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!

Red Wings sign Joe Veleno to 2-year, $4.55 million contract

Per Elliotte Friedman…

And PuckPedia:

Per The Score‘s Kyle Cushman:

The Detroit Red Wings signed forward Joe Veleno to a two-year contract with a $2.275-million cap hit to avoid arbitration, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reports.

Veleno, 24, tallied a career-high 12 goals and 28 points in 80 games last season. He was a restricted free agent and had filed for salary arbitration July 5.

The Red Wings drafted Veleno 30th overall in 2018. He’s accumulated 30 goals and 64 points in 232 career contests with Detroit.

The Red Wings have $17.6 million of cap space after the signing, according to PuckPedia.

The Wings still have to re-sign Lucas Raymond, Moritz Seider and Jonatan Berggren as their other RFAs.

Meet the Johanssons

Just an interesting fact for those of you who are a little bored on a mid-July afternoon:

I can’t quite get behind the paywall of this article by Falu-Kuriren’s Ronnie Carlsson, but it focuses on Red Wings prospect Anton Johansson’s family ties.

20-year-old Anton, who’s a 6’4,” 196-pound, right-shooting defender, plays for Leskands IF of the SHL, where his father, Tjomme, is the GM, and both of Anton’s brothers have been drafted by NHL teams:

Older brother Simon, 25, plays defense for the AHL’s Iowa Wild, and he was picked by Minnesota in 2018; and the youngest brother, Victor, 18, is a defenseman for Leksands IF’s J20 team. He was picked 120th overall by Toronto in this past June’s NHL Draft.

Anton has a very long reach as he continues to grow into that 6’4″ frame, and he’s sort of a stay-at-home foil to Axel Sandin Pellikka’s deke-and-dangle game.

So there’s your little descriptor of the Johansson family, and the three siblings who hope to make an NHL impact.

Tweet of mid-July note: a reflexive pronoun

We’ve talked about NHL.com’s Dave Hogg’s Red Wings season preview, but the NHL’s Twitter/X account is just catching up with their offseason articles:

Apparently, the NHLPA’s decided to not share salary arbitration hearing dates

The Hockey News’s David Alter explains why the NHLPA hasn’t released the dates of players’ salary arbitration hearings this week:

The National Hockey League Players’ Association (NHLPA) is set to begin arbitration cases as soon as Saturday. But as for when those cases will occur, that will be up to agents, teams, and of course, hockey insider leaks as cases are either settled or awarded.

The NHLPA, which runs the process, has previously released an entire schedule of cases by day for each player approximately a week before the cases were set to begin. This year, however, they have elected not to do so. 

“There’s been a change in approach,” a source told The Hockey News on Thursday.

That means you likely won’t hear about hearings or awards until after they were settled either in arbitration or before the cases are seen before an arbitrator. The NHLPA will hold arbitration cases between July 20 and Aug. 4.

Continued; I know that the idea here is to give the players some anonymity and some peace of mind here, but this doesn’t make any sense to me.

Praising Sawchuk, digging Osgood

Yardbarker’s Chris Morgan posted a list of each and every NHL team’s best “greatest all-time goalie,” and while there’s no doubt that Terry Sawchuk was the franchise-defining netminder for Detroit, the author’s dig at Chris Osgood stirred me up a bit:

Detroit Red Wings: Terry Sawchuk

Chris Osgood has something of a cult following in Detroit, but “Ozzie” has no case to surpass Sawchuk here. The Hall of Famer won three Cups and three Vezinas with the Red Wings. His number hangs in the rafters in Detroit, and that says “franchise icon.”

Chris Osgood’s cult following involves the fact that he won 401 NHL games, 3 Stanley Cups, and, during his two stints with Detroit, he was one of the Red Wings’ most consistent performers, playing over 500 games in goal, and he’s been one modern franchise’s best personalities. He’s beloved for a reason…

But Terry Sawchuk, the “King of Pain,” was no doubt an all-time All-Star among goaltenders for every franchise, and the well-traveled Sawchuk helped define the position. We can’t quite say that for “Ozzie.”

Daily Faceoff’s Ellis discusses the Red Wings’ top 10 prospects

Daily Faceoff’s Steven Ellis offers a top 10 list which ranks the Red Wings’ top prospects this morning:

When the Detroit Red Wings stopped being a playoff team more than half a decade ago, they had a rough pipeline, to say the least.

I was at the 2019 Traverse City tournament, an event that saw the likes of Adam Fox, Igor Shesterkin, Kaapo Kakko, Jake Oettinger, Philipp Kurashev, Thomas Harley, Kirby Dach and Brandon Hagel, among others. Looking back, it was seriously one of the deeper fields.

