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!

Tuesday post-practice Tweets: starting goaltender uncertain for Wednesday vs. Philadelphia

The Red Wings appeared to be a healthy team as forwards Dylan Larkin and Marco Kasper took part in Tuesday’s practice, as did goaltender Alex Lyon.

With the Wings preparing to play a slate of 4 games over the course of 6 nights, starting tomorrow with a home game vs. Philadelphia (7:00 PM EST on TNT/97.1 FM), the Wings will need all hands on deck to turn their 12-14-and-4 record around.

After practice, Red Wings coach Derek Lalonde spoke with the assembled media regarding the state of the Wings’ health, as noted by DetroitRedWings.com’s Daniella Bruce:

Tweets from Tuesday’s practice: Wings are healthy-ish as they prepare to host Flyers

The Detroit Red Wings will begin a slate of four games to be played over the course of pre-Christmas nights when they host the 14-13-and-4 Philadelphia Flyers tomorrow at Little Caesars Arena.

Detroit will play the Flyers, get a day off, then play a home-and-home series with the Montreal Canadiens on Friday and Saturday, and host the St. Louis Blues this upcoming Monday, all before taking a 3-day Christmas break. They’ll conclude December with 3 home games vs. Toronto, Washington and Pittsburgh.

After yesterday’s news that Alex Lyon is expected to start Wednesday, that Cam Talbot may return for Friday’s game vs. Montreal, and that Dylan Larkin (maintenance) and Marco Kasper were expected to play on Wednesday, the Wings were anxious to see what happened as they took to the ice at the BELFOR Training Center under LCA.

MLive’s Ansar Khan reported good news from today’s practice:

Meanwhile, in suburban Philadelphia…

Back at “The BELFOR”…

A simple remedy for the Red Wings’ lack of offense in shooting the puck

Both the Free Press’s Helene St. James and Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff discuss a simple solution to the Red Wings’ difficulty in producing offense this morning, with an emphasis on the team producing a higher volume of shots on goal in order to score more goals.

That’s not as simple as it sounds, but it’s also not as complicated as the Wings’ players may think, as St. James notes…

“You don’t want to waste shots, but if we’re in an area to have a good chance to shoot it on net or get some action at the net, we want to be a team that takes those chances, instead of looking for a better play or another pass,” veteran forward Patrick Kane said. “We’ve got good players in here that can read the play but sometimes I think we want to have that possession and maybe we overpass a little bit. So just having a shooting mentality has been better for us.”

The Wings (12-14-4) are trying to climb inside the playoff picture and win consecutive games for the first time since Thanksgiving. Head coach Derek Lalonde has fingered the team’s DNA multiple times, essentially pointing out the forwards especially are prone to passing rather than shooting. And while there’s something to be said for holding onto the puck when a path to the net is not clear – well, on the flip side, there’s an argument favoring creating chaos and heeding Lalonde’s message to put the puck at the blue paint.

“I think they just learn to trust it a little more,” Lalonde said. “I get it, it’s a weird NHL right now – I saw an article on goalie save percentages being so low. I do think there’s an NHL today where people don’t waste shots. The old-school coming down the wing, throwing it into the goalie’s stomach, the goalie sees it – [don’t] waste shots. But I still think we can have a little more predictability knowing the puck is going to the net, because we have bodies there. I just think there’s a little messaging from the success we had in third period of Philly to that game – I just hope they can trust it a little more.”

St. James also posted a video of Kane, Moritz Seider and coach Lalonde addressing the shooting issue…

Continue reading A simple remedy for the Red Wings’ lack of offense in shooting the puck

Accentuating the negative

In the “They’re not gonna make it!” category this morning, ESPN’s Greg Wyshynski handicaps the playoff chances of the NHL’s 32 teams today, and he’s understandably not optimistic about the Red Wings’ stead…

Detroit Red Wings

Record: 12-14-4, 28 points
Playoff chances: 13.4%

The Red Wings actually have a better probability for making the playoff cut than some of their Eastern Conference rivals, despite being projected to finish with 83 points. Detroit was 26th in the NHL after 30 games (.467), which put it about the same distance from the league basement as it did the last wild-card spot in the East.

