From Russian Machine Never Breaks’ Ian Odland: Dylan Larkin, Alexander Ovechkin, Nathan MacKinnon, Nikita Kucherov, PK Subban, Andrei Vasilevskiy and David Pastrnak are getting “Funko Pop!” dolls:
Coming Soon: NHL Pop! https://t.co/A9DwKNMWp4 pic.twitter.com/bjhesFHODA— Funko (@OriginalFunko) August 9, 2019
Of Red Wings reminder-related note this afternoon:
For those in Sudbury, the offseason home of the Foligno family, it’s a chance to see high-level hockey in the summer and raise money for the NEO Kids Foundation, which raises funds to purchase vital pieces of equipment, conduct life-changing research and increase awareness for children’s health needs in the region.
Sudbury, located north of the Georgian Bay northeast of Lake Huron, is a more than four-hour drive from Toronto and more than five hours from Ottawa, cities that have children’s care facilities. The ultimate goal of Foligno and the NEO Kids Foundation is to build a similar such facility in Sudbury, the largest city in Northern Ontario and home to more than 160,000 people.
Last year’s event raised more than $215,000, and the hope is to bring in even more this time around. Players from around the NHL, including Foligno and his CBJ teammates as well as Matt Duchene, John Tavares, Marc Staal, Tyler Bertuzzi and Anthony Duclair, will arrive for a lake day on Saturday before taking part in the charity game on Sunday.
There will be a autograph session before the game, which features the NHL players and doctors from the community. All will skate together before the NHL players finish things off by playing against one another, and a meet-and-greet will follow the game.
Around 3,000 fans are expected, Foligno said.
There’s more information on the event available from Sudbury.com…
Continue reading Two reminders: Bertuzzi taking part in ‘NHL vs. Docs’ game in Sudbury on Sunday; Red Wings’ blood drive takes place on Tuesday, August 13thRed Wings play-by-play announcer Ken Daniels appears with DetroitRedWings.com’s Arthur J. Regner on the latest episode of the “Red and White Authority”:
#RedWings broadcaster Ken Daniels joins us to discuss Detroit’s offseason, look ahead to the upcoming season and to preview the 2019 Celebrity Roast of Mickey Redmond to benefit the @JDanielsFund.
Listen/download: https://t.co/tUIOEUh2bZ pic.twitter.com/dPHwH75NhK— Detroit Red Wings (@DetroitRedWings) August 9, 2019
The Red Wings and Labatt Blue teamed up to help renovate Detroit’s Clark Park today, as noted by DetroitRedWings.com’s Dana Wakiji:
Many people aren’t aware of it, but there has been outdoor ice skating in the city of Detroit since the late 1800s. Clark Park is not just one of those places, it’s the last one standing.
“It’s always been known for their ice skating programs here. We have photographs of people skating in 1890,” said Anthony Benavides, the director of the Clark Park Coalition. “The ice rink’s been here, this is the third ice rink that’s been put up in this place. They keep putting new ones up but I remember coming here as a child and ice skating here and that was the ’60s. This is where I learned to skate. Learned on Detroit ice rinks.
“Detroit, at one point, had probably about 10 outdoor ice rinks. We’re the last surviving one. So that’s why it’s so special to keep this one alive and keep investing in it with people hours and funds. It’s a very expensive piece of equipment to maintain and keep going. But we love it.”
That is where the Detroit Red Wings and their partner, Labatt Blue, along with Fabiano Brothers Inc., have stepped in to lend a hand with a $15,000 investment and dozens of volunteers.
As part of the Hockeytown Cares platform, volunteers from all three of those companies and from the Detroit Tigers, spent most of the day Friday at Clark Park.
“Days like this are what Hockeytown Cares is all about, bringing together the Detroit Red Wings with our great partners like Labatt to impact our community in such a way that will truly live on throughout the entire hockey season for the kids and the families who play hockey here at Clark Park,” said Kevin Brown, director of community relations and Detroit Red Wings Foundation.
Update: Fox 2 Detroit posted a video from today’s event:
Former Red Wings prospect Alexander Kadeikin, who was drafted by the Wings in 2014, is 25 years old now, and the 6’5,” 227-pound forward posted some middling stats for Salavat Yulaev Ufa this past season…
But Championat reports that the Red Wings are still eying Kadeikin, who may want to try his hand in North America after this upcoming KHL season. What follows is roughly translated:
Detroit Red Wings director of player assessment Jiri Fischer shared his opinion regarding the progress of Salavat Yulaev forward Alexander Kadeikin.
“I’ve known Kadeikin since he was drafted in 2014. He never came to our summer development camps, where players learn more about the Red Wings. But I saw him a couple more times in Moscow. Last season was the best for him in his career–he finally got onto the Russian team, showed himself well at the Euro Tour. He was a good player for the national team, and if he continues to progress, perhaps he will have thoughts about North America,” Fischer said in an interview with Championat correspondent Elena Kuznetsova.
Detroit selected Alexander Kadeikin 201st overall in the 7th round of the 2014 draft.
This is just cool, per Fox 2’s Jennifer Hammond:
Emeka Nnaka was paralyzed 10 years ago playing football. Today DRW goalie Jimmy Howard is taking him on a helicopter tour of Detroit. pic.twitter.com/sjoOOSqp7p— Jennifer Hammond (@HammerFox2) August 9, 2019
Jimmy Howard takes a special person on a bucket list trip. Next on @FOX2News pic.twitter.com/PGXmTsU0nw— Jennifer Hammond (@HammerFox2) August 9, 2019
The Athletic’s Dom Luszczyszyn discussed fans’ confidence in each and every one of the NHL’s 31 teams’ front offices yesterday, and here’s what he had to say after surveying the 18th-place Red Wings fans’ takes:
While both the public and Wings fans have grown much more confident in the Red Wings’s front office since the team brought in Steve Yzerman as the new GM, they differ in just how confident.
The fan base is rightfully excited for the man in charge, especially given his on-ice history to go with his off-ice prowess heading one of the league’s best run teams, but the public is much more hesitant, recalling the failures of the team’s past. Can one man really change everything?
Yzerman’s tenure has been short, so it’s difficult to judge his efforts so far, but some initial moves have been suspect like signing Valtteri Filppula, a replacement-level center, to a two-year deal and going off the board at the draft taking defender Moritz Seider at sixth overall. As the commenter above noted, both are moves that would’ve been condemned if Holland’s name was attached instead.
The Red Wings are not an easy fix with the team’s abundance of cap issues and lack of a competent roster. There are plenty of holes to fill and Yzerman will be granted plenty of leeway to fill them in Detroit. We’ll see if he can build here what he was able to build in Detroit.
Continued; I wasn’t overwhelmed with warm, fuzzy feelings regarding the Wings’ signings of Filppula, Patrik Nemeth or Calvin Pickard as free agents, but I was pleasantly surprised by Yzerman’s decision to pick Seider where he did, and I do know this–Yzerman doesn’t give a flying flurk what fans or media think about his moves, and that’s a good thing.
DetroitRedWings.com’s Dana Wakiji discusses the “draft year” seasons of forwards Albin Grewe and Elmer Soderblom this morning. Wakiji examines both players’ 2018-2019 season stats, and she hearkens back to Hakan Andersson’s post-draft comments regarding both players:
Quotable III: “Albin Grewe is a very outstanding competitor. I can see how he pictures himself after Brad Marchand. He’s very competitive. Out of the Europeans, probably the most competitive player in the whole draft. And in many years, I would say. One interesting story with him. The senior coach in Djurgårdens, they are a top team in the senior league, one of the better ones. He said, ‘I didn’t realize it until I started to look around but every time this kid came up and practiced with the men’s team, the whole intensity of the practice, the physical part of the practice, would go up.’ At first, he didn’t know why. Then he realized every time this kid came up, he just brought the whole pace up.” — Hakan Andersson, Red Wings director of European scouting
MLive’s Ansar Khan continues his Red Wings player profiles with a discussion of Mike Green’s injury-plagued 2018-19 season and his 2019-2020 season outlook. Khan suggests that Green will be healthy enough to play regularly, and I’m not sure whether that’s going to be the case:
2019-20 outlook: Green is expected to be healthy and ready to go in training camp after an injury-riddled, illness-plagued stretch during which he also missed the final nine games of 2017-18 due to a neck injury.
If healthy, he’ll be one of the team’s few scoring threats from the blue line, man the point on one of the power-play units and be among the club’s leaders in ice time. He is likely to be paired with either Danny DeKeyser or newly acquired Patrik Nemeth (and Filip Hronek paired with the other), giving the team righty-lefty, offensive-minded/defensive-minded combinations with its top two pairs.
If the Red Wings are out of the playoff picture in late February, they’ll look to trade Green for a draft pick, assuming he’s healthy. He has a limited no-trade clause (can veto a move to 10 teams).
Continued, and at this point, I’m still crossing my fingers that Green will be fully recovered from the virus that sapped his strength last year.
Red Wings alumnus Darren McCarty spent his Tuesday at the Lions’ training camp in Allen Park, MI, and Red Wings TV chronicled McCarty’s day:
