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: Brandsegg-Nygard discusses his SHL-or-AHL options

The Red Wings’ “game group” held a 9:45 AM morning skate ahead of tonight’s game vs. Chicago in the Windy City (8 PM EDT on DetroitRedWings.com).

After the morning skate…

The AHL would be ideal for the Red Wings, but MBN has repeatedly stated that he wants to play for Skelleftea AIK. I wonder whether the language barrier might be an issue for him.

Speaking of which…

Allen on why Axel Sandin Pellikka remains in Europe this season

After Axel Sandin Pellikka scored that “ankle-breaking” goal yesterday in Skelleftea AIK’s win, Detroit Hockey Now’s Kevin Allen reminded us why ASP remains in Sweden this season:

“And you might ask why, and I don’t really have a good answer for that, but we just, the plan was to leave him there,” Yzerman said. “He’s in a good spot. He knows our expectations of him and what our plan for him is. And so, no, it wasn’t. We wanted to bring Michael over here to spend a little bit of time with, again with our staff, you know, the Red Wings staff, but also our skills and skating people and our development people. Take a little bit of time here and play a couple of preseason games. You know, he’s a little bit different, he’s a little bigger, stronger. Axe, being a defenseman just felt like…he’s in a good spot there.”

As a general rule, it takes longer for young defensemen to develop.  Also, the Grand Rapids defense has Shai Buium, Antti Tuomisto, William Wallinder and Eemil Viro all vying for playing. Youngsters Albert Johansson and Simon Edvinsson are moving to the Red Wings this season.

Adding Sandin Pellikka to the mix would have made it more crowded.

Continued; my sense is that the Red Wings want to determine whether Tuomisto or Wallinder have NHL futures before bringing ASP into that crowded blueline, which is also going to include William Lagesson and Josiah Didier.

Is Pavel Datsyuk the 15th-best player since Wayne Gretzky retired?

The Score’s John Matisz and Nick Faris are attempting to discern the top 25 NHL players who played in the league since Wayne Gretzky retired in the 1999-2000 season, and Pavel Datsyuk makes the list at 15th, which is kind of laughable:

#15. Pavel Datsyuk:

Era teams: Detroit Red Wings 2001-16

Signature performance: Clutch in the 2008 postseason, Datsyuk had six points over the final two games of a second-round sweep of the Avalanche. He bagged his only career hat trick against the Stars in Round 3. When the Red Wings beat the Penguins for the Stanley Cup, he assisted linemate Henrik Zetterberg’s winner by spinning to find the puck in a thicket of legs.

Zetterberg was the only Red Wing to best Datsyuk’s 23 playoff points as the franchise clinched its 11th and latest title.

Why he’s here: Datsyuk’s puckhandling wizardry and defensive mastery made him a uniquely complete and exciting center. He was a face of powerhouse teams that backed up their dominance in the regular season – Detroit averaged 110.7 points over Datsyuk’s first 10 years in the NHL – with championship conquests.

He debuted with the unstoppable 2001-02 Red Wings, who iced 10 future Hall of Famers, and promptly won the first of two Cups. Datsyuk went on to stockpile three straight Selke Trophies and four straight Lady Byng Trophies as a dexterous takeaway machine who stayed out of the box.

When the “Magic Man” had the puck, his obscene dangles and cross-ice passing ability showed his hands and mind were in perfect sync. Datsyuk and Connor McDavid were the only players in the era to exceed 300 goals and 600 helpers in fewer than 1,000 games played.

Datsyuk oozed skill, possessing rare gifts that made him a dynamo and an innovator. He unleashed a powerful backhand shot to pick corners from strange angles. Some of his 40 shootout goals were scored with his patented move – fake a wrist shot and drag the puck away from the outstretched, frozen, helpless goalie.

The product of Yekaterinburg, Russia, is closely associated with two Swedes – Zetterberg and Lidstrom. The renowned trio was together for much of Detroit’s 25-year playoff qualification streak that finally ended as soon as Datsyuk left the NHL. – Nick Faris

Continued; I would argue that Datsyuk’s worth ethic was equal to his level of talent, to say the very least.

Morning skate Tweets: the game-day lineup is skating ahead of tonight’s game vs. Chicago

The Detroit Red Wings battle the Chicago Blackhawks tonight in Chicago (8 PM EDT start on DetroitRedWings.com), and the Wings’ game day group is already skating at Little Caesars Arena:

In the FYI Department:

Continue reading Morning skate Tweets: the game-day lineup is skating ahead of tonight’s game vs. Chicago

Morning news: It’s an exhibition game day, and we may see an Edvinsson-Seider pairing in Chicago tonight

Tonight, the Detroit Red Wings kick off their 8-games-in-12-nights exhibition season against the Chicago Blackhawks (8 PM start on DetroitRedWings.com):

Detroit Hockey Now’s Kevin Allen took note of the fact that Red Wings coach Derek Lalonde won’t necessarily be loading up the roster in order to smack down opponents. On the contrary, the Red Wings’ coaching staff will be experimenting with different lines, different lineups and prospects over the course of the next 12 nights:

Detroit opens the preseason tonight on the road against the Chicago Blackhawks. Coach Derek Lalonde said he will use a mixed lineup of youngsters and veterans. “I think the exhibition game matrix is complicated; We end up with five games in six days and three in three,” Lalonde said. “Certainly is not ideal, especially with some of the objectives we want to accomplish in camp.”

The Red Wings want youngsters like Marco Kasper, Nate Danielson, Michael Brandsegg-Nygard, etc. to see plenty of game time.

“I think you’re going to see a lot of mixed lineups,” Lalonde said. “Maybe a couple of NHL-experienced lines and with a couple of new guys. That’s what we’ll see tomorrow night.”

Also of Red Wings-related note this morning: The Free Press’s Helene St. James wrote a subscriber-only column which discusses Moritz Seider’s remarks made during yesterday’s press conference…

    “I want to get better every year and there’s definitely a lot more that hopefully I can show in the future,” Seider said Tuesday. “It’s just about making the next step, being more consistent, trying to eliminate off nights as much as possible. And then trying to contribute on both ends even more; hopefully offense can come a little more, too.” 

    Coach Derek Lalonde elaborated on areas where Seider can improve.

    “His defensive game can continue to grow,” Lalonde said. “Even with him, he’s had some lapses in some of his play. I think he can improve his skating, which is very exciting. I think he’s still very raw. I think there’s a lot of room for growth in him.”

    And St. James noted that the Red Wings’ coaches will experiment with a Simon Edvinsson-Seider defensive pairing this exhibition season:

    Continue reading Morning news: It’s an exhibition game day, and we may see an Edvinsson-Seider pairing in Chicago tonight

    On Moritz Seider and ‘große Erwartungen,’ I mean ‘great expectations’

    The Athletic’s Max Bultman discusses, “How [the] Red Wings’ Moritz Seider can make his long-term deal pay off” this morning. As you might expect by now, Max’s fine article self-references Dom Luszczyszyn’s model/metric suggesting that Seider hasn’t been quite cutting it defensively as compared to his peers, all while playing incredibly difficult minutes as both the Red Wings’ top shut-down defender and difficult minutes as an offensive catalyst.

    What I see as the real determinant, though, has to do less with the raw point totals and more with the way Seider can — and now, must — help the Red Wings control games in the coming years.

    It’s well known at this point that Seider took the NHL’s toughest minutes last season. We’re talking an off-the-charts level of difficulty relative to his peers. And it’s a major mitigating factor when talking about Seider’s underlying play-driving numbers, which last year dipped down to just a 43.26 percent expected goals share when he was on the ice at five-on-five, according to Evolving-Hockey.

    When you know a player is facing the hardest competition in the league, of course, it’s easy to understand why that number is what it is. None of the top-10 defensemen in strongest offensive opponents last season (as of March 28, when The Athletic’s Dom Luszczyszyn covered Seider’s situation in-depth) finished with an expected goals share above 50 percent. Certainly, there are other factors at work there, such as the quality of teammates of rebuilding teams like Montreal and Chicago for players such as Kaiden Guhle and Alex Vlasic. But it stands out.

    Of the 10 defensemen with the next-toughest, nine of them managed to clear the 50 percent mark. That list includes Sanderson, Noah Hanifin, Gustav Forsling, Aaron Ekblad, Noah Dobson and Brett Pesce.

    And while, yes, Seider still played tougher minutes than all of them, those are realistically the kind of results that can make his deal a success for the Red Wings. Because as tough as that workload was for Seider last season, it’s not going anywhere.

    “I don’t foresee that changing,” head coach Derek Lalonde said. “Where we are as a team, how valuable he is, how he can handle top lines — I think part of our continued growth with (team) points and wins over the last two years, why it’s headed in the right direction, is because of that part of the game and being able to handle matchups. So, I don’t think that’s going to change, as long as he’s here with the Red Wings.”

    Continued; I know the metrics are the metrics, but I believe that getting that “expected goals share” to 50% or more involves both Seider’s self-improvement curve and spelling him of some of those minutes by adding a shut-down defenseman via trade at some point this season.

    Can Seider become a better player in terms of defending at the tender age of 23? Definitely. Does he need to become a better player in terms of defending because he’s going to earn $8.55 million this upcoming season? Definitely.

    Continue reading On Moritz Seider and ‘große Erwartungen,’ I mean ‘great expectations’

    Re-signing Raymond and Seider wasn’t exactly ‘bizarro’

    The Athletic’s Sean McIndoe consistently reviews teams’ offseason moves each September, pondering how strange the moves might be via a “bizarro meter.” He discusses the Eastern Conference today, and McIndoe seems a little surprised that the Red Wings managed to get their offseason work done before the end of training camp:

    Detroit Red Wings

    The offseason so far: At a high level, pretty much the same offseason Steve Yzerman has had for the last few years, as the Wings added a few interesting players without doing anything that really made you think they’d take a significant step forward.

    But their strangest story was: Getting the Lucas Raymond and Moritz Seider deals done, although it took until the last few days for it to happen. Still, both deals were reasonable and could even be bargains, so Yzerman clearly played it well.

    Bizarro-meter ranking: 3.8/10. Pour one out for the theory that Seider’s agent was playing the long game to get his payback against Yzerman and the Wings. Ah well, the Yzerplan marches on.

    Continued (paywall); yadda yadda, Yzerplan in neutral, yadda yadda, Claude Lemieux vs. Steve Yzerman, etc. etc.

    I was disappointed that I wasted chunks of my summer worrying when or whether Raymond or Seider would re-sign, given that the team’s methodical GM simply utilized time and the potential of missing games to extract fair deals from J.P. Barry and Lemieux, respectively…

    But my therapist got a laugh out of me pondering when Raymond and Seider might re-sign as an anxiety trigger, and the Red Wings’ management group made the inevitable happen.

    That’s not bizarre. It’s Yzerman and company grinding away until the job was done.

    Duff discusses the Red Wings’ reinforced roster

    Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff discusses whether this year’s Red Wings team is better-prepared for a successful playoff push, arguing that Detroit’s “bottom six” forwards are better-prepared to check, check and check some more…

    Andrew Copp, Michael Rasmussen and Christian Fischer established their credentials as a top-notch shutdown checking unit. A fourth line that could very well be comprised of Joe Veleno, Tyler Motte and Jonatan Berggren will still be capable of producing offense. But in grinders like Motte, Veleno and Fischer, there are players in that bottom six group who will also be meting out physical punishment on a consistent basis.

    “We talked about maybe this lineup slotting a little more natural than our teams have looked in the past going into the season,” [coach Derek] Lalonde said.

    And Duff suggests that the size and strength which the Red Wings now possess on the blueline–and in goal–should help the team:

    The top four of Moritz Seider, Ben Chiarot, Edvinsson and Jeff Petry are at least six-foot-three. Each weighs over 200 pounds.

    In goal, at 6-foot-4 and 200 pounds, newcomer Cam Talbot looks more like today’s NHL netminder. He’s also a workhorse, twice starting 67 or more games in an NHL season. An NHL All-Star last season, Talbot would start 52 times for the Los Angeles Kings.

    “Again, we’re trying to take some steps from where we were last year,” Lalonde said. “It’s just guys understanding the roles, understanding their identity. I think that is successful to any team that’s trying to win hockey games. Again, it’ll be work in progress in the preseason, but I think we’re all excited to see it.”

    Continued; I’m not certain whether the Red Wings are going to make a playoff push this season, but I do agree that the Wings are better-slotted in terms of their forward lineup to have a scoring “top six” and a checking “bottom six.”

    As far as the defensive corps is concerned, it feels like a work in progress to me, but I do believe that Talbot should improve the team’s goaltending on an overall basis.

    We’ll see how things shake out, as coach Lalonde suggests, over the course of the preseason and the first 10 games of a very busy 20-day stretch in October.

    I’m crossing my fingers.

    Tweet of note: It was ‘content day’ at LCA

    It’s usually called “media day,” but the Red Wings are calling today’s events at Little Caesars Arena “content day” as the Red Wings’ players and goaltenders shot promos for their TV, online and in-house broadcasts. Cue the montage!