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!

Red Wings-Blackhawks quick take: imperfect is good enough for half-a-dozen at the Pizzarena

The Detroit Red Wings hosted the Chicago Blackhawks for an Original Six tilt at Little Caesars Arena on Friday night, with the Red Wings hoping to stretch their winning streak to six games.

On Friday night, the Wings let things get a little hairy at times, but Detroit pushed out to 1-0, 4-1 and then 5-3 leads en route to a 5-3 victory over the pesky Chicago Blackhawks. Goals by DeBrincat, Raymond, Copp, Johansson and Kasper powered the run, Patrick Kane had 3 assists, and while the Wings were loosey goosey defensively, Cam Talbot stopped 12 of 15 shots, some of them particularly hard.

Petr Mrazek deserves a lot of credit for keeping the Hawks in the game, Connor Bedard’s got a lot of skill, and the Hawks have to be respected, or they’re going to bite you in the butt…

And Detroit got bit a couple of times…

But the Wings held tough, and they won their sixth straight game under coach McLellan.

Continue reading Red Wings-Blackhawks quick take: imperfect is good enough for half-a-dozen at the Pizzarena

Parallels between Kane and Bedard

The Athletic’s Mark Lazerus spoke with Red Wings forward Patrick Kane in order to compare the start of Kane’s career to current Chicago Blackhawks phenom Connor Bedard:

Patrick Kane laughed at my premise, but not my point.

My premise was that Connor Bedard could have an identical career to Kane’s — three Stanley Cups, a Calder Trophy, a Hart Trophy, a Conn Smythe Trophy, an obvious first-ballot Hall of Famer — and there still would be some mouth-breathers in the hockey world insisting he didn’t quite live up to the hype, that he was a disappointment, that he wasn’t (here comes that word) generational.

“Who’s saying that?” Kane said with a laugh.

OK, so maybe I’m online a tad more often than he is. But my point was that the hype surrounding Bedard was so hyperbolic, so ludicrous, so unmatchable, that he’d have to be Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux or Sidney Crosby to live up to it.

That, Kane could agree with.

“It’s different with social media,” Kane said. “When I was younger, I got to be somewhat of a regular guy, you know, because people weren’t tracking every single thing that you did throughout your day, right? He’s going to be noticed. He’s probably bothered everywhere he goes. You feel for the younger kids coming in these days, because they get more hype and more attention when they’re younger. That’s just how it is, but is that necessarily a good thing?”

Continued (paywall)

Tweet of note: The Forecheck previews the Red Wings-Blackhawks game

Daniella Bruce and Ken Kal discuss tonight’s Red Wings-Blackhawks game on The Forecheck:

Tweet of note: Mazur recovering in GR

Red Wings prospect and Grand Rapids Griffins forward Carter Mazur has been recovering from an undisclosed injury which followed a bad high ankle sprain during training camp, and the Griffins posted a Tweet of Mazur actually practicing as he recovers:

Three Blackhawks things: Kane on Chicago sports, Nazar among friends and an interview with the Hawks’ coach

Red Wings forward Patrick Kane spoke with the Blackhawks media corps today, and he admitted that he’s still following Chicago sports teams…

Detroit native Frank Nazar will also be at the arena this evening to play against the Red Wings, and he won’t be alone:

And this video of coach Anders Sorensen speaking with Blackhawks broadcaster Darren Pang sets up a 4-minute video which cannot be embedded, but is a good “listen/watch”:

Wings no longer out-shot

The Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan took note of the fact that the Red Wings are no longer being out-shot by a significant margin:

The Wings were outshot in 24 of 34 games under former coach Derek Lalonde, generally an ineffective way to win games. With McLellan at the helm for six games (heading into Friday’s contest against Chicago), the Wings have outshot their opponents three times and matched the opponents’ total the other three games.

The Wings haven’t been outshot and have posted a 5-1-0 record in the process.

McLellan spoke after Tuesday’s victory over Ottawa (both teams had 33 shots) about the importance he feels getting shots on net are.

