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!

Middle-of-the-road in goal (for now)

EP Rinkside’s Sean Shapiro just posted an article which discusses the “long-term outlook in goal” for each and every one of the NHL’s 32 teams, and he ranks the Red Wings in the middle tier out of 5 (i.e. “tier 3”) for their combination of present quality of goaltending and future prospects:

Detroit Red Wings 

Projected starter: Cam Talbot 

Future watch: Trey Augustine, Sebastian Cossa

The Red Wings are going into training camp with three goalies, and all of them have big question marks. Ville Husso missed almost all of last season with injury, Alex Lyon has yet to prove he’s more than a reliable backup, and Talbot is starting to slow down with age. The good news is that Detroit has perhaps the best tandem of the future with Cossa and Augustine, who I expect to be taking over Detroit’s crease in a couple seasons. 

Continued (paywall); there’s no doubt that the Red Wings are hoping that redundancy takes root in terms of the team’s goaltending situation resolving itself over the course of training camp and the exhibition season, but Cossa and Augustine definitely hold much promise down the line.

Tweet of note: Raymond’s not too shabby

The Red Wings just Tweeted out this “more to come” post about Lucas Raymond’s status among the Red Wings’ 21-and-under players:

Afternoon news: more comments from Steve Yzerman and Lucas Raymond’s press conferences

Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman and recently re-signed forward Lucas Raymond both spoke with the media this morning, and this early afternoon produced a wealth of articles which reacted to the comments made in the morning.

Here’s a second crop thereof, starting with the Free Press’s Helene St. James, who discusses Raymond’s re-signing:

The Swedish forward, deftly plucked with the fourth selection in the 2020 draft by general manager Steve Yzerman, has a few details to deal with now that he’s been brought into the fold with an eight-year, $64.6 million deal: Namely, he needs to get to Detroit, his work visa needs to be renewed, and then he needs to get to training camp, which begins Thursday in Traverse City. This will be a whirlwind of a week, but it puts to an offseason to end that had grown increasingly tense as negotiations for the restricted free agent went the distance.

“It’s a special feeling, for sure,” Raymond said Tuesday. “Very excited. You go around, you look at your phone a lot. A lot of screen time. You spend a lot of time on the phone, and to be able to move on from that, I feel like that’s a huge relief.”

The massive contract, second among Red Wings forwards only to captain Dylan Larkin’s $8.7 million annual contract, reflects the value Raymond added especially down the stretch last season, as the Wings chased a playoff spot all the way till Game 82. Raymond had 21 points the last 18 games, and wrapped things up with a six-game point streak (six goals, five assists).

“He certainly took his game to another level, production-wise,” Yzerman said. “We didn’t base everything on the last 20 games, but it certainly has an impact. But I felt throughout the season he continued to get better. There was a significant growth from Year 2 to Year 3. He had a very good offseason last year and came in and played really well and took off down the stretch. We were not shocked by that. We were very pleased with the way he finished the season and showed that he has the ability to play at a higher level, and he did that in all aspects.

“I expect him to be one of our top players again, I expect his game to continue to grow this year. But yeah, it helped his case a lot – I think he had 13 goals the last 20 games. He really helped his cause and we were thrilled to see him play that well. 

The Hockey News’s Connor Eargood asked Raymond whether being part of the contract negotiations was difficult for him…

Continue reading Afternoon news: more comments from Steve Yzerman and Lucas Raymond’s press conferences

As of Tuesday, the Wings’ only injuries consist of Ondrej Becher and Shai Buium

Detroit Hockey Now’s Kevin Allen posted an article which discusses the Red Wings’ injuries going into training camp–which, as it turns out, involve players who participated in this past weekend’s Prospect Games vs. Dallas:

Youngsters Ondrej Becher (80th, 2024) and Shai Buium (36th, 2021) are the only players listed as injured heading into the start of Detroit Red Wings’ training camp on Thursday.

“Becher has a sprained ankle that he did prior to coming to Detroit,” Detroit GM Steve Yzerman said. “I think skating on his own, so he’ll be out for a little while.”

Buium, projected to be a regular in Grand Rapids this season, was injured blocking a shot in Game 2 of Red Wings’ prospect series against the Dallas Stars.

“He’s kind of day to day,” Yzerman said. “We’re doing some more tests at this stage. It doesn’t look like it’s anything serious, and hopefully it’s not. But still, he potentially might miss a few days.”

Allen also included this comment from assistant director of player development Dan Cleary regarding Buium:

“At the end of the day I watched how he played quite a bit,” Cleary said. “Obviously a very successful career in Denver. He can certainly run a power play. He’s smart — makes his good hockey sense work for him. He’s got a good little feel. He can find the middle of the ice well. And he certainly knows what he’s got to work on. But he’s gotten stronger, he’s gotten quicker, he’s in better shape, but the pro game’s tough. American League is a tough league. It’s hard. So it’s gonna be growing (pains) for sure.

Mid-day news: Quotes and quips from Yzerman and Raymond’s press conferences

Of Red Wings-related note this afternoon:

  1. NHL.com has updated its Lucas Raymond re-signing story with quotes from both Steve Yzerman and Raymond’s mid-morning press conferences, via NHL.com’s Tracey Myers:

“Obviously very happy we got it done ahead of training camp,” Raymond said Tuesday. “Of course, you always want it to get done as quickly as possible but that’s the way it goes.

“I felt a huge difference coming into last year, just the way you see the game, the way you handle yourself off ice. And I mean that on ice as well. There are obviously areas I want to keep growing in, keep developing, taking bigger strides, taking more responsibility and getting higher expectations on myself. For sure, that’s the goal. I’m still 22, so hopefully I have a lot of development to still do.”

Red Wings general manager Steve Yzerman pointed to Raymond’s strong finish to last season, when he had 21 points (14 goals, seven assists) in Detroit’s last 18 games, and completed his campaign with 11 points (six goals, five assists) in a six-game point streak.

“Well, he certainly down the stretch took his game to another level production-wise,” Yzerman said Tuesday. “We didn’t base everything on the last 20 games, but it certainly has an impact. But I felt throughout the season he continued to get better. There was a significant growth from year two to year three. Actually, year two was pretty good (45 points; 17 goals, 28 assists in 74 games), production was down a little bit, but it was a good year for him and a learning season.

“He grinded it out, had a very good offseason last year and came in and played really well and then took off down the stretch. We were not shocked by that. We were obviously very pleased how he finished the season and showed he has the ability to play at a higher level and he did that in all aspects.

“You can never guarantee how production goes, but I expect him to be one of our top players again. I expect his game to continue to grow this year. Last year helped his case a lot. … we were thrilled to see him play that well.”

Continued, with this quip about the Moritz Seider contract negotiations:

Continue reading Mid-day news: Quotes and quips from Yzerman and Raymond’s press conferences

Is Ben Chiarot the Red Wings’ ‘worst contract?’

I don’t think that Ben Chiarot is a “bad” defenseman–I think he’s actually gotten better over the course of his tenure with the Red Wings. That being said, I’m not certain whether he’s the ideal partner for Moritz Seider on the Red Wings’ first defensive pairing, and Bleacher Report’s Adam Gretz seems to agree in deeming Chiarot to be the Red Wings’ “worst contract”;

Detroit Red Wings: Ben Chiarot

Chiarot is the type of defenseman who has an intense hold on the NHL’s general managers. He got traded for big returns and then signed a four-year, $19 million contract in Detroit a couple of years ago.

There was a time when he was a pretty capable defender, but those days are gone. Now he tends to get too many minutes in too many big roles. In Detroit, he has spent way too much time on the team’s top pairing next to Moritz Seider over the past two seasons, a partnership that only limited one of the team’s best young players. This signing was a big miss by general manager Steve Yzerman.

Continued; again, he’s not an ideal defenseman by any means, but I don’t think that he’s been awful…And the Andrew Copp deal seems worse to me, honestly.

Dig your own Holl

EP Rinkside’s Sean Shapiro offers a theory to solve the Red Wings’ potential roster difficulties if they are to carry 12 forwards, 8 defensemen and 3 goaltenders this upcoming season–moving defenseman Justin Holl:

Holl only played 38 games last season and only played three after Jan. 31, essentially living in the press box as a healthy scratch. Holl makes $3.4 million against the cap, and still has another year remaining. In a perfect world the Red Wings would find a way to move him out to open up cap space for the 2025-26 season.

Right now Holl has limited value and isn’t a great trade candidate. According to some people I’ve spoken to around the NHL any trade for Holl would require a pretty large sweetener from the Red Wings to make it work.

In the short-term, Detroit could waive Holl and punt the issue down the road, especially since cap space is expected to open up next summer when Husso’ deal expires and Jeff Petry will also likely be off the books.

Continued (paywall); great stuff from Sean as always.

Traverse City Prospects Tournament faces an uncertain future

Among the Hockey News’s Connor Eargood’s “5 takeaways” from Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman’s press conference with the media today:

Traverse City Future is “Up in the Air”

At one time, as many as eight teams played in the Red Wings-hosted NHL Prospects Tournament in Traverse City. But if you watched it over the weekend, you probably noticed that there are only two now — Detroit and the Dallas Stars. The future of the tournament — if you can still call it that — is uncertain.

“The tournament obviously appears to have run its course,” Yzerman said. “A lot of that, over the last three or four years, we’ve gone from eight (teams) down to two for different reasons. Teams wanted to do different things. Some didn’t want to play four games. Some wanted to save the expense and not have to travel to Traverse City. They’re able to do different things.”

What does the path forward look like? Yzerman said there might be interest in a third game, and he and Nill talked about adding a third team to the mix. He also said that a future game in Dallas might be on the radar, too. All this is to say, there are a lot of ideas for how to approach the future of a dying tournament, but the exact steps aren’t defined. As far as a timeline goes, Yzerman said he will reevaluate the situation after training camp.

Continued; at this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Red Wings move the tournament to Little Caesars Arena’s BELFOR Training Center.