Detroit won the tournament, boasting a lineup that included Mortiz Seider, Joe Veleno, Filip Zadina and Taro Hirose, among others. Seider is a big piece of Detroit’s future, while Veleno hasn’t lived up to expectations and has mainly played a bit deeper in the lineup. Hirose has played some NHL games but has mostly stayed in the AHL with Grand Rapids, while Zadina was bought out and most recently played with San Jose.

In that time, Lucas Raymond has become a big-time threat up front, but they still lacked in the prospect department for a few years. Now? They boast one of the most impressive pipelines in all of hockey, with some serious depth at every position.

For starters, Simon Edvinsson and Axel Sandin-Pellikka are two of the best defensive prospects in hockey right now. Then you throw in recent first-rounders Michael Brandsegg-Nygard and Marco Kasper up front, and two of the best goaltending prospects in the game in Sebastian Cossa and Trey Augustine, and you’ve got a group that’s primed for a bright future.

Of course, it’s all fine and dandy, on paper, but they need these guys to produce. But it truly feels like the Red Wings aren’t too far away from being playoff-bound again.

Continued; this is a good, comprehensive list.

Cam Talbot likely to help Red Wings sort out goaltending situation

Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff discusses the potential impact of free agent signing Cam Talbot, who joins a crowded Red Wings crease with the hopes of sorting out Detroit’s up-and-down goaltending:

Certainly, Cam Talbot could be of great help to the Detroit Red Wings next season. He’s coming off an all-star campaign with the Los Angeles Kings. Talbot’s numbers suggest he’ll be more consistent and reliable between the pipes than any of the netminders the team used last season.

Secondly, there’s the second year on Talbot’s two-year contract that the UFA signed with Detroit. His role in 2025-26 could very well be to introduce 2021 first-round draftee Sebastian Cossa to the show and educate him on the rigors of NHL puckstopping.

Last season with the Kings, Talbot saw action in 54 games, going 27-20-6 and earning the nod as a Pacific Division selection for the NHL All-Star Game. His save percentage was .913 and GAA 2.50. By contrast, the Red Wings were posting a team save percentage of .897 and a GAA of 3.33.

“I think he’ll be an important part,” Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman said of his expectations for Talbot. “I can’t tell you how many starts they’re all going to get but he had a very good year in Los Angeles. Two years ago in Ottawa he had some injuries but his numbers are really consistent.”

Continued, with more from Yzerman and Talbot…

Erik Gustafsson brings offense to the Wings’ blueline

MLive’s Ansar Khan discusses Red Wings free agent signing Erik Gustafsson this morning, noting that the Wings’ players and management believe that Gustafsson will assuage the loss of Shayne Gostisbehere:

“I have been playing power play ever since I came over (to the NHL),” Gustafsson said. “It’s something I like to do and something my game is. I like to run it and try to give the puck to the forwards to shoot, create lanes. I feel very confident playing on the power play. Hopefully, I can get an opportunity.”

Gustafsson gives the team a left-shot option at the point to complement the right-shooting Moritz Seider on the other power-play unit.

Patrick Kane, Gustafsson’s teammate in Chicago for five seasons, including 2018-19, when Gustavsson produced a career-best 17 goals and 60 points, said the now 32-year-old was a key component of their power play.

“He was so deceptive up top, really knows how to run the top, maybe as good as anyone I played with,” Kane said. “Obviously, (Adam) Fox (of the New York Rangers) is special, and I think Mo (Seider) does a good job as well.”

Kane added, “(Gustafsson) is a really, really good hockey player, great offensively, makes a lot of good passes, a lot of good plays, and I know he’s been really working on his defensive game, and he’s strong in that area, too.”

Continued; as Khan notes, Gustafsson is very well-traveled, and he may be a little less prolific than Gostisbehere…

But the Red Wings worked very hard to re-sign “Ghost” because there wasn’t anybody on the market who would replace him, Brandon Montour exempted.

For whatever reason, Gostisbehere left for Carolina, and Gustfsson won’t post the same numbers, but he may be better defensively, and that’s going to help the Wings’ cause.

Inside the Rink discusses the Red Wings’ prospect pool

On Thursday afternoon, Inside the Rink’s Andrew Walsh discussed the Red Wings’ prospect pool as its rise will (hopefully) mirror its franchise’s slow but steady ascent:

The Detroit Red Wings drafted forward Michael Brandsegg-Nygård with the fifteenth overall pick in the first round of the 2024 NHL entry draft. The Oslo, Norway native has signed his entry-level contract with the Red Wings. MBN is the best wing prospect currently in the Red Wings’ prospect pool. I recently wrote that Brandsegg-Nygård was the latest in a long line of draft picks made by Red Wings’ general manager, Steve Yzerman, who all fit the same mold.

The Red Wings are widely regarded as having one of the best prospect systems currently in the NHL. The fact that the team has not made the Stanley Cup playoffs since the 2016-17 season is one of the main reasons for this. Drafting higher up in the draft allows teams to conceivably draft better players. However, this does not guarantee that the players that the team drafts will eventually make it to the NHL.

This ranking does not consider players that have made the Red Wings’ roster. Defenseman Simon Edvinsson is one example of this. After being drafted by the Red Wings with the sixth overall pick in the 2021 NHL draft, Edvinsson spent two seasons going back and forth from the Grand Rapids Griffins to the Red Wings. During the 2023-24 season, Edvinsson seems to have found his place on the Red Wings’ roster permanently. In 16 games played for the Red Wings Edvinsson was consistently deployed in high leverage situations on the Red Wings blueline.

Continued;

Just because your team is making high draft picks doesn’t mean that you’re going to witness all of those players succeed in making the NHL, and that’s why I believe that the Red Wings’ scouts have chosen to draft a certain “type” of strong two-way center, power winger, or skating defenseman with their first-round picks.

Out of Lucas Raymond, Simon Edvinsson, Marco Kasper, Nate Danielson, Axel Sandin Pellikka and Michael Brandsegg-Nygard, you’re not going to see seven superstars, but you may see the foundation for the Red Wings franchise captained by 27-year-old Dylan Larkin into his 30’s. That’s the idea here.

Regarding ‘what’s next’ and the fan base’s ‘level of suffering’

Two “list stories” in which article authors utilize the NHL’s 32 teams to make points appeared earlier this afternoon, with EP Rinkside’s J.D. Burke discussing the offseason storylines which have yet to materialize for NHL teams…

Detroit Red Wings: What’s next?

This one isn’t a matter of whether they’ll do something but what exactly they’ll do. Because we know GM Steve Yzerman isn’t done tinkering with his roster yet. He’s got just more than $20 million in available cap space, and while pricey contract extensions loom for Moritz Seider and Lucas Raymond, they’re not getting all of that money.

We know the Red Wings have been linked to Gibson this offseason. We’ve also heard a lot about their efforts to acquire Jacob Trouba from the New York Rangers, though that seems to have quieted down a bit of late because of his reluctance to waive his no-trade clause.

Will Yzerman be able to reel in either of these big fish? And if not, then what? Failure to meaningfully improve on last year’s roster could make for a ninth season on the outside looking in at the playoffs.

The Red Wings definitely need to add a right-shooting defenseman of the shut-down variety to their blueline to spell Moritz Seider, but I’m not certain whether Steve Yzerman will dip into his deep pool of prospects to acquire that player this summer. It may take until next year’s trade deadline for the team to address this glaring need.

Also: Daily Faceoff’s Scott Maxwell discussed the “suffering level” of the NHL’s 32 fan bases, and the Wings’ fans don’t get any slack:

21. Detroit Red Wings

Colton’s rank: 19th
Hunter’s rank: 13th
Matt’s rank: 21st
Scott’s rank: 19th
Shane’s rank: 21st
Tyler’s rank: 25th

Matt [Larkin]: It would be a stretch to say we feel sympathy for the Detroit Red Wings fan base in the modern era. This group enjoyed Stanley Cups in 1997, 1998, 2002 and 2008, after all, not to mention a 25-year streak of playoff berths. But that streak has given way to an eight-year playoff drought, the second longest active one in the NHL. It feels like a twisted nightmare to see one of your franchise’s all-time heroes, Steve Yzerman, driving the bus and coming closer to taking it off a cliff than to the promised land. Something feels wrong when an Original Six franchise seems so irrelevant. Will that change soon? I’m not totally convinced. Yzerman blinked too early in the rebuild and has spent several summers weighing down his roster with mid-tier veteran signings.

I’m not delighted that the Red Wings signed Andrew Copp, Ben Chiarot and traded for Ville Husso two summers ago, and this summer’s free agency take wasn’t overwhelming, but I don’t believe that those signings are “weighing down” the Red Wings’ roster, and I don’t believe that the organization is being driven off a cliff.

There’s no doubt that the Red Wings are still in the middle-to-end of what is probably a 10-12-year-long rebuild, but that’s the reality of the situation for most NHL franchises in terms of building a prospect base and seeing returns in terms of bolstering the roster with meaningful free agent signings.

The Patrick Kane signing was supposed to turn the tide, but as it happens, the Red Wings are not yet a “destination,” and when other teams sign the “Grade A” free agents, you can’t simply stand still and pretend that you’ve improved.

The organization has done the best it can with the assets it has been able to accrue, and it’s still in progress in terms of turning a very big ship slowly around.