Author: George Malik

Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff notes that Red Wings goaltender Cam Talbot is buying into the Wings’ three-goalie system:

Unless there’s an October surprise coming with the Red Wings roster over the next few days, the team is once again planning to carry three netminders during the regular season. Last year, it was [James] Reimer who was working in the rotation along with Alex Lyon and Ville Husso. This season, Talbot is the third wheel in the group with Lyon and Husso. And it’s a career first for the 12-season NHL puckstopper.

“This is the first time for me, but they did it last year and it worked for them,” Talbot said. “You never know if, when you’re gonna need the other two guys.

“If someone gets hurt, you gotta rely on the other two for a while. So it creates that internal competition for the starts when everyone’s healthy. But the biggest thing for us is we wanna go out there. We wanna be ready to play when it’s our turn. And we want the team to have confidence with whoever’s in net.

“So, that’s on me, Al and Huss to be ready and to give this team a chance to win no matter who’s in net.”

Continued; it may take the first 10-15 games for the goaltending situation to get sorted out, one way or another.

MLive’s Ansar Khan revisits the Red Wings’ 2-0 loss to Toronto this morning, with Khan noting that the Red Wings felt that they could have played more demonstratively last night:

Coach Derek Lalonde said his team at least had a little more compete than Monday’s loss to Pittsburgh in a similar scenario of regulars against prospects and AHLers.

“The last three games have all been the same,” Lalonde said. “You get a young group that’s just not giving you any easy offense. They’re not giving you anything on the rush. And the guys get a little frustrated because they want it to be easy, which it’s never going to happen. You got to ramp up the intensity a little bit if you want any success, and we’ll have an opportunity tomorrow.”

The Red Wings host the Ottawa Senators Friday (7 p.m., Bally Sports Detroit) before wrapping up the preseason Saturday in Toronto (7 p.m.).

Lalonde said his power play, with the top unit (Dylan Larkin, Lucas Raymond, Alex DeBrincat, Patrick Kane, Moritz Seider) on the ice for most of it, was OK despite going 0 for 4.

“I still think we can have a little bit better puck movement,” he said. “It’s just amazing how as long as your power play is creating looks and getting good touches, it helps with momentum. And we had good looks and some good movement in the third and it created some momentum for the period, though we were not able to score. So still a work in progress. Obviously, we’ll want more out of that power play going into next week.”

Continued (paywall)

The Free Press’s Helene St. James wrote a column this morning which discusses the Red Wings’ hopes for defenseman Simon Edvinsson, who played alongside Moritz Seider last night against Toronto. Edvinsson had some hiccups over the course of the Wings’ 2-0 loss, but coach Derek Lalonde believes that Edvinsson is moving in the right direction:

Edvinsson’s development is a welcome sight for the Wings as they prepare for the 2024-25 season. Since he was drafted at No. 6 three years ago, it’s been projected that one day he would partner with Seider, the No. 6 pick in 2019 who has established himself as a cornerstone of the rebuild.

“He’s a top four talent,” coach Derek Lalonde said of Edvinsson. “We want to defend, we want to be long, we want to be hard to play against, but a lot of times that partner relationship, a lot of it is just puck-support chemistry.

“It’s a really hard ask of a young D to play top-two minutes with the types of matchups they’re going to face. But we’d love to see if he can handle it. Mo wasn’t too far from this a few years ago, and he flourished in it.”

…

Things can change quickly, of course, but a week out from the Oct. 10 opener, the top four spots look solidly claimed by Seider, Chiarot, Edvinsson and Petry. The sheer height and skill level of Seider and Edvinsson has the makings of monster pairing, but in any iteration, Edvinsson’s arrival as a full-timer thrills.

“There’s a reason he got drafted so high and there’s a reason why he should be in our lineup,” Seider said. “He’s done everything that you could possibly ask from him. He’s a tall, skating defenseman who’s not afraid to step up, has great offense, and sees the game very similar to me. Those are things that get you excited, and you want to play with someone like that.”

Continued (paywall); as MLive’s Ansar Khan noted, Edvinsson played OK last night, but he won’t learn how to play top four minutes until he plays top four minutes:

Edvinsson was paired with Moritz Seider but likely will go back to playing alongside Jeff Petry when the season starts Oct. 10 vs. Pittsburgh.

“He had some lapses in his game play in the rush,” Lalonde said. “He turned some pucks back that got him in trouble. We’re trying to build some consistency in his game. Just OK tonight, but that’s his first game in a while, so reps are very important for him.”

The Detroit Red Wings lost an incredibly frustrating 2-0 decision to the Toronto Maple Leafs on Thursday at Little Caesars Arena.

Detroit will have no time to feel sorry for itself as the 3-2-and-1 Red Wings finish up their preseason with a home game against the hated Ottawa Senators on Friday night (7 PM on Bally Sports Detroit). Then, we’re presuming, the “B Team” will probably head to Toronto to battle the Maple Leafs again on Saturday (7 PM, no TV as of Friday morning).

For coach Craig Berube’s team, the game was a case of out-checking the Red Wings’ NHL squad until Nick Robertson scored an opportunistic power play goal 17:54 into the first period, out-checking the Red Wings into sleepy submission for another two periods, and affording Robertson the ability to charge through a tired Ben Chiarot and Jeff Petry and take a pass from try-out Max Pacioretty to jab into the net behind Cam Talbot 14:34 into the 3rd period.

The Red Wings pulled Talbot twice in the final five minutes of the 3rd period, but a combination of good goaltending from Anthony Stolarz and a lack of “oomph” from the Wings meant that Detroit’s best achievement of their final couple minutes’ worth of play was to not surrender an empty-net goal.

For the Maple Leafs, all went well, as the Associated Press noted:

Of Red Wings prospect-related note:

In the OHL, if you thought that the Red Wings had an “off night,” Red Wings prospect Landon Miller had a worse time.

Miller stopped 4 of 7 shots, getting pulled after only 11:50 played as his Soo Greyhounds lost 5-0 to the Windsor Spitfires in Windsor.

Miller has been pulled in both his starts, so he has an 11.31 GAA and a .647 save percentage after 32 minutes’ worth of action. Needless to say, the Soo are not a massive contender this season, but it really can always be worse.

Here’s hoping that Landon rebounds in short order. The Greyhounds, too.

The Detroit Red Wings dressed a mostly veteran roster opposite the Toronto Maple Leafs’ “B Team” for the start of a home-and-home series at Little Caesars Arena this evening.

Tonight, the Red Wings dropped a particularly frustrating 2-0 decision to the Toronto Maple Leafs. Detroit’s PP went 0-for-4 and gave up a power play goal against, Nick Robertson scored 2 for Toronto, Anthony Stolarz was good in stopping 29 shots, and Max Talbot was fine in stopping 26 of 28…

But the Wings were out-skated, out-hustled, out-worked and out-played over the course of 60 minutes, and it’s incredibly frustrating to watch an “A Team” lose to a “B Team” by being frustrated and flat.

The Red Wings have an absolute gaggle of prospects playing in NCAA Division 1 hockey this upcoming season, but only three of them make the Hockey News’s Ryan Kennedy’s list of the “Top 100 NCAA Prospects to Watch in 2024-2025“:

21. Trey Augustine, G, Michigan State (DET): Top-end goaltender ran with the starter’s job as a freshman and won WJC gold with Team USA. Look for more elite play in his sophomore year.

57. Max Plante, LW, Minnesota-Duluth (DET): If your last name is Plante, you’re gonna play for Duluth. Max brings a nice offensive toolkit to the team after a successful NTDP career.

70. Brady Cleveland, D, Colorado College (DET): Coming over from Wisconsin, Cleveland brings size and physicality to the Tigers, who are really rounding into form.

Continued; I’d include Michigan State University captain Red Savage in there somewhere, but that’s just me.

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The Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan focuses on Red Wings pro try-out Austin Watson in his Thursday afternoon notebook:

“You saw the core group of guys, the high-end talent, the young guys coming up,” said Watson, 32, an Ann Arbor native and 10-year NHL veteran. “You see this team just getting better and better. For me being able to bring that element of some physicality, jam, being hard to play against, sticking up for guys when that’s necessary, I thought that could be a good fit for both sides.”

Watson is with the Wings on a professional tryout this preseason. Be it in games, or practices, Watson has shown the ability to use his 6-foot-4, 238-pound frame, win battles and keep the opposition honest.

“We expect the hard from him,” coach Derek Lalonde said. “We expect him to win battles, wall battles. But one important viewing for us was he’s got to be able to help us five-on-five. Through two games so far, he’s done that well.”

Watson was a first-round pick (18th overall) in 2010 by Nashville. He’s played with Nashville, Ottawa and Tampa Bay, playing in 515 games with 118 points (60 goals) and 705 penalty minutes. It’s tough for any veteran player to agree to a tryout, but expected it this past summer.

“I didn’t expect to be on a PTO (professional tryout) last year,” said Watson, before earning a spot in Tampa. “I came off two years where I scored 10 and nine goals and fought a bunch (with Ottawa), so a little caught off-guard. This year, having only played (33) games, I kind of had an expectation that this might be the case and having gone through it before has made it a little bit easier. You just do what you can, and let the cards fall where they may.”

Continued (paywall)

Of Red Wings prospect-related note today:

In the KHL, Dmitri Buchelnikov had 2 assists, 5 shots, a takeaway and a penalty taken in 14:31 played as Vityaz Moscow Region won 7-2 over Kunlun Red Star;

In the SHL, Axel Sandin Pellikka had an assist, finishing at -1 with 3 shots in 22:19 played as Skelleftea AIK won 6-3 over Leksands IF. Fellow Red Wings prospect Anton Johansson finished with 2 shots and a penalty taken in 14:11 played for Leksand:

Axel Sandin-Pelikka keeps producing, with this beautiful (shorthanded) stretch pass #LGRW https://t.co/vcUWjIa50n

— IcehockeyGifs (@IcehockeyG) October 3, 2024

Datsyukian stuff from Sandin Pellikka pic.twitter.com/Unl5nd7o4J

— IcehockeyGifs (@IcehockeyG) October 3, 2024

And Noah Dower Nilsson finished even with 4 shots in 11:49 played as Frolunda HC won 2-1 over MoDo Hockey.

Tonight, Landon Miller will play in goal for the OHL’s Soo Greyounds.