Author: George Malik

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Detroit Hockey Now’s Kevin Allen wonders aloud whether Albert Johansson did enough in his NHL debut to play on Monday night vs. the Rangers, regardless of whether Jeff Petry is ready to return from his “upper-body injury”:

“As a forward, it’s good when you don’t notice a D,” [forward Andrew] Copp said. “It’s probably a good thing. So he was good back there for sure.”

The 23-year-old Swedish defenseman, a left shot, logged 11:57 on 18 shifts in a 3-0 win against the Nashville Predators. He was part of a defensive effectiveness  Saturday that the Red Wings are trying to achieve on a regular basis this season. He had two hits and one blocked shot. Goalie Cam Talbot boasted 42 saves and Detroit blocked 31 shots.

Johansson got his chance because  coach Darek Lalonde scratched Erik Gustafsson.

“Solid. Made some really simple, nice plays with the puck,” Copp said of Johansson who comes to the NHL with 119 games of AHL experience. He logged 141 games in the Swedish Hockey League.

Continued; I agree with Copp–it was good that Johansson faded into the woodwork so regularly, because you rarely see a defenseman integrate so seamlessly into the defensive corps. If the Wings want to use Johansson, he’s ready to go.

The Detroit Red Wings hope to build upon their 3-0 victory over the Nashville Predators as they begin a home-and-home series with the New York Rangers tomorrow night in Manhattan (7 PM EDT start on Bally Sports Detroit/MSG/NHL Network).

MLive’s Ansar Khan reports that the Wings are taking an optional skate today:

Optional practice today for #RedWings before traveling to New York to face Rangers tomorrow (7, ⁦@BallySportsDET⁩). pic.twitter.com/DDgGsx5EgC

— Ansar Khan (@AnsarKhanMLive) October 13, 2024

The Hockey News’s Sam Stockton reports that two of the Wings’ three goaltenders are taking part in the skate:

Husso, Lyon, Veleno, Petry, Motte, Berggren, Johansson, Holl, Gustafsson, and Edvinsson on the ice for this afternoon’s optional skate pic.twitter.com/E1ZXZpLwGH

— Sam Stockton (@_samstockton) October 13, 2024

And The Athletic’s Max Bultman said, “Hello”:

Jeff Petry out there skating with a limited Red Wings practice group today, so probably a good sign for his recent upper-body injury

— Max Bultman (@m_bultman) October 13, 2024

Meanwhile, in New York, the Rangers are also holding an optional skate…But it’s not so optional:

The Detroit Red Wings defeated the Nashville Predators 3-0 on Saturday night, and MLive’s Ansar Khan adds a few more quips and quotes to the mix this morning.

Despite surrendering 42 shots and a staggering 89 shot attempts, 34 of which were blocked by the Wings, the team was satisfied with its defensive performance:

“Obviously much more committed defensively for a sustained amount of time,” coach Derek Lalonde said. “That’s a really good team. I don’t see them getting shut out many times this year, so that was a pretty good effort. Obviously, starting with our goalie and then the team defensive play.”

Moritz Seider, as usual, led his team’s block party by getting in front of seven shots.

“As a goaltender, you appreciate that more than anything,” Talbot said. “These guys don’t have the padding that I do, and they’re putting their bodies on the line. There’s some huge ones throughout the entire night, a lot on the PK, six-on-five. I mean, they’re just diving in front of everything, so the dedication and sacrifice from the guys in front of me won the game tonight.”

Andrew Copp made a particularly interesting remark regarding the Red Wings’ preparation for the Predators’ scoring power:

“I think we had a good plan for the way that they attack, based on their hands and obviously the Stammer one-timer,” Andrew Copp said. “We did a really good job of digging in on draws. I thought we got in shot lanes pretty well. We cleared it when the puck was on our stick, but it was just kind of an intensity and a complete desire from the get-go. I think you saw that in the amount of blocked shots. You saw that in maybe a few more won battles, stick battles, ready to jump your check just a hair quicker. I think that desperation, that sense of urgency was really important.”

Alex Wood also posted a two-part set of highlight clips from last night:

Of Red Wings prospect-related note on Saturday evening:

In the ECHL, Carson Bantle had a goal and an assist and Carter Gylander stopped 19 of 23 shots as the Toledo Walleye won a 5-4 exhibition decision over the Kalamazoo K-Wings. Bantle and fellow Grand Rapids Griffins-contracted forward Gabriel Seger earned praise from the Toledo Blade’s Mark Monroe:

The line of newcomers Carson Bantle and Gabriel Seger, as well as returner Mitchell Lewandowski, looked very good.

Bantle scored his second goal in as many nights, notching a power-play goal on assists from former Cincinnati star Jalen Smereck and Lewandowski just 1:21 into the game.

Both Bantle and Seger, who have good size and skill, were assigned to Toledo from its AHL affiliate in Grand Rapids this week. Bantle scored the first goal of the preseason and Seger gave Toledo a 2-1 lead on Friday. They both had the primary assist on each other’s goals, as well.

Bantle (6-foot-4, 194 pounds) who was selected in the fifth round of the 2020 NHL draft by the Arizona Coyotes, played three seasons at the University of Wisconsin. He looked mobile and skilled, finishing with a goal and an assist.

Seger (6-4, 209) played at Cornell University and had 44 points in 35 games as a senior. Lewandowski had a goal and an assist. The rookies were paired with forward Conlan Keenan on Friday.

Elsewhere, in the WHL, Emmitt Finnie scored a goal and 2 assists, finishing at -1 with 4 shots and a 13-for-26 faceoff record as the Kamloops Blazers lost 5-4 in overtime to the Tri-City Americans;

In the USHL, Rudy Guimond stopped 35 shots, but his Cedar Rapids Roughriders lost 5-3 to the Sioux Falls Stampede, whose Austin Baker had an assist, finishing even with 4 shots;

NCAA Hockey: Trey Augustine stopped 32 of 35 shots and Red Savage scored a goal, finishing at +1 with 4 shots and a 16-and-6 faceoff record as the Michigan State University Spartans won 4-3 over Boston College;

Kienan Draper finished at -1 with 1 shot and a 3-for-6 faceoff record as the University of Michigan Wolverines tied Arizona State University 3-3;

Owen Mehlenbacher didn’t play in the University of Wisconsin Badgers’ 3-2 win over Lindenwood;

Dylan James scored 2 goals on 3 shots, finishing at +1 in the University of North Dakota Fighting Hawks’ 5-2 win over Providence;

Larry Keenan finished at +1 with 1 shot as the UMass Minutemen won 5-1 over Air Force;

Max Plante remains sidelined with an upper-body injury as his Minnesota-Duluth Bulldogs’ lost 4-1 to UMass-Lowell;

John Whipple finished even with 1 shot as the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers lost 2-1 to Nebraska-Omaha;

And Brennan Ali had an assist, finishing at +1 with 3 shots as the University of Notre Dame Fighting Irish won 5-2 over the Clarkson Golden Knights.

The Grand Rapids Griffins followed up Friday night’s big win over the Milwaukee Admirals by hitting the road and hitting the bricks against the Rockford IceHogs, dropping a 4-1 decision on Saturday evening.

Rockford scored the game’s first four goals–one in the 1st period, and then 3 more in the 2nd–but Sebastian Cossa finished the game with a solid-enough 29 stops on 33 shots, and Brogan Rafferty at least spoiled Drew Commesso’s shutout in the 3rd period, but there wasn’t much to write home about for the Griffins.

Per the Griffins website’s recap:

ROCKFORD, Ill. — Grand Rapids dropped its first road game of the campaign, 4-1, as the Rockford IceHogs used a three-goal second period to storm past the Griffins on Saturday at the BMO Center. 

Defenseman Brogan Rafferty scored the Griffins’ lone tally to secure his 150th point in the AHL. Veteran Austin Watson bagged his third assist as a Griffin in his first two games with the franchise. The contest marked a rematch of last season’s Central Division Semifinals where the Griffins bested the IceHogs 3-1 in the best-of-five series. 

After losing the puck behind his own net, Sebastian Cossa recovered with an acrobatic diving-stick save to keep the game scoreless early in the first period. However, the IceHogs capitalized at 16:57 when Grand Rapids failed to clear the puck, which dropped right to Colton Dach who found the back of the net over the glove of Cossa. The IceHogs’ goal snapped 76:57 of shutout hockey to start the season for Cossa. 

Rockford nearly doubled its lead with 1.2 seconds remaining but after further review the goal was called back due to the time expiring in the opening frame. 

The second period remained unkind, as Grand Rapids surrendered three goals. Kevin Korchinski made it a 2-0 game at 5:30 when he scored on the power play and 3:58 later Cavan Fitzgerald increased Rockford’s advantage to three. Samuel Savoie capped off the period with his first of the year with 2:58 left during a 2-on-0 breakaway with Gavin Hayes. 

Late in the final period, Rafferty put the Griffins on the board for their only goal of the outing.Watson shot the puck from the blueline through traffic before Rafferty tipped it in to prevent the shutout at 13:48. Rockford held the Griffins at bay for the remainder of the period and skated away with a 4-1 victory in its season opener. 

The Griffins’ website also posted a photo gallery, and if you’re interested, you can read Detroit Hockey Now’s Max Smith’s critique of Cossa’s ups and downs at your leisure.

Update: There’s a “5” next to Nate Danielson’s penalty-minute mark, which means that the young Wings prospect got into his first fight on Saturday night.

Kasper fought, too.

The Detroit Red Wings won a hard-fought 3-0 victory over the Nashville Predators on Saturday night, assuaging (somewhat) their 6-3 loss to Pittsburgh on opening night.

But it was not an easy victory by any stretch of the imagination. Cam Talbot stopped 42 shots and faced 87 shot attempts–34 of which were blocked by Detroit…

And the Wings really nursed a 1-0 lead from the 1:02 mark of the 2nd period, when J.T. Compher scored, to the 6:35 mark of the 3rd, when Andrew Copp finally gave the Wings some breathing room with a 2-0 deflection on Juuse Saros. Captain Larkin wrapped things up with an empty-netter at 19:40 of the 3rd.

In the interim, Talbot made some spectacular stops, the Red Wings’ defense made some spectacular stops, and the Red Wings earned a “team victory” against a Predators team with the skill to out-star you and the grit to make you play a nasty, high-impact hockey game.

Regrettably, along the way in the high-impact variety, the Wings did lose Christian Fischer’s services to an upper-body injury, and we’ll see whether the Red Wings call up a forward, should Fischer miss any time.

We’ll file this under “Tangentially Red Wings-related,” as BP Sports Niagara’s Bill Potrecz reports that former Red Wing Riley Sheahan has retired:

Riley Sheahan is having fun at the rink again. The 32-year-old St. Catharines native achieved his dream and played more than 600 games in the National Hockey League, but it wasn’t all fun and games.

Sheahan was a first-round draft pick of the Detroit Red Wings in 2010 and seemed to be a perfect fit for the Wings as a strong, two-way centre. But Sheahan bounced around, also playing for the Pittsburgh Penguins, Florida Panthers, Edmonton Oilers, Buffalo Sabres and Seattle Kraken, as well as a stint in Switzerland before finally calling it a career.

“It was tough,” Sheahan said when asked about the decision to retire. “You definitely associate yourself with a sport and your ego — you definitely get voices in your head saying, ‘I wish I could still be doing this.’ I feel debatably like I do have some juice left, but you kind of have to make the agreement what’s best for you and my family. Sometimes it’s hard. As a high-end athlete, I think we’re all wired kind of the same way to keep pushing for the next thing and to keep pushing, never be satisfied, that whole thing. I think that’ll be a good challenge for me as my career ends, to really think about it, reflect on the good moments.”

Sheahan said moving from city to city, not knowing from one season to the next where he was going to be playing, took its toll.

“Year after year and being part of a new group of people and trying to break the ice and all the relationships and then all of a sudden, they’re gone. That stuff is really hard on me and it takes you away from the game too.  I’ve played the game to really enjoy it, to make plays and to feel excited out there and now that was starting to go away. Some days it’s hard but I also have a lot of other things in my life to be grateful for and to drive me now.”

Continued; I’m feeling old. Sheahan was an 18-year-old kid an eye-blink ago.

I like and respect the New York Post’s Larry Brooks. I really do. But this set of comments from Brooks, via Paul Kukla of Abel to Yzerman, has me scratching my head:

It is obviously insane to assign disproportionate weight to a team’s season opener. But sometimes they can be symbolic. 

And I just wonder after the Red Wings’ opening, 6-3 defeat to the Penguins in Detroit — 24 hours after Pittsburgh had been used as a speed bag by the Rangers while Detroit was fresh — whether GM Steve Yzerman is going to have Joel Quenneville on speed dial? 

Yzerman is, of course, sacrosanct in the Motor City. But so was Willis Reed in New York, and he was fired by the Knicks as head coach. And so was Bart Starr in Green Bay, and he was fired as head coach. 

The Red Wings’ sin lays on the doorstep of former GM Ken Holland and ownership that prioritized extending their playoff streak to what became a pro sports record to 25 years rather than taking a step or two back to reload for a championship run. 

They talked about 25 years the way the Yankees sometimes talk about 32 straight years of above-.500 baseball. 

But the Red Wings now have missed the playoffs eight straight seasons — the past five on the watch of Yzerman, who took command in 2019-20. 

Everyone likes Detroit head coach Derek Lalonde. But time waits for no man, even an icon such as Yzerman. It would behoove the Red Wings to get on track early. 

If not a playoffs-or-bust Detroit, which projected contender will turn to Quenneville, cleared to return for duty by the NHL in July?

Continued; I’m sure we’ll hear more of this given that the Red Wings’ next two opponents are the Rangers in New York on Monday, and then the Rangers on ESPN+/Hulu at Little Caesars Arena next Thursday…

And yes, there are some very legitimate questions as to whether Derek Lalonde will be the Red Wings’ coach by the end of the season in Detroit. He’s on an expiring contract.

But there are no reasonable, legitimate suggestions that the Red Wings’ GM-for-life is going to be fired because he’s in rebuild year 5 of what Ken Holland himself warned us might be a 10-to-12-year affair, and there is no way in hell that I’d turn to Joel Quenneville of all people to try and get the Wings out of their struggles.

The Detroit Red Wings attempted to end their winless streak at one game as they faced the Nashville Predators on Saturday night. With both teams having lost their home openers, the Wings and Preds were in no mood to drop to 0-and-2 on the young season.

For the Red Wings, who are playing a stretch of 3 games to be played over the course of 5 nights, turning the ship around is particularly imperative, because losses add up in a hurry.

On Saturday night, the Red Wings were able to win from the goal on out, and by that, I mean Cam Talbot, who stopped 40 shots and faced a stunning 87 shot attempts.

Thankfully, the Red Wings blocked 34 shots en route to a 3-0 victory in which J.T. Compher, Andrew Copp and Dylan Larkin (empty net) were able to slowly but surely assail Juuse Saros (and the net behind him) in a game where the Red Wings really did skate uphill against the stacked Predators at times, but the Red Wings did prevail thanks to superb defensive play, a commitment to withstanding the Predators’ physicality (though the team did lose Christian Fischer to an upper-body injury), and just plain old out-working the Preds.

The teams will reprise their rivalry (it’s still a rivalry!) next Saturday in Nashville.