit Hockey Now that the plan the Wings will likely follow in the radio booth is to take a committee approach to fill the seat next to Kal in the radio broadcast booth.
That’s how the Tigers do it. On television, former Tigers players Andy Dirks and Dany Petry share the analyst’s seat. Over in the radio booth, Dirks and Petry also work, along with Bobby Scales.
Evidently, that’s how the Wings may do it to replace Woods.
The word is that the Wings want to go with well-known names as Kal’s radio sidekick. Speculation is that Chris Osgood and Danny DeKeyser are frontrunners to fill the role. Hall of Fame defenseman Larry Murphy could be another possibility.
