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!

Wolak on the rebuild

The Hockey Writers’ Tony Wolak wrote up a really excellent article about the status of the Red Wings’ rebuild this morning, and he addresses the reality of the team’s mixed results with building through both the draft and the hit-or-miss world of free agency:

Putting all of this together—where the team started, Yzerman’s actions, the ratings, and the uncontrollable/external variables that the organization has had to navigate—it’s fair to say that Detroit’s rebuild is progressing and has been successful thus far. The on-ice product is coming along, but the prospect pipeline is the true indicator of success, and the Red Wings have a great stable of young players.

If there’s one point of contention, though, it’s the 2022 offseason. Detroit’s many acquisitions propelled them out of the NHL’s basement into the mushy middle. Key additions Andrew Copp and Ben Chiarot have been disappointing during their tenure in Hockeytown. Plus, their bloated, long-term contracts have hamstrung the organization. 

This challenge of becoming a slightly improved team—yet still falling short of playoff contention—coupled with reduced salary cap flexibility has become a focal point for critics of the Red Wings’ rebuild. However, the situation is more nuanced, and much of it ties back to the five-stage Yzerplan outlined earlier.

The acquisitions of Chiarot, Copp, and David Perron were strategic moves designed to support Seider and Raymond following their stellar rookie seasons. These veterans were brought in to foster meaningful competition within the lineup and to mentor Detroit’s young players.

Moreover, Dylan Larkin was approaching unrestricted free agency the following summer. There may have been pressure to accelerate the team’s progress and demonstrate a promising future to secure Larkin’s commitment. Losing him—whether through a trade or as a free agent—would have been a significant setback to the rebuild’s trajectory.

Given this, I reject the notion that “being bad for longer” was a realistic strategy for the Red Wings. If anything, Detroit’s salary cap management and/or pro scouting should be criticized, not the high-level direction of the team. The latter has proven to be successful thus far.

Continued

Allen: Petry scored only one goal on Saturday

Detroit Hockey Now’s Kevin Allen reports that the NHL chose to take away one of Jeff Petry’s goals in the team’s 4-2 victory over Toronto this past weekend, awarding the first goal of the game to Michael Rasmussen instead:

Detroit Red Wings defenseman Jeff Petry went to bed Saturday with nine career multiple-goal NHL games and sometime Sunday the league decided he only had eight.

The league made an official scoring change Sunday, giving Michael Rasmussen credit for a tip-in on Petry’s shot. Petry is now credited with an assist. Joe Veleno also had an assist.

Detroit Red Wings defenseman Jeff Petry went to bed Saturday with nine career multiple-goal NHL games and sometime Sunday the league decided he only had eight.

The league made an official scoring change Sunday, giving Michael Rasmussen credit for a tip-in on Petry’s shot. Petry is now credited with an assist. Joe Veleno also had an assist.

When the goal was scored, Rasmussen was shown on replays celebrating like he touched the puck on its flight to the net. But there wasn’t clear evidence of that on the replay seen in the press box. The NHL must have had other views of it. Petry had not scored this season before Saturday.

It is hard to see a tip on this replay:

Petry will tell you that it doesn’t matter to him who actually scored the goal, but guys do take points of pride from their successes.

Bultman on the Wings’ rebuild

The Athletic’s Max Bultman answers a whole bunch of “When Should The Red Wings Blow It Up?” questions in a mailbag feature this morning, but I would argue that the last question Bultman answers is far more pertinent than, “Who should the Wings trade away”:

Detroit, Ottawa and Buffalo have been expecting a jump for three years now and the Atlantic standings haven’t budged. Has the parity of the league stagnated, or do these cycles just take longer than we think they should? — Nathan R.

The cycles do take longer than I think anyone wants to admit. Retools, where teams keep a few young stars and build around them, can go quicker, but from a true teardown and rebuild, I think these teams do reflect just how hard it is.

It’s natural to believe you can do it faster “if everything goes right.” But everything very rarely goes right, and without some good fortune (such as winning multiple draft lotteries), it’s easy to get stuck on the way back up.

That doesn’t mean those teams haven’t made mistakes to prolong their timelines, of course. I’m sure Buffalo regrets some trades it has made after watching former core players win Stanley Cups elsewhere. And I can’t help but wonder if some of those moves were made out of frustration for how long the process was taking.

But the reality is, there’s no easy, proven way to complete a rebuild on the quick, unless you get really lucky — either in the draft or some other way. The New York Rangers, for example, had Norris Trophy winner Adam Fox practically force his way into their lap, had a Hart Trophy candidate (Artemi Panarin) pick them in free agency, had a fourth-round pick turn into the best goalie in the world (Igor Shesterkin), and got a No. 1 pick from the draft lottery. That doesn’t happen for most teams.

Eventually, I believe all three of Buffalo, Ottawa and Detroit will get through these miserable years. But I don’t think anyone knows exactly when it will happen, including them.

Continued (paywall); with unrestricted free agency being a hit-and-mostly-miss endeavor, the truth of the matter is that teams need to build from within–and get lucky in terms of non-drafted player personnel additions–in order for what are honestly 10+ year rebuilds to “gain traction,” and Detroit’s arguably shown a couple more flashes of competency than the Sabres or Senators over the course of the past two seasons (though few this year)…

But it’s going to take time and some good fortune for the Wings to truly exit the second tier of the Atlantic Division From Hell. That’s not a good thing or a bad thing; it’s just the truth.

From Red Wings ‘Sisu’ to ‘Red Wings suck,’ media takes on the Wings’ status differ tremendously

The Red Wings’ 4-2 victory over the Toronto Maple Leafs on Saturday was particularly pivotal for the team itself, and the Wings of course hope that they will begin to turn around their 12-14-and-2 record starting on Wednesday when they host the Philadelphia Flyers, embarking upon a 4-games-in-6-nights stretch.

The difference in tone between what the Wings’ writers have to say and the national press believes about the team is starkly different, however.

This morning, the Free Press’s Helene St. James discussed Ville Husso’s first win of the season in optimistic tones…

The Wings (12-14-4) don’t play again until Wednesday when they host the Philadelphia Flyers, doing so buoyed by having just beaten the Toronto Maple Leafs. That was aided by goalie Ville Husso winning his first NHL game in more than a year, and the Wings playing one of their more complete games of the season.

“It was a huge win,” coach Derek Lalonde said after Saturday’s 4-2 victory. “You’re trying to get some traction any way you can. That’s two out of three now. It’s a win against a good team that had their A game. So I give our guys a ton of credit. Just glad we flipped one here.”

There may have been no Wings player happier than Husso, who emerged to chat with reporters wearing a seasonally appropriate Wings hat, its white brim and red fabric, adorned with a white pom-pom, calling to mind someone reputed to reside even further north than Husso’s native Finland. It is Husso’s homeland that has given him strength over the past year, made challenging by injuries and struggles that landed him on waivers and in the minors. To that end, he relied on the stoic perseverance bred into Finns.

“It’s been kind of a tough go there,” Husso said. “Last year, injuries, and this year, no wins. Just keep grinding. It’s called sisu, actually — they teach us at a young age in Finland — trust yourself and do your job. It’s not always easy, but it was nice to get the win for sure.”

The national media, on the other hand, believes that the Red Wings absolutely suck. Whether it’s the Toronto Sun’s Steve Simmons whining that “nobody wants to go near Detroit” yesterday or the Hockey News’ Adam Proteau absolutely, positively must trade everyone and clear the decks via “seller’s” trades in order to tank, tank and tank some more…

And The Athletic’s Sean McIndoe has some negative words to say about the Red Wings as well this morning, arguing that the Wings are truly awful, and that Steve Yzerman should be fired over that:

Continue reading From Red Wings ‘Sisu’ to ‘Red Wings suck,’ media takes on the Wings’ status differ tremendously

Red Wings experiencing December blahs

I’ve been on the IR again, which is plain old pissing me off, but so are the Red Wings, honestly. At 11-14-and-4 heading into tomorrow’s Hockey Night in Canada game vs. Toronto, the Wings sit tied for 6th in the Atlantic Division, but they’re remarkably only 6 points south of 4th place and/or the 1st Wild Card spot.

With that blessed parity basically saving the Wings’ season thus far, I think the greatest amount of frustration I have is with the Wings’ consistency, or the lack thereof.

It feels like it’s one step forward and two steps back for the team every week, and that certainly felt like the case after the Red Wings had that rousing shootout win over Buffalo in Sebastian Cossa’s NHL debut, only to come out flat as a pancake against the Flyers, playing emotionless, robot-like hockey…

And when the Wings’ secondary scoring goes “poof!” and they play robot hockey, man, is it uncomfortable to watch the team underachieve. It looks like they’re playing Jeff Blashill-era “poke-and-hope while trusting the process” hockey from two or three years ago…

And without having replaced Shayne Gostisbehere on defense, without the vocal bench cheerleader that was David Perron, this team can be very quiet and very plain, especially with Patrick Kane in a slump where every pass goes over his stick and every shot goes over the net.

Andrew Copp at least shows up when he seems most irrelevant and scores a couple of crucial goals. Vladimir Tarasenko is slowly warming up. I really liked the pair of Johansson and Gustafsson last night, and both Ben Chiarot and Jeff Petry have been…competent…most of the time.

But without J.T. Compher and Kane going, and the fine DeBrincat-Larkin-Raymond line shut down, again, it feels like Marco Kasper is doing all the heavy lifting up front, and he’s just not at a position in his career where it’s fair to give the Kaspers, Berggrens and Velenos all the offensive responsibilities. For better or worse, they’re just not that consistent (yet?).

Hell, last night, Christian Fischer led the Wings in shots with 4, Moritz Seider had 3 shots and 5 more attempts, the Larkin line (and Seider) were all -3 thanks to Scott Laughton’s 2 empty-net goals, and Simon Edvinsson didn’t play a shift after 54:56 of the 3rd period, which seemed to indicate either “shift management “or a minor injury.

And the Wings are still at a point where Cam Talbot’s facing 35+ shots a game most games, so while he’s been great, the Wings are over-taxing their goaltenders just as they over-taxed them last year.

Add in the Wings’ inability to win faceoffs last night (they went 17-and-29 on faceoffs, or 37%), and the team’s not starting with the puck, and not finishing with the puck, either.

Now the Wings get a 3-day break after Saturday night’s Hockey Night in Canada game against what might be a Anthony Stolarz-less Maple Leafs team, but the Leafs are rolling along at 18-9-and-2, having won 5 of their last 7 games, so there’s almost an expectation (as my The Flying Octopus co-host Tony Wolak has suggested) that Saturday night’s game might be an inflection point for change, should Detroit come out flat…

Continue reading Red Wings experiencing December blahs

Episode 14 of the Flying Octopus Podcast

It was hard to find some positives after the Red Wings’ 4-1 loss to the Philadelphia Flyers on Thursday, but Evan Sabourin, Tony Wolak, Devin Little and I did our best to figure out the direction of the Red Wings going forward in the latest episode of “The Flying Octopus” podcast:

Frustratingly sick again

Hey, everybody. I am sorry that I’ve missed the past three days and two games. I came home from Aunt Annie’s cardiologist’s appointment with a moderate bug, and it’s kept me out of the loop.

I wasn’t able to muster the energy to watch the Red Wings-Sabres game, and I’ve spent most of the past three days down and out in bed with a fever and fatigue.

I hope to be back by Saturday night vs. Toronto at the very latest. It’s been incredibly frustrating, depressing, and disappointing for my health issues to persist like this, and I am very sorry for my absence. It’s bringing me down, big time.

Video: Veleno and Lalonde speak with the media ahead of Red Wings-Sabres game

The Red Wings and Sabres held optional morning skates ahead of tonight’s game between the Detroit Red Wings and Buffalo Sabres tonight (7 PM EST start on FanDuel SportsNet Detroit/MSG-B/97.1 FM), and after the Wings’ skate, Joe Veleno and coach Derek Lalonde spoke with the media:

Red Wings-Sabres morning skate Tweets and game preview: it’s Husso vs. Reimer as two struggle-streaking teams meet in Buffalo

The Detroit Red Wings face a difficult task in battling the Buffalo Sabres this evening (7 PM EST start on FanDuel SportsNet Detroit/MSG-B/97.1 FM). Buffalo has an 11-13-and-3 record because the Sabres, who started well, have dropped 6 straight games, most recently losing 5-to-2 to Utah on Saturday afternoon.

Given that the 10-13-and-4 Red Wings are also on a losing 5-game losing streak (0-3-and-2), something is going to have to give tonight, and Field Level Media reports that the Sabres believe that they’ll prolong Detroit’s pain:

“I think we’re starting games really well and I don’t know if it’s a bit of complacency or what it is, but we’ve got to fix the second periods,” forward Jason Zucker said. “It seems like we come out in the third and get a bit of that fire back and start playing again. We’ve got to fix it.”

Buffalo had a three-game winning streak and a winning record before the skid. The Sabres are looking to end a 13-season playoff drought. Detroit has the second-longest postseason drought, spanning a franchise-record eight seasons.

The good news is that one of these teams will emerge with a much-needed victory.

“We just need to get back to executing the way we know how to,” Zucker said. “It’s not a care thing, this room cares. This room has a lot of guys that care and want to do the right thing. It’s about doing it time and time again.”

The Red Wings and Sabres split the first two games of the four-game season series. Buffalo won the first meeting at home, 5-3, on Oct. 26. Detroit collected a 2-1 home victory on Nov. 2.

Buffalo held an optional morning skate today at the KeyBank Center…

Continue reading Red Wings-Sabres morning skate Tweets and game preview: it’s Husso vs. Reimer as two struggle-streaking teams meet in Buffalo

Tweets of note: ‘Razor in a blazer’ and two birthdays

According to the Red Wings, the team will be giving away a “Razor in a Blazer” doll on December 23rd vs. St. Louis…

And two Red Wings have birthdays today: