Author: 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!

Post-morning skate Tweets: Rasmussen day-to-day, progressing

The Detroit Red Wings held a morning skate ahead of tonight’s game against the Columbus Blue Jackets (7 PM EST start on FanDuel SportsNet Detroit/FanDuel SportsNet Columbus/97.1 FM).

Michael Rasmussen was a limited participant, and it appears that Cam Talbot will start this evening.

The post-morning skate media availabilties involved some Stadium Series teasers…

And NHL.com’s “On Tap” article’s hyping tonight’s game as well:

Columbus Blue Jackets at Detroit Red Wings (7 p.m. ET; FDSNOH, FDSNDET)

Before the Blue Jackets and Red Wings take it outside Saturday in the 2025 Navy Federal Credit Union Stadium Series at Ohio Stadium, they serve up a preview at Little Caesars Arena, starting a two-game series with massive playoff implications. The Red Wings (30-22-6) hold the first wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the Eastern Conference, two points ahead of the Blue Jackets (28-22-8), who hold the second wild card. Center Adam Fantilli has four points (two goals, two assists) in a three-game point streak for Columbus. Forward Alex DeBrincat will look to extend his point streak to eight games (11 points; five goals, six assists) for Detroit, which has at least one point in 11 of its past 12 games (9-1-2).

Anyway, Rasmussen remains “day-to-day”…

Continue reading Post-morning skate Tweets: Rasmussen day-to-day, progressing

Emmitt Finnie’s back, and blazing for Kamloops

Detroit Hockey Now’s Kevin Allen updates the statuses of Red Wings prospects Emmitt Finnie, Dmitri Buchelnikov and Carter Mazur. At the present moment, it’s assumed that Finnie, who is the captain of the WHL’s Kamloops Blazers, will turn pro after this season:

Finnie’s return from injury [last night, posting 2 goals and 1 assist] is critical to the Blazers’ hopes of qualifying for the WHL playoffs. With 11 games remaining in the WHL schedule, the Blazers trail the Seattle Thunderbird by three points for the final WHL playoff spot.

Dating to before he was injured, Finnie boasts eight goals in his past seven games.

They’re 10th in the WHL Western Conference and trail the Seattle Thunderbirds for the eighth and final playoff spot by three points.

If Kamloops doesn’t make the playoffs, the presumption is Finnie would report to the Grand Rapids Griffins.  The WHL season ends March 23, almost a full month before the AHL season ends.

The Griffins have had trouble scoring goals recently and Finnie shows 31 goals and 70 points in 45 WHL games this season. Finnie has the potential to be a major success story for the Detroit scouting staff. He was drafted in the seventh-round, 201st overall, in the 2023 draft.  He has developed beyond what a team would expect for a seventh round pick.

Continued; at 6’1″ and 195 pounds, Finnie isn’t overly big, but he’s stocky, and he’s incredibly fast.

Weather forecast update for the Stadium Series: it’s going to be cold!

Per the Columbus Dispatch’s Nathan Hart, it’s going to be colder at the Stadium Series than previously thought:

The weather for Saturday’s Blue Jackets outdoor hockey game is taking a turn toward wintery.

The Blue Jackets will face the Detroit Red Wings in the 2025 Navy Federal Credit Union NHL Stadium Series at Ohio Stadium, which is home to Ohio State’s national championship football team and more commonly known around Columbus as simply “The Shoe.”

Originally, the National Weather Service in Wilmington forecasted Saturday would be partly sunny with a high of 45. That’s not the case anymore.

A forecast released Thursday predicts there will be a chance of snow flurries after 1 p.m. Saturday, and the high will be near 35. There will also be a northwest wind blowing at 13 to 15 mph, with gusts as high as 25 mph. It will still be partly sunny.

Continued

Red Wings-Blue Jackets morning skate Tweets: Rasmussen skates but won’t return yet; Talbot starts vs. Columbus

The Detroit Red Wings face the Columbus Blue Jackets in the first game of an impactful home-and-home series tonight at Little Caesars Arena (7 PM EST start on FanDuel SportsNet Detroit/FanDuel SportsNet Columbus/97.1 FM).

The Red Wings hit the ice at LCA just before 10:30 AM, with Michael Rasmussen preceding them (good news in terms of his recovery)…

But it doesn’t appear that he’s ready to return…

Cam Talbot will start tonight…

Continue reading Red Wings-Blue Jackets morning skate Tweets: Rasmussen skates but won’t return yet; Talbot starts vs. Columbus

Tweet of note: we may see the Stadium Series jerseys more than once

Per CBS Detroit’s Rachel Hopmayer:

Bultman tells Dominik Shine’s story

The Athletic’s Max Bultman posted a comprehensive, in-depth article about Grand Rapids Griffins forward Dominik Shine’s NHL debut at 31 years of age, and its inspirational effects upon those around him:

“Pretty much every game I’ve played so far, someone’s come up to me and said, you know, ‘Hey man, so pumped for you, that’s awesome,’ or little things like that,” Shine said by phone last week. “It really means a lot. It was pretty overwhelming, though.”

“Even when we were in Milwaukee, their head coach came over to our locker room, right outside the door, and talked to him and congratulated him,” said Griffins equipment manager Brad Thompson.

Shine said the response to his long-awaited debut — he received roughly 950 texts after his first game — was “a lot bigger than I thought it was going to be.”

After a career outside the spotlight, maybe that makes sense. On the other hand, it underscores how widely Shine’s story resonates.

An overlooked, heart-and-soul player who had spent his entire career with the same organization finally getting his shot at the age of 31 is more than a feel-good story for fans. It will ripple down to players throughout the minor leagues, giving them a reason to believe that, if they keep going, one day their hard work could pay off, too.

“It’s perseverance,” said Griffins assistant coach Brian Lashoff. “You can say it all you want, I think, but to see it is a totally different thing.”

Continued (paywall)

A pair of very mild compliments

Of Red Wings-related note from The Athletic this morning:

  1. The Athletic’s Harman Dayal uses advanced statistics to rank every NHL team’s first line. Given that the Red Wings have a goal differential of zero, the Wings rank fairly low. Dayal explains that the team’s struggles to score at even strength are why Lucas Raymond, Dylan Larkin and Marco Kasper are seen as pretty average until recently–and I should note that the Columbus Blue Jackets’ first line of Kirill Marchenko, Adam Fantilli and Dmitri Voronkov is the NHL’s best:

Detroit Red Wings

Despite their elite, No. 2 ranked power-play, the Red Wings’ top line has had trouble scoring even-strength goals for most of the season. However, it appears it has unlocked a new gear recently and could be on the cusp of a monster breakout.

Todd McLellan has put Dylan Larkin, Lucas Raymond and rookie Marco Kasper (who has 16 points in his last 18 games) together for the last several weeks, and they’ve annihilated opponents from a territorial standpoint. This new-look first line has controlled nearly 58 percent of expected goals and is scoring goals at a much higher rate than the first line managed earlier in the season.

2. The Athletic’s Corey Pronman ranks the best prospects drafted with traded draft picks acquired at the trade deadline from 2020 to 2023. That’s a lot of words to say, “Be careful what you wish for when you send a top pick to another team in a deadline deal.”

As you know by now, the Red Wings drafted Axel Sandin Pellikka with their first-round pick from the Filip Hronek trade, and Pronman issues what I would deem as a very mild compliment to ASP:

3. Axel Sandin-Pellikka, RHD (Filip Hronek to Vancouver)

Detroit moved out an average-sized puck-moving defenseman in Hronek and hoped it would replace him long-term with ASP. He is a very intelligent and hardworking defender with a cannon of a shot, though his size will be an issue defending NHL forwards.

ASP is listed at 5’11” and 185 pounds, which isn’t big by today’s NHL standards, but something tells me that he’s going to be okay in terms of learning to defend at the NHL level, even if it takes him a year of apprenticeship in Grand Rapids to learn the ropes.

Red Wings-Blue Jackets preview: Columbus takes a playoff approach to home-and-home series with Detroit

Updated 2x at 10:06 AM: The 30-22-and-6 Detroit Red Wings host the 28-22-and-8 Columbus Blue Jackets tonight (7 PM EST start on FanDuel SportsNet Detroit/FanDuel SportsNet Ohio/97.1 FM) as they open a pair of “four-point games” against Columbus, both tonight and in Saturday’s Stadium Series game in Columbus.

Columbus has won 2 straight games to snap an 0-3-and-1 stretch, having defeated the Chicago Blackhawks 5-1 last Saturday, and defeating the Dallas Stars 6-4 on Tuesday.

As such, the Red Wings hold the first Wild Card spot with 66 points, and the Blue Jackets are right behind the Wings with 64 points. They hope to not only pass the Red Wings over the course of the next two games, but also close in upon the New Jersey Devils, who sit 3rd in the Metropolitan Division standings with 70 points.

ColumbusBlueJackets.com’s Jeff Svoboda reports that the Blue Jackets held an optional practice on Wednesday, but Zach Werenski , Ivan Provorov and Kirlll Marchenko did discuss the fact that this is essentially a mini “playoff series” against the Red Wings:

Continue reading Red Wings-Blue Jackets preview: Columbus takes a playoff approach to home-and-home series with Detroit

Red Wings ‘feel less shame’ under coach McLellan

The Red Wings’ penalty-kill remains a work in progress, but Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff reports–in a subscriber-only article–that the Wings are taking fewer penalties under coach Todd McLellan:

The Red Wings are 17-5-2 under McLellan. Detroit and the Dallas Stars each have accumulated an NHL-best 36 points over that span. Dallas, it’s worth noting, has played one more game than Detroit.

Entering Thursday’s big showdown against the Columbus Blue Jackets at Little Caesars Arena, the Red Wings are 9-1-1 over the past 11 games.

There are plenty of factors playing a role in this impressive turnaround. At the top of that list is the fact that the club is embracing the notion of playing a smarter game.

Under McLellan, Detroit is the NHL’s least penalized club. The Red Wings have also been shorthanded the fewest times of any NHL team since McLellan assumed his position behind the Detroit bench.

“I think we skate well,” was McLellan’s initial explanation for his team’s disciplined approach to the game. “You’re gonna go, ‘what does that mean?’ I think we have the ability to skate and keep our legs underneath us, so we’re not reaching and pulling a lot. That’s got to be part of our identity. A good skating team, fairly disciplined.”

Continued (paywall)

HSJ in the morning: Red Wings-Blue Jackets series consists of two ‘four-point’ games

The Free Press’s Helene St. James discusses the concept that the Red Wings will be playing two “four-point” games in the standings when they face the Columbus Blue Jackets tonight (7 PM EST start on FanDuel SportsNet Detroit/FanDuel SportsNet Ohio/97.1 FM) and in Saturday’s Stadium Series:

It’s a battle for playoff positioning. The Wings (30-22-6, 66 points) occupy the first wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference, and the Blue Jackets (28-22-8, 64 points) are right behind them.

If the Wings win both games, they would not only bank four points, they’d keep them from the Blue Jackets, further securing a foothold inside the playoff picture. That’s why these points hold extra value.

Wednesday was a scheduled day off for the Wings, after practices and three games had them on the ice eight straight days. The Wings have collected five of six possible points since emerging from the 4 Nations Face-Off break, rolling along despite losing Andrew Copp to season-ending shoulder surgery and Michael Rasmussen being day-to-day after sustaining a blow to the head; both were injured last weekend.

Thursday’s game is one of just 10 home games remaining for the Wings. They have 14 road games left, which includes five of their last six games, highlighted by a back-to-back, at the Florida Panthers and Tampa Bay Lightning, and the fellow playoff-contending New Jersey Devils and Toronto Maple Leafs. Four points in three days this week — for an eight-point swing — over the next two days would go a long ways toward shoring up a playoff spot before a hectic finish to the schedule.

The Red Wings are simply at a point in their season where every game feels like a playoff game, because the Red Wings are attempting to hang onto their Wild Card spot, if not push the Tampa Bay Lightning for 3rd in the Atlantic Division…

While the Columbus Blue Jackets are not only hoping to hang onto their Wild Card spot, but also push the New Jersey Devils for 3rd in the Atlantic Division: