Author: George Malik

DetroitHockeyNow’s Bob Duff notes that Red Wings captain Dylan Larkin will keep the memory of playing alongside Johnny Gaudreau close as Larkin participates in the Four Nations Face-Off:

“I think the last three USA World championships I played in, it was with Johnny,” Larkin recalled.

The two became close friends through their shared international hockey journey.

Last spring, Gaudreau sought desperately to convince Larkin to join him at the IIHF World Championship in Czechia. Requiring offseason surgery, Larkin didn’t go. At the time, he didn’t realize it would be their last chance to suit up as teammates.

“Obviously last year I wanted to go to play with him,” Larkin said. “He was probably one of the big reasons they had a really good team going over there. And he called me and said, ‘let’s play one more.’ And we’re getting to a different stage in our lives with kids. So it was hard not to be there and have to sit at home and have surgery.”

Continued; Team USA has a Gaudreau jersey in their locker room, and Gaudreau’s father, Guy, took part in one of Team USA’s practices earlier this week.

Red Wings forward Lucas Raymond played 17:52 in Sweden’s 4-3 overtime loss to Canada on Wednesday, registering 2 assists, finishing at +2 with 3 shots, 1 giveaway and 1 lost faceoff.

Raymond’s steal from Drew Doughty along the back boards and off-the-half-wall pass to Victor Hedman facilitated Jonas Brodin’s 2-1 goal…

And Raymond’s look-it-off shot-pass to Jesper Bratt yielded a lateral from Bratt to Joel Eriksson Ek, who scored Sweden’s 3-3 goal:

2 assists + 3rd star of the game.

Way to rep tonight, Ray! 👏 pic.twitter.com/GRPqUoQO2a

— Detroit Red Wings (@DetroitRedWings) February 13, 2025

Raymond got better as the game went along, and he earned time on the first shift in 3-on-3 OT as well.

NHL.com’s Nicholas J. Cotsonika discusses the sacrifices that some of Team USA’s Four Nations Face-Off participants are making in order to fill necessary roles on the team, starting with Dylan Larkin’s status as a 4th-line forward and a penalty-killer:

When the United States practiced the power play at Bell Centre on Tuesday, Dylan Larkin skated out. On the penalty kill.

Larkin ranks third in the NHL in power-play goals this season with 12 for the Detroit Red Wings. The center is one of the best bumpers in the League, using his quick head and hands in the middle of the ice.

But this is the 4 Nations Face-Off, a best-on-best tournament featuring Canada, Finland, Sweden and the United States. Each team is stacked with talent, the coaches must make hard decisions, and some stars must swallow their egos.

Larkin is just one example.

“All of these guys are the go-to guys on their respective NHL teams,” U.S. coach Mike Sullivan said. “Not everybody can play on the first power play. Not everybody can play on a power play. We need some guys that are going to have to be a big part of the penalty kill. We’re going to have to manage minutes and define roles for everyone so that we can come together as a team, and that’s one of the biggest challenges of these types of tournaments, and we’re going through that process right now. That was a conversation we had with our group, and we’ll continue to have that conversation with our group.”

…

Here’s the thing about Larkin: He’s a fiery competitor who went through the USA Hockey National Team Development Program and has represented his country in multiple international tournaments. He’s a leader as the captain of the Red Wings. He’s also second among Detroit forwards in short-handed ice time (63:30) this season, behind J.T. Compher (84:53).

“I totally understand it, and I’m excited to get out there and penalty kill,” Larkin said. “And if they need me on the power play at some point throughout the tournament, I’ll be ready. We’ve talked about it a little before as a group of buying into your role and accepting it. I’m just a guy that I’ll do anything to play on this team, and if that means not being on the power play, killing penalties, I’ll do it with a smile on my face.”

Continued; it can’t be easy for a #1 center to play as a #4 winger, but Larkin’s doing just that for his country.

Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff posted a profile of Red Wings forward Elmer Soderblom, noting that the Red Wings’ coach is very impressed with the 6’8″ forward’s moxie:

“I think it speaks to the organizational depth right now to have those kids come up and find a way to contribute,” Red Wings coach Todd McLellan said. “(Assistant coach) Trent Yawney and I don’t have any past experience, everything’s brand new for us. We just play them and see what we get out of them. They’ve responded. They’ve made good on their end of the bargain when they come up and play hard and they keep themselves in the lineup.”

In Soderblom’s case, he’s definitely delivering the goods. The 6-foot-8, 246-pound Swedish left-winger has 2-3-5 totals in nine games since his recall. That includes a five-game point streak, four games of which were played on the road.

“He looks like he belongs more and more every night,” McLellan said. “The size, the reach, but then the silkiness of his hands, the ability to make some plays. I have a lot of confidence in putting him on the ice right now. I’m not afraid or trying to hide him, or anything like that.”

There was always going to be intrigue in Soderblom’s case. The raw materials that he possesses alone kept the what if question on the forefront of people’s minds.

As the old saying goes, you can’t coach big. And you certainly can’t coach someone to play like they’re 6-foot-8.

What if Soderblom would master the art of using his size to his advantage? The possibilities seemed endless.

Continued

From the Oakland Press’s Cathy Blake:

The Detroit Red Wings Alumni will face off against local hockey team, the MI-UCP Pucksters, (Michigan United Cerebral Palsy), with both teams raising money and awareness for MI-UCP.

The charity event is March 15, at the St. Mary’s Arena, 3535 Indian Trail, West Bloomfield Twp. Doors open at 4:30 p.m. The event will showcase two hockey games: A sled hockey exhibition featuring adult and youth sled players from Belle Tire Sled Hockey and the MI-UCP Sledsters at 5 p.m. followed at 7 p.m. by the MI-UCP Pucksters against Detroit Red Wings Alumni. Admission is free, donations are welcome.

Over the past 23 years, the annual event has raised nearly $650,000 to assist the 2.3 million Michiganders who live with disabilities, according to a press release.

Those interested can donate to the general  directly to a player from either team by visiting the MI-UCP website at www.mi-ucp.org/hockey, where each player has a fundraising goal.

I’m trying.

The latest flu bug lingers, and yesterday, our Homeowners’ Association decided that our 19-year-old Chrysler Pacifica was in its spot (our own parking spot) in the shared parking lot at our condominium for too long, so the HOA had it towed to a tow yard which is asking $415 for the privilege of just getting my belongings out of the car.

It’s been a hard week, and we still need to pay our bills, or at least try, so I’m asking for assistance in that department from my readers. I work very hard for you and I hope that you can support us, even if it’s just a little bit.

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Thank you for your time.

DetroitRedWings.com’s Jonathan Mills posted a profile of Red Wings defenseman Albert Johansson this morning:

Albert Johansson is making a name for himself as a rookie defenseman with the Detroit Red Wings by forging his place.

Johansson is averaging 15:48 of ice time through 34 games this season, but that number’s increased (18:34) since Dec. 27 because the 24-year-old is being entrusted with more responsibility while helping fill a hole left on the back end with Jeff Petry sidelined due to an undisclosed injury.

“I just try to take advantage of that opportunity every day,” Johansson said. “It obviously helps to play with Simon [Edvinsson]. We’ve played before in Grand Rapids, so we know each other on the ice. I think that helps. When you play more minutes, you’re in the game more and your confidence is getting higher and higher. You start to feel more comfortable out there.”

On Jan. 23, Todd McLellan said, for him, the “biggest surprise” since becoming head coach of the Red Wings has been Johansson.

“I knew nothing about Albert,” McLellan said. “We get here and he’s kind of parked on the shelf, and everybody’s playing and we’re trying to figure players out. I think his rise has been remarkable, really, unless I underestimated him too, and that’s on me. He’s played steady in all three zones. There’s some fierceness in his game. When he gets engaged with bodies and battles, he wins a lot of them.”

Continued

Via Red Wings Prospects on Twitter, Grand Rapids Griffins website writer Mark Newman posted a profile of Red Wings prospect Nate Danielson, and the AHL’s website is spotlighting Newman’s article:

Sirius is the brightest star in the night sky, and as a prospect in the Detroit Red Wings organization’s galaxy of potential stars, Grand Rapids Griffins center Nate Danielson is as serious as they come.

At the age of 20, the Red Deer, Alta., native is focused on proving the Red Wings made the right decision by selecting him with the ninth overall pick in the 2023 NHL Entry Draft.

Soft-spoken and endearingly earnest, Danielson has a clarity of purpose beyond his years. While others of his generation might act like they are peering out of the wrong end of the telescope, Danielson seems fixated on stuff that might someday propel him to the NHL, if not outright stardom.

Take, for example, his reading material. After seeing videos of ultra-endurance athlete David Goggins, Danielson picked up his memoir Can’t Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds. It tells the story of how Goggins overcame poverty, prejudice and physical abuse to become the only man in history to complete elite training as a Navy SEAL, an Army Ranger and an Air Force tactical air control party officer.

“He went through some extreme circumstances, and I felt like the whole book was about if you really put your mind to something, you’re going to be able to do it,” Danielson explained. “It’s kind of what I want to do. I want to be a hockey player and so that’s what I focus on.”

Continued

The Athletic’s Sean McIndoe takes a reader question and attempts to answer which NHL team would be considered to have the best “team” of starting players by nationality. He suggests that the Russian Five don’t count because Detroit’s not had a Russian goaltender–so he gives Red Wings one of the best American-born teams:

Detroit Red Wings — USA

We already realized we can’t use the Wings for their Russian stars, and building something around Nicklas Lidstrom falls apart due to the franchise’s lack of top-notch Swedish goalies. So let’s play this one on easy level and see what we can do with American stars.

The obvious place to start is the blue line, where we don’t get the very best of Chris Chelios but can claim a decade of solid play. We’ll pair him with Mark Howe, who actually played for both the U.S. and Canada internationally but was born in Detroit. We can give them some solid goaltending in Jimmy Howard, whose 246 career wins are third-most among American goalies who only played for one franchise.

Unfortunately, things kind of fall apart up front, where the Wings’ penchant for collecting old stars means they wouldn’t get anywhere near the best years out of Mike Modano or Brett Hull. We end up using two guys off the current roster, but for an all-time squad from an Original Six team, it’s not a great group.

Forwards: Dylan Larkin, Alex DeBrincat, Jimmy Carson

Defense: Mark Howe, Chris Chelios

Goalie: Jimmy Howard

Continued (paywall); McIndoe admits that his exercise is a bit of a time-killer.

Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff took note of some of Red Wings forward Lucas Raymond’s comments about playing for Team Sweden ahead of tonight’s Four Nations Face-Off opener between the Swedes and Team USA (8 PM on TNT/Max/Sportsnet/TVA Sports):

“I think anytime you put on your national team jersey and get to play for your country, it’s always an honor and something that I think a lot of guys take a lot of pride in,” Raymond said. “So it’s always exciting. And then obviously playing with guys you normally don’t. A lot of high profile players are going to play important minutes for their teams.”

…

In practice leading up to Wednesday’s tournament opener against Canada, Raymond is skating on Sweden’s third line with Jesper Bratt of the New Jersey Devils and Joel Eriksson Ek of the Minnesota Wild. He’s also working with Sweden’s No. 1 power-play unit.

While many of his teammates are off somewhere tropical, thinking about anything but hockey, he’s looking to use this tournament as a springboard toward driving the Red Wings into the NHL playoffs for the first time since 2016 – oddly enough, the previous year that there was an NHL best on best tournament, the World Cup of Hockey.

“You can look at it different ways,” Raymond said. “I think it all depends on kind of what mindset you’re going with it. I think it’s going to be an energy boost playing those type of games in those type of environments. And yeah, no rust to dust off when we get back.”

Continued