As long as the goaltenders are either Cam Talbot or Alex Lyon, the Red Wings have had a chance to win on most nights. But they’ve squandered a lot of those chances — and a decent 5-on-5 defense — with one of the worst penalty kills in the league (67.5%), and an offense that doesn’t seem to exist outside of the top-line trio of Alex DeBrincat, Dylan Larkin and Lucas Raymond.

Cause for concern: The NHL has seen its share of teams in which one line carried them to the postseason bubble. As good as the Larkin line is offensively, it has only a 43% goals-for percentage at 5-on-5 because it gives up so much the other way. But at least the line scores: Outside of that trio, the Red Wings don’t have another forward with more than 14 points through 30 games. That’s not going to cut it in the East.

Continued; there’s no doubt that the Red Wings have often become a top-line-only team over the course of the first 30 games, but that’s a solveable problem…

And The Athletic’s Shayna Goldman discusses the struggles of the Red Wings, Buffalo Sabres and Ottawa Senators thus far, with Goldman blaming the Red Wings’ roster-building instead of the results of the roster that the team is, thus far, anyway, stuck with:

Continue reading Accentuating the negative

Wings notebooks of note: On one-goal games, save percentages and injury updates

Of belated Red Wings-related note:

  1. The Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan filed an afternoon notebook article which discusses the Wings’ increasing comfort level with playing in one-goal games…

10 of their last 13 games have been decided by a single goal. And even in those three other games, the Wings scored a late empty-net goal in two of the games for victories, while Philadelphia did likewise in the other. They are 3-4-3 in those one-goal decisions, earning nine of a possible 20 points.

The Wings have won 2 of their past 3 games, however, as coach Derek Lalonde emphasized:

“Again, I may sound like a broken record, but what is a little bit frustrating in our big picture is that five-game stretch, and our process and underlying numbers, they are easy to pick apart when you’re winning and not as easy pick apart when you’re losing, but whatever the reality is, the bottom line is finding ways to win games,” Lalonde said. “We need to slip some of those tight games, and we’ve done that in two of our last three to get some traction here.”

Playing in these games where a single mistake can decide an outcome one way or another, has become natural lately for the Red Wings. And in the Toronto win, there was a definite sense the Wings were confident and at ease.

“It helps to be comfortable in those situations, and find ways to win,” Lalonde said. “Hang in there with your game and make that play, and be comfortable in those situations, which I thought for the most part against Toronto, we were comfortable in that game. That game felt comfortable throughout, despite the fact you could tell their elite, high-end guys were on top of their game.”

2. Detroit Hockey Now’s Kevin Allen posted an article discussing the state of the Wings’ goaltending, as evidenced by Cam Talbot and Alex Lyon’s respective save percentages…

Continue reading Wings notebooks of note: On one-goal games, save percentages and injury updates

Video: Kane and Lalonde speak with the media after Monday’s practice

During Monday’s Red Wings practice at the BELFOR Training Center, Cam Talbot made a quick appearance, Dylan Larkin took a “maintenance day,” and Marco Kasper remained out sick.

After practice, coach Derek Lalonde told the Red Wings’ media corps that it’s Alex Lyon who will probably be ready to return to action Wednesday against Philadelphia, that Larkin will practice tomorrow, and that Kasper may practice tomorrow, with Talbot aiming for a Friday return.

The Red Wings have posted a video in which forward Patrick Kane and coach Derek Lalonde speak with the media:

Building up offense from the blueline

The Red Wings haven’t received much scoring from their blueline this season, but Jeff Petry (1G, 1A) and Moritz Seider (1G) posted goals during Saturday’s 4-2 victory over Toronto. As such, MLive’s Ansar Khan asked Petry and Seider what the team can do to generate more offense from the team’s blueliners:

The Red Wings have struggled to produce. They rank 28th in goals per game (2.57), a significant decline from last season when they finished ninth (3.35).

Part of that is due to less offense from the defense, which isn’t unexpected after they lost Shayne Gostisbehere (10 goals, 56 points) to free agency and traded Jake Walman (12 goals, 21 points).

The Red Wings ranked seventh in the NHL in goals (44) and points (188) from defensemen in 2023-24. They’re currently in the bottom five in that category (10 goals, 48 points).

Petry said they’ve talked about creating more offense from the back end.

“Cycling the puck, getting it low to high, getting bodies to the net,” Petry said. “I think just creating that shot-scramble mentality, and I think that opens up space for plays to be made but also rebounds that are sitting there. When you’re not putting the puck in the net as often as you’d like, I think you get some of those greasy, gritty goals, and I think that just kind of lifts you up.”

Seider leads the team’s defensemen with four goals, including two in the past three games, and 16 points.

“Obviously, not the primary job, but I would say it’s a really good feeling,” Seider said. “I think we can do a better job of just getting pucks to the net, especially from the blue line, creating a little bit of chaos in front of the net and let the forwards do their work net-front, and hopefully we (defensemen) can chip in a little bit of offense that way.”

Continued; I know that Seider’s “primary job” isn’t to generate offense, but it never hurts to rip a slap or snap shot from the point toward the goal. Larry Murphy of all people proved to me that you don’t need to have a snap shot that breaks a pane of glass to facilitate offense.

Post-practice Tweets: Larkin had a ‘maintenance day,’ Talbot’s not ready to go vs. Philly

As MLive’s Ansar Khan and the Free Press’s Helene St. James reported, Red Wings goaltender Cam Talbot made an impromptu appearance at Monday’s practice, but he did not stay out for long, and both Dylan Larkin and Marco Kasper were absent.

After practice, coach Derek Lalonde spoke with the assembled media corps…

Tweets from Monday’s practice: Talbot skating, Larkin, Kasper absent

Per MLive’s Ansar Khan, the Red Wings hit the ice at Little Caesars Arena’s BELFOR Training Center around 11 AM this morning, preparing for Wednesday’s home game vs. Philadelphia:

I heard from an uncle of a friend…

I try not to diss other people’s points of view here. I don’t feel that it improves the conversation that TMR tries to start by saying, “Well, this is utter bullshit.” But I’m pretty close to suggesting as much regarding Daily Faceoff’s Hunter Crowther’s assertion that the Red Wings’ GM is about to be fired because the team is in revolt or something, per a set of power rankings:

25. Detroit Red Wings

Record: 12-14-4, -16
Last Week: 26th (+1)
Hunter’s Rank: 25th
Scott’s Rank: 24th

Hunter [Crowther]: Too often I hear the phrase “the murky middle,” which usually refers to the “No Man’s Land” of professional sports where teams aren’t good enough to compete, but aren’t bad enough to tank for a draft pick. I’d say the Red Wings are closer to being a bottom feeder, but they still have moments where you wonder, “maybe they’re not that bad.” But believe me: they’re bad. And after chatting with my partner whose whole family is from Windsor, Ont., which shares a border with Detroit, when Steve Yzerman comes up, it’s not a matter of if he’s losing the plot, but a matter of when he loses his job.

Please understand: Steve Yzerman is going to be the Red Wings’ general manager for the foreseeable future. He’s an easy scapegoat for the Wings’ struggles as the rebuild’s buck stops with him, but even Yzerman has tempered expectations for his team’s on-ice performances throughout his free agency signings…

And I just don’t understand this whole, “Yzerman is going to be fired!” dynamic when the reality of the situation is that he is, for better or worse, the GM for as long as he wants to be the GM. That’s how it works in the Ilitches’ organization, and that’s how it’s going to work.

My hockey-obsessed relatives in Metro Detroit insist that they have the inside track on what’s going on with the Red Wings’ airtight nuclear submarine in terms of rumors of air bubbling to the surface…

But the Red Wings’ ship runs silent and runs deep, never needing to surface to replenish its air supply, so we are all left to speculate as the GM very purposefully doesn’t share clues as to his motives or machinations.