Author: George Malik

Via Aftonbladet’s Mattias Karlsson, the Swedish Ice Hockey Association named its preliminary World Junior Championship team this morning, naming 34 players to what will eventually be a 25-man roster.

Red Wings prospects Lucas Raymond (Frolunda), Albert Johansson (Farjestad), William Wallinder (MODO), Albin Grewe (Djurgarden), Theodor Niederbach (Frolunda) and Elmer Soderblom (Frolunda) [edit: and Gustav Berglund (Vasteras) /end edit] were all named to the team.

The team will gather in Sundsvall on December 7th to begin their training camp, and they head to Edmonton to enter the Canadian “bubble” on December 14th. The World Junior Championship begins on December 25th.

Update: Soderblom, who’s been bothered by a foot injury, tells Rakapuckar.com’s Henrik Leman that he’s going to be good to go for the WJC camp.

Update #2: Via Kukla’s Korner, here’s NHL.com’s Mike G. Morreale on the Swedish team:

Of prospect-related note:

In the ICE Hockey League, Michael Rasmussen finished at -2 with 2 shots in the Graz99ers’ 4-3 shootout loss to the Vienna Capitals. Calvin Pickard didn’t suit up for Vienna’s netminding tandem;

In the Finnish Liiga, Victor Brattstrom stopped 15 of 16 shots as KooKoo won 6-1 over Assat Pori. Otto Kivenmaki finished at -2 with 2 shots in 16:42 played; Kasper Kotkansalo finished at -1 with 3 shots in 22:25 played;

In the Swedish Allsvenskan, Gustav Lindstrom had an assist and finished at +1 in 21:30 played as Almtuna IS won 2-1 over Vita Hasten. Filip Larsson served as the back-up goaltender;

William Wallinder played 18:56 in MODO Hockey’s 3-2 shootout win over Sodertalje SK;

Update: Gustav Berglund played 13:52 in Vasteras IK’s 5-1 win over Mora IK;

And tonight, in NCAA Division I Hockey, Antti Tuomisto and the University of Denver will battle Minnesota-Duluth at 8:35 PM EST.

Update: Tuomisto finished even with no shots in the University of Denver Pioneers’ 2-1 loss to Minnesota-Duluth.

The Athletic’s Marc-Antoine Godin revisits the Patrick Roy trade some 25 years after the Massacre in Montreal, and he reveals discusses the fact that a certain Red Wings goaltender helped spurn Roy to ask the Canadiens for a trade:

In 2015, during an interview I published in La Presse that year, former goalie Mike Vernon told me what happened one morning in Montreal when he stopped for breakfast at the Casse-Croûte du Coin – or Moe’s Diner as it was better known in some circles. A popular breakfast spot for hockey people a stone’s throw from the Forum, the restaurant shut its doors the same week the Roy trade celebrated its 20th anniversary.

A Calgary native, Vernon had led his hometown team to its first Stanley Cup in 1989 and had become a local hero of sorts. But eventually, the weight of that environment had become too heavy and he had asked the Flames to trade him, which they did in 1994 when they sent him to the Red Wings for defenceman Steve Chiasson.

So Vernon was still with the Red Wings a year later when he entered the semi-basement restaurant on De Maisonneuve Blvd. when suddenly, he noticed Roy.

“Patrick sat at the counter, he was getting ready to settle the bill,” Vernon told me. “There was a free seat next to him and he motioned for me to sit down. He wanted to talk.”

The two men had never really spoken. What an incredible coincidence that these two men would cross paths on this particular morning, brought together by bacon and eggs and a basket of toast cut into triangles, at the very moment Roy needed someone to confide in. He spoke to Vernon about the pressure of Montreal, how he had thoughts of retiring now that he had turned 30, the stifling expectations he lived with.

“It might be time for you to ask for a trade,” Vernon, perhaps the one person who understood Roy’s predicament the most, suggested to him.

Continued (paywall)

The Free Press’s Helene St. James discusses the current fluidity of a January 1 start to the 2020-2021 NHL season:

The Detroit Pistons have an exhibition game scheduled for next week at Little Caesars Arena, as the NBA is forging ahead amid surging COVID-19 numbers.

Which beckons the question: When are we going to see the Detroit Red Wings in action again?

When the NHL staged a delayed, virtual draft in early October, commissioner Gary Bettman announced Jan. 1 was the target date for the 2020-21 season. Now, that’s less than a month away and there are no games scheduled. Starting in early January means training camps would have to begin in mid-December. That’s looking less likely with each day that passes.

The NHL and NHL Players Association are fighting over money. The PA’s position is that a four-year extension to the collective bargaining agreement was ratified in July, and the terms are set forth in a Memorandum of Understanding. That seemed to signal there’d be labor peace at least through 2025-26.

But that was five months ago, and now the league is looking at a compressed schedule. The 2021 playoffs need to be finished before July 23, when the Summer Olympics are scheduled to commence. NBC holds the broadcasting rights to both events.

When the NHL season does start up, it’s expected to feature geographical realignments instead of the usual format. Travel restrictions between the U.S. and Canada would mean all seven Canadian teams would be in one division. Detroit is expected to be in a division that would include Chicago, Columbus, Florida, Nashville, Pittsburgh, St. Louis and Tampa Bay.

Continued

This morning the Athletic’s Max Bultman has posted an article discussing Red Wings prospect Moritz Seider’s progress made while playing for Rogle BK of the SHL. Thus far, Rogle’s coach, Cam Abbott, tells Bultman that Seider’s played quite well:

“He’s ahead of his age as a defenseman in terms of his decision-making,” Abbott said by phone this week. “I mean, he’s got, I want to say a roundness to his game. He’s got a lot of different attributes that make him good in our league, and that will continue to make him good at the next level.”

Seider, at just 19, is now in his third professional league in three seasons. He has transitioned from the larger European ice sheet to the narrower North American one, and now back. He is also playing and living in his third country in that span.

Through all of it, though, the comments from those watching and coaching him continue to echo.

“He’s got the right attitude and he’s got the head for the game,” Abbott said. “He’s got the skating, I think (that) is very important, so it’s not a limiting factor there. So, I don’t want to blow this kid up too much, but I would venture to say it’ll be exciting to watch him play in the NHL, and the sky is the limit if he keeps working and improving.”

Continued (paywall)

According to Hokej.cz’s Josef Prasek, Red Wings prospect goaltender Jan Bednar’s playing situation remains somewhat fluid this morning.

Bednar is currently playing for HC Energie Karlovy Vary in the Czech Extraliga, where he won a 2-1 decision over HC Olomouc yesterday via a 26-save performance, but Bednar is also supposed to be playing for the QMJHL’s Acadie-Bathurst Titan, and Bednar tells Prasek that he’s not sure when he’ll be leaving for Canada.

The QMJHL has had to pause divisionally at times due to coronavirus issues and restrictions in the province of Quebec, so it remains to be seen whether or if Bednar will be able to head over to Quebec at all.

Update: According to Czech Prospects on Twitter, Bednar will be heading to Edmonton first, to play in the World Junior Championship for the Czech Republic:

The Czech #WorldJuniors Camp roster has been announced.

There are five 2003-born players on the roster, goalie Jakub Dobes (MTL) is the biggest omission. pic.twitter.com/Sd589N1zYv

— Czech Prospects (@CZprospects) December 2, 2020

Via a report from Hockeysverige.se’s Alexander Ellhar, I headed over to the Finnish Liiga’s website, and the entire league is pausing from December 3rd to December 19th to address stricter regulations being imposed by the Finnish government due to coronavirus issues.

The league will postpone games scheduled for the December 3rd-to-19th time frame and play them at a later date; this isn’t good news for Otto Kivenmaki, Kasper Kotkansalo (both play for Assat Pori) or Victor Brattstrom (who plays for KooKoo)…

But as Kivenmaki is a 20-year-old, he may still be eligible for the Finnish World Junior team, which should be named any day now.

In any case, today’s game between Assat and KooKoo will be played to squeeze in one last game before the league pause.

The Athletic’s Aaron Portzline wrote an article regarding Per Mars’ “Marsblade” ice and inline skates, and Portzline notes that former Red Wings player and now assistant to the GM Niklas Kronwall was and is a big proponent of Mars’ rocker-bladed ice skates:

Kronwall, 37, was looking for any advantage he could find in 2018-19, his 15th and final season in the NHL. He was never regarded as a good skater anyway, and the league was getting younger and faster.

“As an older player, you’re just trying to stay in the game, and that means finding every benefit you can find,” Kronwall said. “At the time, they were a little bit heavier than the blades I’d used, but they gave me such an upside in other aspects.

“I loved going backward on them because it just felt so effortless. Coming out of turns I had way more speed. I’m not a speedster, but it gave me a benefit compared to the regular skates. I skated on them for two games, then I went back to my old skates to see if I could tell a difference. It was 15-20 minutes before I was like, ‘It’s not even close.’”

Kronwall soon became an investor, along with former Wings teammate Henrik Zetterberg. In fact, Zetterberg and Kronwall met with Mårs in Östersund last month to try out the new blade holder, which will be out at some point in 2021.

Continued (paywall); if you’ve got a subscription to The Athletic, this one is worth your time…

I was on a bus traveling from Houghton, Michigan down to Kalkaska, Cadillac, Big Rapids, Kalamazoo and finally Ann Arbor, a 17-hour ride, when the Detroit Red Wings massacred the Montreal Canadiens 11-2 on December 2nd, 1995. The victory spelled the end of Patrick Roy’s time with the Montreal Canadiens, and may very well have cost the Wings a Cup or two as Roy was then traded to the Colorado Avalanche.

Alex Wood, a.k.a. AWood40 on YouTube, has posted almost fourteen minutes’ worth of highlights from the game–one that I heard on the radio–and I hope you enjoy the highlights:

For what it’s worth, I was on a trip to see Michigan Tech University, and the combined 34 hours’ worth of bus travel made me decide against going to what is a fine school; I ended up doing all right for myself by attending the University of Michigan, and the trip was fun–it introduced me to an album called “What’s the Story [Morning Glory]?” from Oasis, as well as a film called Up in Smoke. I don’t imbibe, but Cheech and Chong are geniuses.

The Red Wings posted a YouTube-formatted video of the Free Press’s Helene St. James’ interview on Tuesday’s “The Word on Woodward,” in which she spoke with Daniella Bruce and Art Regner: