Author: George Malik

The Hockey News’s Connor Eargood discusses the fact that Little Caesars Arena has yet to host an NHL playoff game some eight years into its existence, and the truth of the matter is that LCA has yet to host any playoff game eight years in thanks to the Pistons’ playoff drought as well.

Anyway, Eargood’s bloody thorough in terms of going through the NHL buildings struggling with playoff droughts over the years, Detroit’s various arenas included. At present:

Right now, the Red Wings are tied with the Columbus Blue Jackets with seven seasons without hosting a playoff game in Nationwide Arena. The Blue Jackets technically went eight years without hosting a playoff game, but 2004-05 was the NHL lockout and no games were played that season.

In greater NHL history, Detroit could tie the Washington Capitals for the longest ever NHL playoff drought after opening a new arena. When the Caps joined the league in 1974-75, they went eight seasons without hosting a playoff game at the Capital Centre. The difference is, Washington was an expansion team, not one of the league’s most historic franchises.

Since Little Caesars Arena opened, three new arenas have joined the NHL circuit. The New York Islanders opened UBS Arena in 2021-22, while the Seattle Kraken joined the NHL while playing in their current Climate Pledge Arena in the same season. Both those teams went one season without playoff hockey to usher in their new homes. The Utah Hockey Club will add the third new arena this season when it plays its first season in Salt Lake City at the Delta Center.

Excluding newcomer Utah that has yet to play a game, Little Caesars Arena is the only current NHL arena to never host a playoff game.

Continued with some very thorough historical analysis; again, no playoff games at all for LCA. It won’t really get a reputation as a pumping Pizzarena or a Dough Joe until the Wings and/or Pistons get their stuff together.

The Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan examines the Atlantic Division’s eight teams today, and Kulfan sees the Red Wings finishing in a similar spot to last year–in fifth place, possibly earning a Wild Card playoff spot:

5. Detroit Red Wings

▶ 2023-24: 41-32-9, 91 points. Added: RW Vladimir Tarasenko, C Tyler Motte, D Erik Gustafsson, G Cam Talbot. Subtracted: LW David Perron, RW Daniel Sprong, LW Robby Fabbri, D Shayne Gostisbehere, D Jake Walman.

▶ Analysis: Getting RW Patrick Kane to re-sign was a key, and youngsters like D Simon Edvinsson and RW Jonatan Berggren are expected to seamlessly enter the lineup. But there are clear areas the Wings need to improve upon. The team defense has to be better, cutting an inflated goals-against number. Tarasenko, Berggren, maybe Joe Veleno, have to supply the offense lost. Talbot, or Ville Husso or Alex Lyon, has to grab hold of the starting goaltender position

Continued; as we all know by now, the Red Wings have a three-headed goaltending monster right now, and that’s one of a handful of storylines to discuss heading into training camp, including…

1. Whether the Red Wings will be able to overcome the losses of David Perron, Shayne Gostisbehere and Daniel Sprong’s offensive contributions;
2. Whether the Red Wings will be able to shore up their defensive play enough that they don’t have to rely on the Miraculous Comeback Button of late-game comebacks to win down the stretch;
3. Whether they can find the consistency necessary to not be fighting for a playoff tiebreaker in the final game of the season, instead appearing playoff-relevant all season long;
4. How the defense will sort itself out given that the Wings have Simon Edvinsson and Albert Johansson to break in, and Justin Holl still aboard;
5. Whether the Wings’ improved balance up front will help the team score more consistently;
6. And how the goaltending situation will sort out, because the Wings appear set to have EIGHT goalies in the organization to start out the 2024-2025 season (see: Ville Husso, Alex Lyon and Cam Talbot in Detroit, Jack Campbell and Sebastian Cossa at the AHL level, and Carter Gylander, Gage Alexander and the AHL-contracted Jan Bednar battling it out in Toledo).

Eight days until the server fees come due. Just under three weeks until we’re supposed to leave for Traverse City. And the fundraising situation is…going okay. We’ve raised about $700 of the $860 needed to cover the server costs to keep TMR running, and after that, well…

It’s going to take some very generous folks to help Aunt Annie and I get up to Traverse City.

We’ve had some tight situations before and made it through thanks to generous donors at all levels of fundraising, but if you’ve been gone all summer, didn’t know that TMR is re-launching, or just haven’t felt like donating yet, as NPR would say, “Now is the time!”

DetroitRedWings.com’s Jonathan Mills profiles big defenseman Shai Buium this morning, discussing the 21-year-old’s decision to turn pro after his junior season–and two NCAA Division 1 championships–at the University of Denver:

Buium earned National Collegiate Hockey Conference (NCHC) Second All-Star Team honors last season after setting NCAA career-highs in goals (seven), assists (29), points (36) and games (43) at the University of Denver, helping the Pioneers capture their second NCAA Division 1 national championship in three years.

