Author: George Malik

I’ve been told that it’s a balmy 71 degrees and sunny on this Saturday afternoon in August. I woudln’t really know, honestly, because I’m busy taking care of Aunt Annie and I’m busy manning the blog, and there really are no days off any more in a 24/7/365.25-day news cycle.

I kind of enjoy it, though I’ll readily admit that I’ve been napping for most of my day after playing the Sims 4 a little too late last night.

You’ll have to pardon me for interrupting your sunny Saturday to ask for help raising funds to pay this year’s $850 server bill and to raise the $5,000 or so necessary to bring Aunt Annie and me up to Traverse City to cover the Red Wings’ truncated prospect tournament and main training camp.

Those are still the goals of this fundraising drive. Our vehicle is still busted, so we need to rent a car, and, as the primary caregiver of an 82-year-old who is still recovering from a double hip replacement, there’s no way that Aunt Annie stays home while I go up to Traverse City. That makes the trip “Up North” expensive, but we made it happen last year, and I believe that we can do it again–in order for me to provide you with in-person training camp coverage.

At this point, the fundraiser is not going great, but all I’m gonna do is keep the faith and hope that we’ll buck the unpleasant present’s trend and get the improbable done.

Again, we have many options by which you can help us make this website’s future certain, as well as donate to the Traverse City endeavor:

We have an official GoFundMe fundraiser page; we have a PayPal option at https://paypal.me/TheMalikReport; there’s Venmo at https://venmo.com/george-malik-2; if you’re into the, “I don’t want to use any of those pages” option, here’s always the Giftly option by using my email, rtxg@yahoo.com, at https://www.giftly.com…

You can contact me via email if you want to send me a paper check, or “Zelle” me via my email, rtxg@yahoo.com. And I’m also on Cash App under “georgeums.”

Regardless of whether you’re able to support the blog, I thank you for your time and readership.

Bleacher Report’s estimable Adam Gretz discusses ways by which teams can and/or should have “moved the NHL’s worst contracts,” and, as we’ve become accustomed to, he cites the long-rumored Jacob Trouba-to-the-Red Wings trade scenario as one that should still be able to happen:

Jacob Trouba to the Red Wings: It seems more likely than not that Trouba will end up staying with the Rangers, making an offseason full of drama, speculation and rumors meaningless.

But in a perfect world, the Rangers would still like to move on from their captain And they probably should still try.

Not only because they need the salary-cap space this season and next season, but they also need to do something to change their defense and become more mobile. Trouba is the Rangers’ captain and a thunderous hitter, but his actual on-ice contributions have rapidly declined. It’s a problem they should try to fix.

Especially if there is a team that might be interested. Like, say, Detroit. That was always the most talked about team this offseason, and even though nothing came together (for one reason or another) let’s stick with that option.

For some reason, the Red Wings were the one team that reportedly had interest and there are ways to make it work — assuming Trouba would be willing to go there.

Detroit still has some salary cap flexibility, but that will disappear when Lucas Raymond and Moritz Seider re-sign as restricted free agents. But it should still have some room to work with.

The Red Wings also have some contracts it could send back the other way to help make the money work. That includes Jeff Petry, Ben Chiarot, Olli Maatta or Justin Holl. Are any of those four players upgrades for the Rangers? Maybe not on paper.

Continued; the trade could still happen. I’m not counting it out, even with Mrs. Trouba in New York, finishing up her medical residency, Mr. Trouba enjoying being the Rangers’ captain, a budding artist and advocate for men’s health issues, and the trade taking some work cap-wise from both teams.

But it hasn’t happened yet because Trouba has his 15-team no-trade list and the above-listed reasons, among other issues for both teams that we probably don’t know about.

Trouba would help the Red Wings, and trading him would help the Rangers. But trades are difficult to consummate for good reasons.

I’m tired of this narrative. The Hockey News’s Jacob Stoller wrote an article titled: “Will this be the year when the Red Wings’ ‘Yzerplan’ leads to a playoff spot? Don’t count on it,” and you can imagine what it’s about:

It’s been five years since Yzerman took over and the ‘Yzerplan’ took shape. Since then, a Red Wings team that last qualified for the playoffs in 2016 has largely resided in the mushy middle. 

They’re in an eight-year playoff drought (five years since Yzerman was hired as GM in 2019), yet they’ve only amassed one top-five pick (Lucas Raymond, selected fourth overall in 2020) during that span. Not good enough for the playoffs, they are also not bad enough for a lottery pick. It’s a puzzling strategy. And for Red Wings fans who are still waiting to celebrate a post-season game at the recently built Little Caesars Arena, it has to be frustrating.

Is this what the Yzerplan was supposed to be? If so, the blueprint needs refining.

“We all would love to make the playoffs next year,” Yzerman has said. “We would have loved to have made the playoffs last year, but ultimately we’re still trying to put together that core of young guys that is going to be together and start to creep into the playoffs and hang around the playoffs and maybe eventually win. So again, that is the big picture, the long-term plan and we’ll stick with that.”

Stoller continues, and you know how it goes, even though he does praise the Wings’ prospect pool.

Now I don’t think that Steve Yzerman is some sort of infallible saint, nor a managerial King Midas who turns everything he touches into gold. He’s made some mistakes since taking the helm of the Red Wings, mostly in free agency, and he’s going to make more mistakes, because he and the management team that surrounds him consist of human beings.

They are fallible, and while they are doing their best to improve the team, it’s bloody hard to do so through free agency when you’re still a fall-back plan for most players, and it’s bloody hard to do when you’re too deep into the draft to snag foundational players of the McDavid-or-MacKinnon variety.

But the Red Wings are where they are at, and the team has a difficult road to take in terms of attempting to build itself into a playoff contender.

I am as frustrated as anyone that the so-called “Yzerplan” is probably somewhere just over halfway through what is most likely a 10-12 year rebuild, and I don’t want Dylan Larkin to spend his entire career captaining a rebuilding team…

But I understand that the rebuilding process takes time, and, for better or worse, I have accepted that the Red Wings’ management are doing it the hard way.

I get really, really tired of the critiques of Yzerman as some sort of boob who’s living off a reputation built in Tampa Bay, or some mediocre moron who’s steering Detroit into the weeds. I think that those kinds of critiques are worth the same amount of my time as those of the few who still suggest that we must defer to “Saint Stevie Y.”

The Red Wings are very much so in the middle right now. It’s not where I want them to be–I want the young people today to see this team contend for a Stanley Cup. But the team is not there yet, and while “trusting the process” can really suck some nights, it’s up to both the team, the coaching staff and the management team to prove their legions of doubters wrong.

It’s easy to pick apart the so-called “Yzerplan.” It’s a lot more difficult to look at the team from a realistic perspective, and that’s where I’m trying to come from as a Red Wings partisan.

Put bluntly, the “Yzerplan” isn’t a crutch. It isn’t a name for something worth nothing but ridicule. It’s just a catchphrase for a general manager’s best efforts and moves–some not-so-smart–which are genuinely meant to improve the hockey team.

Steve Yzerman is probably the Red Wings’ GM for life, and that’s okay. He will steer the Red Wings down the right road. But it’s going to take time.

Detroit Hockey Now’s Kevin Allen reminds us that Red Wings assistant GM Shawn Horcoff and GM Steve Yzerman do more than just build the varsity team’s roster:

Like the Red Wings, the Grand Rapids Griffins have to wonder where the goals will come from next season. Jonatan Berggren is moving up to the NHL, and Austin Czarnik will play in Switzerland. Zach Aston-Reese signed with Vegas. Taro Hirose, Joel L’Esperance and Matt Luff remain unsigned.

EliteProspects has the Griffins’ roster at as many as 27 players as of August 10th–and it includes some players who are on two-way AHL/ECHL contracts, headed for Toledo this upcoming season.

The concept of the Griffins playing “young and lean” this upcoming season is exciting from a developmental perspective, but there’s no doubt that they’re missing veteran scorers.

At the present moment, the Griffins are looking toward Sheldon Dries, Tim Gettinger, Jakub Rychlovsky and Joe Snively to generate offense from the forward unit, and their defensive corps is in flux as players like shut-down defensemen Antti Tuomisto, William Wallinder, Brogan Rafferty and captain/AHL-contracted Josiah Didier will have to step up offensively to “gap up” offensively.

It would not surprise me if somebody like Luff or Hirose was re-signed later this summer, presuming that they don’t find employment elsewhere, and the Wings may very well look toward the leftovers on the unrestricted free agent marketplace–or veteran training camp try-outs–to bridge the gap and support the Red Wings’ young stars-in-the-making.

You may not get too much out of this unless you speak Swedish, but Sveriges Radio posted a quick interview with Red Wings prospect Michael Brandsegg-Nygard, who’s sticking with a simple message as he participates in Skelleftea AIK’s training camp: while he’s going to come over to the U.S. to take part in the Red Wings’ training camp and possibly the exhibition season, he’s hoping to return to Skelleftea for the upcoming season.

The super talent chooses Skelleftea over playing in the U.S.A.

Skelleftea AIK’s Michael Brandsegg-Nygard is one of the SHL’s most exciting new acquisitions. This week, the 18-year-old took part in his first on-ice training session with the team, which he thinks plays fun hockey. During this year, Brandsegg-Nygard will train with an NHL team, but he still aims to stay with Skelleftea for the rest of the season.

It’s hard to imagine that the Red Wings will keep Brandsegg-Nygard in North America unless he cracks the NHL team’s roster. For the present moment, he’s going to try to crack Skelleftea AIK’s SHL roster after a season spent in with Mora IK of the HockeyAllsvenskan, the Swedish second division.

That’s the natural progression for MBN, even with the Red Wings having signed him to an entry-level contract in order to control his playing future. He’ll play in Grand Rapids eventually, but perhaps for the 2025-2026 season instead of this one.

Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff continues the thread of comments from Red Wings coach Derek Lalonde’s appearance at the team’s “Summer Hockey in the D” event earlier this week. Duff notes that neither Raymond nor Seider should expect their respective workloads to get easier any time soon:

There’s no questioning how vital both Seider and Raymond are to the success of the Red Wings. Raymond was a 31-goal scorer last season. His 72 points were leading the team in scoring.

Seider led the Red Wings in time on ice (22:22) and shorthanded time on ice (2:33) per game. He’s logging those minutes in hard situations against the opposition’s best players.

“He’s going to be seeing that the rest of his career,” Lalonde said.

The big German defenseman also wound in a tie for eighth among NHL defensemen with 211 hits. He was second among NHL rearguards with 212 blocked shots.

While it might seem like the Red Wings are running out of time to get restricted free agents Seider and Raymond under contract, Lalonde is entirely confident that they will find common ground a get a deal done prior to the opening of training camp next month.

“I’m not worried,” Lalonde said. “It’s all part of it. I’ve had a little experience with this with past RFAs. I think it’s all part of the process.”

Continued; the deeper the Red Wings are on defense, the better-prepared they are to spell Seider from time to time. It may take until the trade deadline for the team to acquire a shut-down defenseman for the team’s second pair, presuming that Simon Edvinsson and Albert Johansson don’t take that workload on this season.

The Aspen Daily News’s Rich Allen reports that Red Wings assistant GM and director of amateur scouting Kris Draper found himself in Colorado this week, as part of a group of former NHL’ers challenging professional pickleball players:

Aspen Meadows transformed into a top-tier pickleball venue on Thursday, featuring some of the sport’s top players with a twist — some cream-of-the-crop hockey talent traded in their blades and twigs for tennis shoes and paddles.

In the first Pickle ‘n Pucks tournament, the worlds of Tom Dundon collided. Dundon is the owner of the Professional Pickleball League and the NHL’s Carolina Hurricanes, plus a businessman with Aspen ties. So, on National Pickleball Day he brought some of the top players from pickleball to Aspen to showcase their skills, inviting some of his well-known hockey connections and setting up the whole thing to be broadcast on ESPN2 to grab a larger audience.

“The crossover is the most beautiful part of pickleball,” AJ Koller, a PPA pro and former club hockey player at CU Boulder, said. “It’s not just a graveyard for tennis players or ex-tennis players. It really does let baseball guys, football guys, hockey guys find a new competitive spirit after they’re done playing pro. … So to get it on ESPN in a place like this, it’s a perfect marriage for showcasing.”

It turns out that Draper earned praise for both his pickleball skills–as he and Justin Williams beat pro pickleball players–and his drafting abilities, given that the Red Wings picked Carbondale, Colorado’s Fisher Scott with the 208th overall pick in last June’s NHL Draft:

NHL.com’s offering in-depth season preview packages for all its teams this month, and today, they discuss the Red Wings’ 2023-2024 season outlook.

Nicholas J. Cotsonika kicks us off with an article which summarizes Detroit’s hopes of earning a playoff spot this upcoming season:

“There’s definitely expectations going into this season, so that’s always a good thing,” said forward Patrick Kane, who signed a one-year contract June 30 instead of testing the free agent market. “You want those expectations. You want, whether it’s the fans or the media or just players in general, to expect the team and the organization to take the next step.”

The Red Wings have progressed steadily since [GM Steve] Yzerman took over April 19, 2019. After bottoming out with 39 points in 71 games (.275 points percentage) in his first season, they had 48 points in 56 games (.429) in 2020-21, 74 in 82 (.451) in 2021-22, 80 in 82 (.488) in 2022-23 and 91 in 82 (.555) last season.

They failed to qualify for the playoffs last season because they lost the tiebreaker to the Washington Capitals, who earned the second wild card in the Eastern Conference with the same number of points but more regulation wins (32-27). Detroit’s playoff drought stretched to eight seasons, the longest in the team’s 98-year history.

Asked if he feels more pressure to make the playoffs as the years go by, Yzerman said with a laugh, “Um, yeah, a little bit, honestly. Our fan base wants to win. We came close last year to making the playoffs. Still … the finish of our season was very exciting and dramatic. It’s a little bit maybe misleading. We’ve got to really improve, as we talk about, in some areas.”

Cotsonika’s first article continues, and he then asks three important questions of this year’s team. I’m going to go with his second question as the most important one, even though the team’s goaltending situation is question #1 on just about every Wings fan’s mind:

Detroit Hockey Now’s Kevin Allen posted a subscriber-only article discussing five storylines worth watching over the course of the Red Wings’ upcoming training camp and exhibition season, and I actually think that Allen’s last topic is the most intriguing to discuss on a Friday night in August:

Searching for New Czarnik: The Red Wings liked Austin Czarnik because he could shuttle between Detroit and Grand Rapids and do what was needed in either place . They trusted him because he was a two-way player with NHL experience.

However, he will play in Switzerland this season. Who replaces him as the first forward call-up? The preseason will help [GM Steve] Yzerman sort that out. The logical choice is center Sheldon Dries. He scored 11 goals for the Vancouver Canucks in 2022-23. Like Czarnik, Dries is considered a pro’s pro.

But let’s not forget Elmer Soderblom is still trying to earn his way back to Detroit. The 6-foot-8 forward tallied 13 goals in 68 games last season in Grand Rapids. The Red Wings could use his size, even though he’s not true physical player.

The other question is whether the Red Wings are intrigued enough with [Marco] Kasper to fast-track him. If they have a long-term injury at center, you can’t rule that out.

Continued (paywall); the Red Wings may also lean on Nate Danielson, Carter Mazur and William Lagesson as first call-ups if the team runs into an injury bug, which seems an inevitable eventuality.

We’ve been following the media’s coverage of Red Wings coach Derek Lalonde’s appearance at the team’s “Summer Hockey in the D” event, and the coach’s comments regarding his team’s offseason additions, the state of the team’s defense and goaltending, and the need to re-sign Lucas Raymond and Moritz Seider before training camp begins in a month.

This evening, DetroitRedWings.com’s Jonathan Mills ties a bow on the coverage with a from-the-team article discussing Lalonde’s remarks, including the following comments:

“I think we did a good job addressing some holes,” Lalonde said. “It feels like guys may be slotted going into the year a little bit. I think we did a good job addressing some offense, which is very important. It’s just exciting. All I’ve known since coming here is progression.”

Lalonde said expectations have been raised after Detroit just missed the Stanley Cup Playoffs last season.

“This is all part of the process,” Lalonde said. “Expectations have changed because we flirted with getting there — 91 points. We just want a little bit more from everyone. It’s going to be all about a good start.”

For the Red Wings to take another step forward this season, Lalonde said every player must be committed to improving their defensive game.

“We made strides last year,” Lalonde said. “A lot of that was because we were able to find some goals, but obviously I think the numbers speak for themselves. We were a top-10 team in goals scored but bottom-10 in goals against, so we’d love to improve that goals against.”

Detroit added to its blue-line depth this offseason by signing Erik Gustafsson to a two-year free-agent contract and William Lagesson to a one-year free-agent contract on July 1. And prospect Albert Johansson, who inked a one-year, two-way deal on June 19, is expected to compete for a Red Wings roster spot during Training Camp next month.

“I think we were very fortunate last year in staying healthy on the back end, but we’ll need that depth,” Lalonde said. “All eight (defensemen) are very capable. I’m very excited about Simon (Edvinsson). His play towards the end of the year last year was exciting.”

Continued; here’s hoping that we can now move on to the next thing.