According to Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff, Red Wings prospect center Nate Danielson has pulled something of what I call a “Valtteri Filppula,” a.k.a. focusing too heavily on being defensively responsible, to the detriment of his offensive abilities.

Grand Rapids Griffins coach Dan Watson wants to see Danielson display a little more selfishness in pursing his own offensive game:

“He’s very responsible,” Grand Rapids Griffins coach Dan Watson said. “Maybe sometimes too responsible, and that sometimes can hurt you.”

In 27 NHL games with the Red Wings last season, Danielson accounted for two goals and five assists.

“Last year, when he got here, he performed really well,” Red Wings coach Todd McLellan said. “He didn’t quite hold on to it, but he’s older, stronger, more experienced, and our job is to help him.”

McLellan reminded everyone that he had Danielson penciled in on the team in training camp. Then a wrist injury put him on the shelf. When healthy, Danielson was sent to GR to regain game shape. He got the call to Detroit in November.

“I hope that he has the same type of training camp he had last year because he would have been on our team,” McLellan said.

Continued

If you weren’t able to spend 30 minutes watching the Red Wings’ clip of Ben Chiarot, J.T. Compher and coach Todd McLellan’s remarks from the first day of training camp, WOOD TV8 in Grand Rapids offers an interesting quip from coach McLellan in a 55-seocnd news clip.

Coach McLellan emphasizes the concept that Detroit has to “get harder and firmer” to compete against this upcoming season, in all areas of play:

Here’s the full clip of Chiarot, Compher and coach McLellan as well:

This evening, the Detroit News’s Bob Wojnowski weighs in regarding Dylan Larkin’s strange, tense press conference at training camp today at Little Caesars Arena.

Wojnowski rather elegantly describes Larkin as “speaking out of obligation,” and Wojo delves into the plain fact that Larkin sounds like someone who still wants to be traded, is unrepentant about his desire to leave Detroit, and yet remains “stuck” with a soon-to-be previous employer, all without any willingness to shed light as to why Larkin wants out to begin with:

Nobody looks good in this, including Larkin. Until he proves he’s ready to compete at a high level for the only franchise he’s ever known, some will be suspicious. That’s why a long-term reconciliation still seems dubious. He was polite but not enlightening, straining to make a awkward situation more palatable during his 15-minute press conference.

Whatever wrecked his relationship with Yzerman, Larkin wasn’t interested in divulging.

“I have nothing but respect for Steve,” Larkin said. “When it’s game night, we go out and play. And he watches and evaluates. We both do our jobs, and in any organization, competitive people are going to have differences, and I think that’s what makes him great. I respect that a ton, and I think learned a ton from him in terms of leadership.”

Yzerman hasn’t offered his viewpoint since he was removed and given an advisory role. When a proud franchise collapses as completely as this, everyone bears blame, from the owner to the GM to the coach to the players, and yes, to the captain.

Larkin said he understood why he was stripped of the “C”, and almost sounded relieved by it. Because he’s been here 11 years, the homegrown kid from Waterford who went to Michigan, the captaincy was a natural anointing that didn’t necessarily fit. Larkin is soft-spoken and emotional, not a hard-bitten alpha captain.

Don’t misconstrue, though. He plays hard, tough hockey, an excellent two-player who’s rarely been surrounded by comparable talent. For those who suggested he was miscast as a captain, he doesn’t disagree. He played superbly for Team USA in the Olympics as a skilled contributor, not the primary leader.

“I’m a hockey player, and there’s a lot of people in (the dressing room) that I care deeply about,” Larkin said. “You know, it’s home. One day at a time, one game at a time. I’m excited to be a part of this team and back at the bottom of the totem pole, which just may be kind of nice.”

Continued; Wojnowski may be right, and Larkin may be right, too. We just don’t have any information as to how or why Larkin requested a trade, what’s behind his reasoning, or what Steve Yzerman has to say about the failed relationship between team and now former captain.

We may never know.

The power of perspective is an amazing thing. Today, I was watching the “NHL Tonight” on the NHL Network, and analysts Corey Schneider, Ken Daneyko and Tony Luftman suggested that Red Wings forward and former captain Dylan Larkin was somewhat graceful and tactful in non-answering questions posed to him by the media today.

I don’t know whether I see it that way, but you can watch the gents discuss Larkin’s presser and compare and contrast it from Connor Hellebuyck’s situation in Winnipeg (Hellebuyck did not report for camp and has been suspended by the team) at the link.

Daneyko at least suggests that the Red Wings have the right to demand equal value for Larkin, and the former Devils defenseman suggests that Larkin ought to expand his trade list to more than three teams (because, Daneyko argues, there are at least 10 teams that can win the Stanley Cup in the NHL).

Schneider suggests that Larkin turning 30 and winning a gold medal are two reasons why Larkin clearly has meaningfully thought about and then asked for a trade, and he suggests that “it’s a tough situation all around” because the Wings have fallen short of the playoffs throughout Larkin’s tenure with the team.

Update: Here’s the video in YouTube form:

According to the Hockey News’s Michael Whitaker, Red Wings coach Todd McLellan had to answer a question about the team’s annual March collapse on the first day of training camp, and coach McLellan suggested that Detroit’s locker room predicted its own demise:

“As far as the March part of our schedule, I can tell you exactly how I felt,” he said. “I felt that everybody in this building – most importantly in that locker room – was waiting for it to happen. Just waiting for it to happen, and it trickles in. We have to answer the questions you present, and you can feel it, and it becomes a burden, and eventually the mind goes, ‘Aw, here we are, we’re doing this again.’ And that’s exactly how it felt.

Red Wings interim general manager Shawn Horcoff, who spoke the day before, explained that his focus is on the immediate runway ahead for the club.

McLellan echoed Horcoff’s sentiments, saying that while the team will eventually have to deal with March approaching on the calendar this season, its immediate task is to win each day as it comes.

These always embed funny, so I’ll post the Red Wings’ summary of the first day of training camp as a Tweet/X post first, then in YouTube form after a “read more” jump:

First day feels pic.twitter.com/8efKXRggOk

— Detroit Red Wings (@DetroitRedWings) September 17, 2026

I don’t often agree with the Hockey News’s Ryan Lambert, but, this evening, Lambert suggests that the Dylan Larkin press conference was far from satisfactory to the people who pay Larkin’s salary, and he’s 100% right here:

Unless there’s some real family-related stuff at play, like there seems to be with Connor Hellebuyck in Winnipeg, these answers just don’t cut it. Hellebuyck has at least obliquely referred to the fact that he doesn’t think the Winnipeg Jets can be competitive. So if that was the impetus for Larkin’s request as well, then he should say so.

That could be interpreted as saying he thinks his teammates aren’t good enough, collectively, and after a decade of playoff misses, you would think that’s just undeniable. NHL players know when their teams aren’t good and they know why, so if Larkin did say he doesn’t think he can win in Detroit, there’s not a guy in that room who could honestly say they don’t get it.

And if it was an Yzerman thing after all? Well, he isn’t his boss anymore. You don’t want to rock the boat with one of the league’s all-time greats, but if everyone understands that behind the scenes, then what’s the harm in saying that publicly?

Despite all the distractions surrounding the Red Wings as a team and an organization, coach Todd McLellan and his staff had to prepare for training camp regardless of who happens to be on the roster happily. McLellan spoke with the Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan about said preparation.

First and foremost, McLellan admitted, in his own way, that this past summer was…unique…

“It wasn’t a traditional summer,” McLellan said. “Things happened that maybe weren’t anticipated. It wasn’t a traditional summer, but that’s OK.”

But McLellan, interim GM Shawn Horcoff and the rest of the team’s coaching and management staffs had to be ready to teach today:

“We all have jobs and responsibilities, we knew what they were and we didn’t have to deviate from them,” McLellan said. “Players are ready for training camp, and organized and we’re good to go.”

The start of training camp is usually an optimistic affair for the vast majority of NHL teams. The Red Wings may be an exception to this rule given the cloudy nature of Dylan Larkin’s future and Shawn Horcoff’s tenure of employment, but the Red Wings’ players and coach attempted to put on a brave face regarding coming into a season defined by a tumultuous off-season.

Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff took note of the clouds, and issued a difficult forecast for the Wings while mentioning the team’s defiance against, if not obliviousness(?) to their uncertain situation:

“We’ll be ready [for the season opener] October 2nd,” defenseman Ben Chiarot said. “I think all of us are on the same page: management, coaches, and players. We’re all moving forward as a team here. And I think the mentality in the room is good right now.”

Since we last left the Red Wings, following their 10th successive season without a playoff appearance, a lot has happened. None of it was good.

Steve Yzerman was removed as GM. Dylan Larkin requested a trade, and when no move was immediately forthcoming, he was stripped of the captaincy. Earlier this week, Shawn Horcoff was named interim GM because, apparently, the team couldn’t find someone to take the job on a full-time basis.

“No question, things were unsettled in the summer,” Chiarot said.

Coach McLellan offered an honest assessment of where the Red Wings are headed this season…

Updated at 4:27 PM: Red Wings defenseman Ben Chiarot, forward J.T. Compher and coach Todd McLellan spoke with the media for a grand total of 30 minutes on Thursday, and if you don’t have time to watch the video thereof, provided by the Red Wings, the Free Press’s Helene St. James summarized their remarks regarding the…unusual…situation surrounding Dylan Larkin:

“Everything that’s gone on, we spoke about it as a team,” Chiarot said. “Dylan addressed the team. I think we keep that in here between the guys on the team. We’ve taken care of it, and we’ll keep our feelings to ourselves. We’ve addressed the situations that need to be addressed as a team together. That’s all that matters. We’re a team in here, and we’ll be ready to go on October 2. Everyone in here has a job to do. You come in, you worry about doing your job. The leaders on the team worry about bringing the team together and making sure we’re a unit. We’re all together, and we’re all on the same page, along with the coaches and managers. I think that’s what we have now, and that’s all we need.”

Veteran forward J.T. Compher echoed that sentiment: “I think we’ll ask of Dylan what we ask of every guy − to come here and help us try and win games. Whether that’s physically, attitude-wise, whatever role the coaches ask you to play on this team, that’s what we need out of each guy. This league’s too hard to be thinking about any other thing. When the season starts October 2, every team that comes in here is not going to care what’s going on.”

Chiarot and J.T. Compher both found out about Larkin’s trade request via the internet. Neither took it personally.