The No. 36 pick of the 2021 NHL Entry Draft by Detroit, Buium said he made key strides during his time at the University of Denver.

“I think I’ve gotten a lot better defensively,” Buium said. “You learn new things every year. I like to be a sponge, just take it all in. Good defense just generates more offense for me. I like to be on the offensive side of things, and playing good defense helps with that.”

Buium said he quickly noticed the elevated competition at the AHL level [with Grand Rapids] last season.

“I was already in playoff hockey in the NCAA, so I would say (the AHL) is similar in that style of play,” the young defenseman said. “I just think guys are probably faster, stronger and smarter.”

Continued; right now it looks like the 6’3,” 220-pound defenseman projects as a shut-down D, but Buium does have some good offensive instincts. Ideally, he develops into a Swiss Army Knife defender that can be utilized in all situations.

The Toledo Walleye did a great job of sharing their 2024-2025 in-arena promotions via a snappy video this morning:

Good morning. I’m just re-posting this Tweet so that folks know on the blog as many of you do not intersect:

FWIW @IcehockeyG and @LGRWProspects, among others:

The IIHF placed some YouTube placeholders for IIHF World Championship Qualifying games later this month. Looks like two games w/ Kasper are scheduled to be shown.

And yes, I subscribe to NASA stuff and Sesame Street. Judge me… pic.twitter.com/uAqRxPAMFo

— George Malik (@georgemalik) August 23, 2024

The IIHF’s YouTube page itself doesn’t have the placeholders, but you can subscribe here: https://www.youtube.com/@iihf/videos

Shout out to ALL of the Red Wings prospect community’s members for the heads-ups regarding the World Championship Qualifying games.

Now here’s Elmo for your entertainment.

I guess I have to post this one, but as someone who bookmarks Swedish websites…It’s a chore. “Hat Trick Dick” Axelsson played in the SHL for a long time after leaving the Grand Rapids Griffins at Christmas of 2009, and…

He’s had some good results points-wise, but my goodness, is he ever a drama queen. Axelsson was constantly in the news for one grumble or another or one controversy or another. It got tiresome a long, long time ago, and I’d hoped that the Dick Axelsson Circus was reaching a conclusion when he retired a year ago.

As Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff notes this morning, that was a premature hope:

Eighteen years after he was a Detroit Red Wings hopeful, Dick Axelsson is making a pro hockey comeback. The 37-year-old left-winger will be playing this season with Djurgarden in the Allsvenskan, Sweden’s second division.

The veteran Swede was ending a two-season retirement last season to play for Brodernas/Vasby in the Swedish third division and Allsvenskan qualifiers. He was announcing his retirement a second time following the campaign. But Djurgarden, his club from 2007-09 and again from 2018-22, were luring Axelsson back to the ice.

“I am of the belief that a person deserves both one and two chances to show what one is fully up to,” Djurgarden sports director Niklas Wikegard said in a statement on the team’s website.

Axelsson is a two-time SHL champion and was an Elitserien All-Star selection in 2010-11. He also won a Swiss League title with Davos.

Wikegard happens to be an outspoken former hockey TV personality in Sweden, and he’s been tasked with returning Djurgarden to the SHL, so it’s not surprising that he’s made a “go back to the well” move in pulling Axelsson out of retirement.

Anyway, Duff notes that Axelsson did a lengthy interview with Expressen’s David Carlsson back in June, in which he discussed his ill-fated time trying to make the Red Wings, his time in Grand Rapids, and his decision to leave the Griffins for Sweden at Christmastime…

But I’d rather give Mr. Duff the click and suggest that you read about Axelsson’s short sojourn with Detroit and his decision to head back home (with the help of Mattias Ritola, who eventually packed his bags and moved home) over on Detroit Hockey Now.

It’s a story those of us who try to follow the Swedish Wings have become too familiar with, because “Hat Trick Dick” has no shortage of sympathy for himself, and his many trials and tribulations, when there’s a microphone around.

He’s still a drama queen, pure and simple, and while I appreciate Mr. Duff’s decision to fill you in on the latest twist in Axelsson’s weird and winding career…

I’ve had way too much of “Hat Trick Dick” over the years of surveying Expressen, Aftonbladet, Hockeysverige.se and Hockeynews.se.

He really gets on my nerves, because there was no doubt for a minute that Axelsson was a very talented player, but there’s no doubt for a minute that Axelsson also can’t stand to be out of the media spotlight for long. He always found a way to get back “in the papers” with an outspoken interview or some sort of on or off-ice calamity that perked up the ears of the Swedish sports tabloids, and it’s unbelievable how much I’ve read (and not read) about a has-been-that-never-was.

I’m not the savviest when it comes to Instagram, but I saw this from Power Edge Pro, the skating and hockey skill development program that came to fame thanks to the edge-work of Connor McDavid’s blades…

And it appears that the PEP folks are in Plymouth to give the group of American NHL’ers who train at USA Hockey Arena a hand:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Power Edge Pro (PEP) (@power_edge_pro)

And yes, if you are not aware of the fact that Dylan Larkin, the Hughes brothers, Cole Caufield, Alex DeBrincat and a small constellation of American stars are spending their summers training and skating in Plymouth, Michigan, you’re not paying attention. It’s one of those “hidden gem” things around here.

I tend to assume that you’ve been paying attention, dear readers, and that might not be the wisest thing to do all the time.

We’ve talked about Marco Kasper and Michael Brandsegg-Nygard a bit over the course of the last couple of weeks, with Kasper training in Klagenfurt, Austria under his dad/agent/mentor’s watchful eye, preparing for the Olympic Qualifying tournament, where he’ll play for Austria…

And the highlight clips of Brandsegg-Nygard have been flowing as he prepares for a truncated preseason which includes preseason games played for Skelleftea AIK of the SHL, a couple of Champions League games, and the same Olympic Qualifying games from August 29-31, where MBN is going to play for Norway.

If you were not aware of these two players’ statuses as attempting to help their respective countries make the Olympics in Turin in 2026, the Hockey News’s Connor Eargood posted an explainer:

Daily Faceoff’s Scott Maxwell is ranking the NHL’s 32 teams by their salary cap management.

You will be shocked to find that the rebuilding Red Wings do not rank highly due to over-paying free agents and so forth, but Maxwell makes some cogent points here, too:

28. Detroit Red Wings (2023: 30^th)

Good Contract Percentage: t-30th (2023: 24th)
Quality Cheap Deals: t-24^th (2023: 9th)
Contracts with No-Trade/No-Move Clauses: t-24^th (2023: 28th)
Dead Cap Space: 14^th (2023: 24th)
Quality of Core: t-26^th (2023: 20th)
Cap Space to Skill Differential: 12^th (2023: 21st)

The Detroit Red Wings are a team whose ranking should be taken with a massive grain of salt. The fact they have yet to sign two of their biggest young stars in Lucas Raymond and Moritz Seider means that they could very well not finish in this spot by the time we publish the full list. Whether that will see them improve or get worse remains to be seen, but for now, let’s look at what they do have.

The biggest issue with the Red Wings is their continued desire to block their young talent by signing veterans to fill up their cap space. Admittedly, all three of their big veteran adds in Vladimir Tarasenko, Erik Gustafsson and Cam Talbot all grade out as good deals, but the pre-existing deals like Andrew Copp, J.T. Compher, Ben Chiarot and Justin Holl meant they already had no room to add more without getting in the way of their talent. The team has certainly improved, but they have a salary cap picture that looks daunting to navigate going forward, which is almost impressive considering how well Steve Yzerman did cleaning up the previous mess left by Ken Holland.

Continued; I’m not going to disagree, honestly. I understand that the Red Wings are going to be judged heavily as to how the management group manages (no pun intended) to work Raymond and Seider’s deals in under the cap (and Jonatan Berggren’s, for that matter)…

And the one thing that really pisses me off about Steve Yzerman’s management is that the team does over-veteran-ize the team. I’m comfortable with some of the free agent signings, and at least at peace with the Copps and Holls of the world as “things that cannot be undone,” but you guys know me by now…

I’m somebody who wants to see what the young kids can do 80% of the time. I understand that when you build a team, you do not build a convertible–you build a big, honkin’ SUV with snow tires and tow hooks–but there has to be some available space left for promoting from within, and that space has been taken up by veteran players for the past couple of seasons.

Has it been necessary due to the lack of depth left over by the crater that Ken Holland left for Yzerman? Sure, but Steve has not been perfect in his cap management or 50-man-roster management, and there are times that you can put up roadblocks for your younger players, and fans want to see the Edvinssons and Johanssons and Mazurs and Kaspers and Danielsons for more than one or two games per season.

Now some of that falls upon coaching decisions, but between Yzerman’s over-pollenating of the roster with veterans and Lalonde’s seeming unwillingness to trust anyone not named Zach Aston-Reese with a call-up, I think that there has been some stunted development over the past couple of seasons, and that has to be rectified.

That does apply to cap and roster management, too, so it’s relevant here. And now that the Red Wings have a prospect pool, it’s time to include some wiggle room in terms of call-ups and promotions to afford the young kids time to impress and improve before their waiver-exempt statuses expire.

Ultimately, the NHL is not a developmental league, the coaches and GM’s tell us, but without affording top prospects some ability to acclimate themselves to NHL action, your team begins to stagnate, and the Wings have been really stagnant at times over the past couple of seasons.

It’s time to see that slowly change.