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!

Three Tweets of note: 80 days, Walleye signings and NTDP single-game tix on sale

Of Twitter/X-related note this afternoon:

First, from the Red Wings:

Second, per the Toledo Blade’s Mark Monroe:

And third, from the U.S. National Team Development Program in Plymouth, MI:

On Cam Talbot’s ‘fit’ with the Red Wings

DetroitRedWings.com’s Jonathan Mills wrote an article which discusses Red Wings free agent signing Max Talbot’s remarks regarding joining the team as a 37-year-old goaltender:

While weighing his options during 2024 NHL free agency, goalie Cam Talbot considered his role for each potential team, but the 37-year-old largely focused on what opportunity made the most sense off the ice for his family.

That’s why Talbot was happy he found an ideal fit with the Detroit Red Wings, who signed the netminder to a two-year free-agent contract on July 1.

“I seem to be part of (free agency) every summer,” Talbot said in his introductory Zoom call with the media on July 2. “You never really get used to it, especially with kids and family now. There’s a lot more to think about – situations, term, length, all that stuff. Detroit really checked a lot of boxes for me.”

…

Adjusting to a different system is the biggest challenge a goalie faces when joining a new club, according to Talbot.

“I usually come to the city three to four weeks before camp to try to skate with the guys as much as possible, get to know them as much as I can,” Talbot said. “Figure out certain tendencies that the team has and that I can work my way into before camp even starts.”

Talbot said he’s excited to familiarize himself with the Detroit area, where his wife, Kelly, grew up until she was a teenager.

“She’s got some family in the area, which we’ve never had on any of the teams I’ve been part of,” Talbot said. “It will be nice to be close to family.”

Continued; this is a good place for a veteran player to put down roots. Many, many NHL’ers who finished their careers with the Red Wings have chosen to remain in Metro Detroit for their retirement because Detroit’s suburbs are so well-regarded.

A bit about the Red Wings’ Johanssons (plural)

The Red Wings have a pair of Swedish defensive prospects with the last name Johansson: there’s Albert Johansson, 23, who will make his Red Wings debut this fall, and Anton Johansson, 20, who’s playing for Leksands IF of the SHL.

The Red Wings’ Johanssons are unrelated, but Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff discusses big Anton, who’s 6’4″ and 196 pounds:

Playing his first full SHL campaign in 2023-24, the 20-year-old Johansson was good for 3-5-8 totals during 46 regular-season games. In the playoffs, he would ramp up his production, collecting two goals and two assists in seven games.

“I did a good job in the playoffs,” Johansson said. However, it wasn’t his offensive output that he was most proud about during his first pro season.

“I think the defensive part,” was his answer about which aspect of his game was showing the most progression. “I’m gonna still work on that and try to keep up my offense.”

Of note to Red Wings fans, the 6-foot-4, 172-pound Johansson was also displaying an edge to his game while playing for Sweden at the IIHF World Junior Championship. Against Canada, he was dishing out a devastating hit on Easton Cowan.

Continued; it is entirely possible that the Red Wings have two A. Johansson’s on the roster at some point over the next four years. Anton is a shut-down defenseman with a physical edge, and Albert is a freewheeling defenseman who makes great plays.

The next steps for the Red Wings’ Summer Development Camp participants

The annual impressions from the Red Wings’ Summer Development Camp equals a labor of love, and a lot of labor at that. Trying to cover 40 prospects in a comprehensive manner is no easy task, and it takes a while to get ‘er done.

That’s been the case for what follows: a post-Development Camp assessment as to what the Red Wings’ prospects (as well as the free agent try-outs) need to do next to continue ascending toward pro hockey success.

The idea here is to try to discern a “recipe” of sorts for everybody who participated in the development camp, from the Wings’ brightest prospects to the guys for whom development camp may be the best moment of their hockey careers.

The truth of the matter is that the vast majority of the Wings’ Summer Development Camp participants don’t end up making the Red Wings, but I have found that many players do land professional hockey jobs somewhere, and there’s no shame in earning money playing hockey for a living.

So, with an eye toward the future, and an eye toward “what happens next,” here are my takes on the Wings’ Summer Development Campers’ next steps forward:

Next Steps for the Red Wings’ Summer Development Campers

FORWARDS:

#11 Kienan Draper: Kienan Draper’s next steps forward involve simply playing more in terms of ice time and playing more regularly for the University of Michigan. Draper is only coming into his junior season at 22 years of age, so the fourth-line grinder has some room to “grow his role” in terms of playing time, but he’s really had to fight for ice time thus far, and I’m not expecting that to change at U of M.

Draper’s also got to get a little bigger, a little stronger, and he needs to get better in terms of his puck-handling skills. He stands 6’2″ and 205 pounds, which is good, but he can still put on 5-10 more pounds of muscle…

And, if I may be blunt, Draper sometimes makes some tremendous plays with the puck, and sometimes pucks bounce off his stick, roll off his stick blade, or he fans on shots. He’s not as good a skater as his father was, either, and he’s not quite consistent enough in terms of his stick skills for me, so I think that he needs to continue to develop his skills there. Those things can be taught and learned over time.

The Red Wings’ developmental system is full of promising grinding forwards, however, so Draper has two more collegiate seasons’ worth of development with which to stand out from the crowd.

That’s his imperative right now–not to score a bunch of points or somehow earn a promotion to the first line, but instead, to prove he’s worth his weight as a consistent grinding forward.

Continue reading The next steps for the Red Wings’ Summer Development Camp participants

Cam Talbot expects to rise to the occasion

The Free Press’s Helene St. James discusses Red Wings free agent signing Cam Talbot this morning, noting that the 37-year-old goaltender still believes that he can lead a team to playoff success:

“There were some other teams in the mix that maybe weren’t as close to making the playoffs,” Talbot said earlier this month. “I’m at the stage of my career where I’m not ready to just mail it in yet. I don’t want to give up starts. I still want to compete for starts and I still want to compete for the playoffs and I still want to win a Stanley Cup. I’ve never done that yet.”

Talbot is a veteran of 486 NHL games, spread across stints with the New York Rangers (2013-15), Edmonton Oilers (2015-19), Philadelphia Flyers (2019), Calgary Flames (2019-20), Minnesota Wild (2020-22), Ottawa Senators (2022-23) and Los Angeles Kings (2023-24). He has a 2.63 goals-against average and .914 save percentage in his career, solid numbers for a goalie who went undrafted. That’s one thing he has in common with Alex Lyon, whose rise from No. 3 to No. 1 last season gives him an edge going into 2024-25 — not that Talbot isn’t coming in with an eye to do what he did last fall, which was to end up starting 52 games. The Kings had Pheonix Copley (Michigan Tech) and David Rittich under contract when they signed Talbot; the Wings have Alex Lyon and Ville Husso under contract. So Talbot knows what it will be like come training camp.

“It was kind of the same situation I’m coming into now,” he said. “They had a guy there that had played a bunch the year before. Then they signed myself and David Rittich and it was a healthy competition to start the season. I thought I started the season really strong. Got the All-Star nod at the beginning of January. Had a little dip as did the rest of the team midway through January to beginning of February, but I think I finished strong again. Overall I’d say my season went as well as I expected it to go. I just wanted to go in there after a down year in Ottawa and prove I could still be the guy and I thought I was able to do that. Internal competition always makes everybody better, so I think that bringing in the guys that they brought in just drives everybody that much more and that’s a good thing for everybody.”

Continued (paywall, plus video from Talbot’s media availability);

Talbot has definitely “been around” as a journeyman goaltender, but his past season with Los Angeles was good enough that his 27-20-and-6 record, 2.50 goals-against average and .193 save percentage were being talked about as a dark-horse Vezina candidate at mid-season.

Talbot has been somewhat inconsistent in terms of his year-to-year stats, but during his better-years, the well-traveled goalie posts a save percentage at or above .910. If the 6’4,” 196-pound Talbot can reach that kind of save percentage, nobody’s going to be complaining about how old he is, or whether he’s able to perform at a level that can lead Detroit to a playoff berth.

Here’s hoping.

Ben Chiarot’s ‘Scotland’s Yard Road Hockey Classic’ took place today in Kitchener, Ontario

Per the CTV News’s Hannah Schmidt, Red Wings defenseman Ben Chiarot and his wife, Jacqueline, established the “Scotland’s Yard Road Hockey Classic” in 2021 to benefit the Grand River Hospital Foundation in Kitchener. The annual event was held today:

Excitement and energy filled the air Saturday as the third annual Scotland’s Yard Road Hockey Classic made its much anticipated return to Kitchener.

This year’s event promised to be a star-studded spectacle, drawing players from the Ontario Hockey League (OHL) and National Hockey League (NHL) as well as Olympic athletes.

The tournament allowed players of all ages to hit the pavement alongside top-tier talent like the Detroit Red Wing’s Ben Chiarot, Tanner Pearson from the Montreal Canadiens, former Florida Panther and Boston Bruin Gregory Campbell, New Jersey Devil Nathan Bastian, the Winnipeg Jets’ Logan Stanley, former Winnipeg Jet Bryan Little, Professional Women’s Hockey League player Loren Gabel, former Nashville Predator Nick Spaling and former Nashville Predator and New York Ranger Kevin Klein.

“We were told that there’s over 200 families right now currently going through a cancer journey and then traveling back and forth to get treatment,” said attendee Brian Santos.

…

As of 1:30 p.m. Saturday, more than $200,000 dollars had been raised for the hospital.

“Every little bit helps. They’re raising money for such a good cause,” Stanley said.

“We’re trying to raise $50 million in ten years, so the more people that know about it, the more people to consider it, the better it is,” Santos said.

Continued with video; there’s also an online auction which has a signed Steve Yzerman jersey, Ben Chiarot stick, Lucas Raymond and Moritz Seider-signed items, and more (including a Ray Bourque-signed jersey).

The auction ends tomorrow night at 6 PM, and the prices are quite reasonable.

‘Take meme out’

This is a “beef post,” because I have some issues with these kinds of popular Tweets/X posts:

Honestly, I don’t get it. You’ve got four of the best young defensemen in the NHL and four of the best young forwards in the NHL, and you want me to bag on “the other guys.”

On the blueline, Jake Sanderson’s a speedy puck-handler who runs Ottawa’s power play, Owen Power is, for lack of a better term, developing into a very powerful all-round defenseman, Noah Dobson is becoming an incredibly versatile contributor for the Islanders’ blueline, and Moritz Seider’s the charismatic all-round defender that Red Wings fans love because he can blow up players with big hits, block shots, rifle shots through goaltenders and make seeing-eye passes, all while displaying remarkable durability and poise.

In the case of the forwards, you’ve got a true “power center” in Quinton Byfield, a late-developer who’s become a gritty sniper in Lafreniere, perhaps one of the best play-makers in the world in Tim Stuetzle, and I’m biased about Lucas Raymond’s tremendous multi-tool arsenal of shooting, passing, skating and even forechecking skills. Raymond’s not as big as Byfield, as net-front-driving as Lafreniere, or as intuitive a playmaker as Stuetzle, but I’d rather have Raymond over all of ’em.

But that’s just my opinion, man, and I’m not about to bag on some of the best young players in the world because they’re not on “my team.”

The “start-bench-cut” memes and “one has to go” posts get a lot of engagement on Twitter/X because people love to argue with each other, but I believe that it’s a bad strategy to diminish what the NHL and its partners like Sportsnet should be selling 100% of to their fan bases and casual fans alike.

These are great young players. Don’t meme ’em to death.

A little gab about the Red Wings’ to-do list: Re-signing Berggren, Raymond and Seider

The Red Wings’ management has three final tasks to complete over the course of the summer–presuming that the team doesn’t buy anyone out this upcoming week (thanks to Joe Veleno filing for arbitration and coming to a 2-year, $4.55 million contract agreement with the team on Friday), or make a trade for that shut-down, right-side defenseman that the team needs to spell Moritz Seider.

Now taking advantage of the team’s salary cap space to do one or the other of those optional tasks (buying somebody out or making a trade for a shut-down d-man) would be ideal, but it’s not necessary, nor is it likely that the team’s going to really address its overloaded but slightly undermanned defense.

Right now, it’s about re-signing the team’s three restricted free agents in Jonatan Berggren, Lucas Raymond and Moritz Seider, and utilizing most of the team’s $17.648 million in cap space (per PuckPedia) in order to ensure that Raymond and Seider are locked up long-term.

Continue reading A little gab about the Red Wings’ to-do list: Re-signing Berggren, Raymond and Seider