“I’ve always been a real big believer that volume of shooting is important,” McLellan said. “I know the analytics departments and analysts will say, ‘Well, it’s the quality of shot.’ I (believe) it’s the quality of the shot off the rebound that’s really important. You break defenses down by taking a shot and then grabbing it and reattacking. The action is one thing. The carrot is what we’re hoping for. The other night, when Simon (Edvinsson) took the shot, the carrot was Joey (Veleno) working in and getting rewarded.”

McLellan was referring to Veleno’s third-period, game-tying goal in which Edvinsson shot from the point. Senators goaltender Anton Forsberg couldn’t control the rebound and let the puck bounce into the slot, where Veleno batted home the rebound. It was the classic demonstration of the importance of simply putting a shot on net, and you never know what’ll happen.

“You can cycle to death all you want and often you don’t get anything off of it,” McLellan said. “I just believe (in shooting the puck). I’ve been selling that to the players and our (defensemen) are doing a good job of creating opportunity with the shot, and the forwards are capitalizing on secondary chances or getting teams out of position.”

Continued

In groups of five

The Hockey News’s Sam Stockton spoke with Red Wings coach Todd McLellan and defenseman Moritz Seider regarding the “connectivity” with which the team is playing as 5-man units which skate up and down the ice as one:

Defenseman Moritz Seider pointed out that the difference between a connected and scattered team is apparent when the Red Wings break out of their own zone, telling The Hockey News yesterday, “I think you can definitely see that on the ice.  When things are clicking pretty easily, everybody’s in their spots, and you beat the forecheck pretty well.  When it’s not going that well, the defensive team is not breaking out as clean, the forechecking team gets a stop somehow—maybe intercepts a pass and then stuff breaks down from there…We can eliminate those things by just being clean, on our tape, making it real hard for the forechecking team to just intercept anything or even get a piece of a body anywhere.”

Seider also noted that connectivity is valuable for more than just clean exits, as it sets up Detroit for success as they enter the attacking third of the rink, observing, “I think [a clean, connected breakout] just sets up our forecheck even better.  Obviously, if we can break out the puck clean and have a five-man unit coming up the ice, even though we may not enter with full possession every time, the odd time we have to chip it in, we’ll be able to recover it even faster with five guys on the offensive side of the red line.”

Continued

Red Wings are living in the present tense

MLive’s Ansar Khan discusses some of the storylines that the Red Wings find themselves amidst as they hit game #41 of the regular season tonight vs. Chicago, noting that the Red Wings can push themselves a game above .500 tonight:

“For our group, it’s important because we’ve established some energy, a belief system that seems to be growing each day,” McLellan said. “Not even talking about where we’re going next week, just tonight. It’ll be a challenging game. They’re playing some good hockey right now. Bedard is obviously heating up, and when your young leader is feeling good everybody else probably feels good around him. That’s all we’re looking at. We’re not talking about momentum going into Florida next week or anything like that. We deal with the moment.”

The Blackhawks are 6-9-0 since Anders Sorensen replaced Luke Richardson as coach on an interim basis on Dec. 5. At 14-25-2, they’re last overall with 30 points.

Having a player like Bedard makes them dangerous, however.

“His skill-set, obviously the shot, but his resiliency to fight through things,” McLellan said. “If you’re getting picked first overall – I saw it with Connor (McDavid) — odds are your organization isn’t really close to the Cup, but they’re expecting that young man, Connor and some other guys, (Toronto’s) Auston Matthews, to lead teams into the future. … Those players are special, They’re so unique.”

McLellan might opt to match his top line of Dylan Larkin, Lucas Raymond and Marco Kasper against Bedard’s line with former Red Wing Tyler Bertuzzi and Ilya Mikheyev.”

“I think for us, it’s just about playing our game with speed,” Raymond said. “I think that’s the way we kind of kill opponents with our speed and be clinical down low and then try to play as much offense as possible.”

Continued (paywall)

Tweet of note: ‘Todd’s brought in a new message, a new voice’

Red Wings forward Christian Fischer had this to say to FanDuel Sports Network Detroit: