Author: George Malik

Of late-night Red Wings-related note:

First, EP Rinkside’s fine David St-Louis and Mitch Brown issued 2024 NHL Draft grades for the NHL’s 32 teams, and, as has been the trend on Saturday, the Red Wings earned a “B-“:

Detroit Red Wings

Picks: Michael Brandsegg-Nygård (No. 15 overall), Max Plante (47), Ondřej Becher (80), Landon Miller (126), John Whipple (144), Charlie Forslund (176), Austin Baker (203), Fisher Scott (208)

Brandsegg-Nygård is a perfectly reasonable pick at 15th overall. He has the forechecking, physicality, shot, and speed to become a top-nine, puck-winning forward. It’s more the lack of variety in their prospect pool that concerns us.

Still, the Red Wings took some real swings in the draft. Plante has top-six potential because of his high-end playmaking, but the rest of his game must develop. Though Becher’s a double re-entry, he’s dynamic. If the skating improves, watch out. Foslund and Baker could both checking line forwards, too.

So while the Wings kept adding to the strengths of their strength, it’s tough to find too much fault in their work.

Grade: B-

The gentlemen continue;

And the Hockey News’s Tony Ferrari engaged in a thought experiment, attempting to discern the Red Wings’ tendencies and picks for this year’s draft. He actually went 2-for-8, which is impressive, landing on 15th overall pick Michael Brandsegg-Nygard and defenseman John Whipple, the Wings’ 144th overall pick, to the exact number at which Whipple was picked.

I like what Ferrari says about Brandsegg-Nygard, because the Red Wings definitely have a first-round “type of player” that they select, but it’s incorrect to suggest that the Wings draft the same player from a similar archetype:

Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman flew solo on the latest edition of the “32 Thoughts” podcast, issuing a set of “post-draft ramblings,” and at the 12:09 mark of his Saturday evening-posted podcast, he says this about the Jacob Trouba situation:

“Okay, Trouba. I’m gonna admit this right out: I am not sure what is going on here. I had people saying to me that it was very real, the Rangers were trying to push it along, and they thought that if they could work out something with Detroit, Trouba would be willing to go there. And then I had some people tell me on Saturday that, ‘It’s not close, you guys are getting way too ahead of yourselves, and this is far, far more of a challenge than you think it’s going to be.’

“So the one thing I am reasonably certain of is that this whole situation that has developed over the last week or two, has been hard on Trouba. Like, if you go back to when he was left Winnipeg and was traded from Winnipeg, both the Jets and the player were ready for a divorce. It was just time, it was time for both to move on, and they did.

“In this particular case, the Rangers may have decided, for cap reasons, that they have to do this, but that doesn’t mean that Trouba is ready for this. I think he was disappointed, I think he was shocked, and I think he’s still processing this possibility here.

“He also has a very aggressive agent, Kurt Overhardt, who will fight for his client in this one, and while Overhardt wasn’t talking on Saturday, what one other agent told me was, when Trouba submits his [no-trade] list, will he make it strategic? As in, and his list is due on July 1st, will he make it strategic, so that places that the Rangers might actually be able to trade him to, or think they will be able to trade him to, will they be blocked?

“So there’s a lot here, and one of the things I think has really made this challenging is that Trouba has struggled with the idea that the Rangers might want to move on from him.

“Just one final thing to keep an eye on with Trouba though, is, remember what happened with Barclay Goodrow. He wouldn’t waive, and [Rangers GM] Chris Drury put him on waivers, and Goodrow got claimed by San Jose.

“Trouba’s contract goes from a no-move clause to a modified no-trade. So, will Drury consider the same path, all of that has to be determined in the next few days. So that’s the best intel I can give you, sorry if you don’t think it’s good enough.”

The Athletic’s Pierre LeBrun reports good news from Patrick Kane’s agent, Pat Brisson:

Veteran agent Pat Brisson could be seen Saturday at Sphere meeting with Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman regarding pending UFA Patrick Kane.

“We’re still talking to Detroit,” Brisson said. “The intention is to try and work something out.”

Continued at length (paywall); if the Red Wings want Kane and Kane wants to stay in Detroit, the questions are only term and price.

Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman spoke bluntly regarding his team’s salary cap situation as it applies to holding onto the team’s unrestricted free agents-to-be during a Saturday afternoon media availability, and the Hockey News’s Connor Eargood took note of Yzerman’s remarks…

“We’re just not gonna have enough money to bring everybody back,” Yzerman told reporters. “It’s not the way it’s gonna work. And we’d love to bring everybody back but we’re not bringing everybody back, and we’re trying to make these deals with all these guys that allow us to bring them all back. But I’m not sure we’ll be able to do that.”

What Yzerman said about potential departures isn’t shocking to anyone who’s opened up the Red Wings’ CapFriendly page (at least, as long as they can). The Red Wings have roughly $32.7 million in cap space to work with, but they have a number of big contracts to sign including those of Kane, Gostisbehere, David Perron and restricted free agents Moritz Seider and Lucas Raymond. And while the RFAs are all but guaranteed to return, it’s those UFAs who Yzerman is working so hard to bring back.

Yzerman knows the math doesn’t add up to run his roster back, even after Detroit made it so close to a playoff spot last season. He’s going to have to make tough decisions on who stays and who goes.

“It’s not just do we like the player, it’s do we like them at the dollar amount,” Yzerman said. “Whoever it is, if we like them at X dollars and we can fit it in, we’ll try to do that.”

As did the Free Press’s Helene St. James…

Red Wings 47th overall draft pick Max Plante was particularly talkative during his post-draft media availability, and both the Free Press’s Helene St. James and the Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan took note of Plante’s remarks–as well as those of Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman and assistant GM/director of amateur scouting Kris Draper regarding the plucky playmaker.

From St. James…

“He has tremendous hockey sense and he moves the puck very well and is a very deceptive skater,” Steve Yzerman said. “He moves well on the ice. But I really liked his hockey sense and his creativity.”

Kris Draper, the team’s assistant general manager and director of amateur scouting, called Plante, “a character kid. You can tell he grew up around the game. The hockey sense of where he can play up and down the lineup is something that we kept coming back to that.”

Plante had a feeling the selection was coming.

“When they said my name, there were so many people, so for them to pick me out was pretty cool,” Plante said. “I had a good interview with them [at the combine] and I talked to them throughout the year. Actually in my interview, they asked me a five-pick range of when I get picked, and I said 42-47, and I think I was picked somewhere in there.”

He was: No. 47.

And Kulfan:

Plante is the son of former NHL forward Derek Plante, who won a Stanley Cup in Dallas in 1999 during an eight-year NHL career. Grandfather Bruce Plante is a legendary high school coach in Hermantown, Minnesota, where the Plantes come from.

“I’m very lucky and fortunate to be around such great hockey people,” Plante said. “I’d say my dad probably watches more hockey than anyone probably in the world. Growing up, after I’d skate on the outdoor rinks I’d come home and my dad would be watching hockey, so there was nothing else on the TV. I’d just be watching hockey.”

As for the draft, Max said his dad offered simple advice.

“Be yourself and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” Plante said. “My dad taught me pretty much everything I know about hockey.”

Plante is headed to Minnesota Duluth to play collegiately. He’ll join his brother Zam there.

“I’m really excited to go play with Zam,” Plante said. “Two years off of playing with each other, we probably miss playing with each other, playing give and go hockey together. Hopefully we get to play together this year at Duluth.”

Updated at 7:22 PM: The Athletic’s Arthur Staple and Peter Baugh update the Jacob Trouba situation in New York, and here’s what applies to the rumors that he may be traded to the Red Wings…

Despite some momentum building around a Trouba trade on Saturday, nothing materialized, and the Rangers, seemingly eager to move Trouba and all or part of his $8 million cap the next two seasons, may find that this will be a difficult transaction to complete in the window the team needs to free up cap space to make a splash on Monday, when free agency begins.

A league source indicated that Trouba, who still has a no-movement clause until noon on Monday, may not be inclined to help speed this deal along, even if Rangers GM Chris Drury finds a trade fit with the Detroit Red Wings, Trouba’s hometown team.

The Rangers requested Trouba’s 15-team no-trade list earlier this week to try to expedite a deal. Trouba’s no-movement clause becomes a 15-team no-trade clause on Monday, but there are ways that Trouba’s camp, led by agent Kurt Overhardt, can throw a wrench in the Rangers’ plans.

If Trouba waits until Monday to submit his list and word is out that Drury is trying to complete a deal with, say, the Red Wings, Trouba could put Detroit on his no-trade list and veto the move. That could open him up to a destination he might not want or the possibility that Drury could place Trouba on waivers, as he did with Barclay Goodrow last week to get around Goodrow’s veto of a trade to the Sharks. San Jose claimed Goodrow on waivers.

And I’m raising my eyebrow regarding this tidbit, given that Patrick Kane and his agent, Pat Brisson, have said that term is important in Kane’s next contract:

Patrick Kane may be in the mix [along with Jake Guentzel], and the 36-year-old is believed to be open to a one-year deal, which could push him up the list of Ranger targets. Steven Stamkos still appears to be headed to the market despite Tampa’s cap-clearing moves, and he, too, will interest the Rangers, though a one-year deal is unlikely for him.

Continued (paywall); stranger things have happened, but if Kane wants term with Detroit, why would he not want term with the Rangers?

Update: But wait, there’s more!

Newsday’s Colin Stephenson weighs in…

The Athletic reported on Thursday that Drury had asked Trouba, who struggled through a disappointing playoffs this spring, to provide his 15-team no-trade list, which goes into effect Monday. And the natural speculation was that Detroit, which has room under the salary cap and is on the rise after an extended rebuilding period, would be interested and would be a good landing spot for the 30-year-old defenseman, who carries an $8 million cap hit after signing a seven-year, $56 million contract after the Rangers acquired him from Winnipeg in 2019.

Moving Trouba, who had had full no-move protection for the first five years, but only partial no-trade protection for the final two, would open up cap space for the Rangers just in time for the start of the free agent signing period on Monday. Even if the Rangers were forced to retain some of his salary to make a move happen, they would still gain precious cap space that would aid in Drury’s attempts to make a splash in free agency.

And no rumor’s a rumor without the wonderful New York Post’s Larry Brooks dishing dirt:

As the expected Jacob Trouba trade to Detroit remains on hold, it would be kind of ironic, wouldn’t it, if sending No. 8 to the Red Wings would have an influence on Patrick Kane, so that No. 88 remains in place with a contract extension rather than hitting the free-agent market on Monday? 

We can deal with the ramifications of a Trouba trade when it is enacted, but if the captain does indeed go to Detroit, the Red Wings — out of the playoffs for a franchise record eight straight seasons — would be in a similar spot as the Rangers were in 2019-20. 

That’s when the Blueshirts — out of the playoffs for two years in the wake of The Letter — acquired Trouba from the Jets as a key element of the accelerated rebuild that also featured signing Artemi Panarin as a free agent and trading for Adam Fox’s rights. 

…

The Post has learned that Kane, who apparently remains the apple of the Rangers’ eye after the post-deadline 2023 cameo left folks wanting for more, was still in talks Saturday with Detroit GM Steve Yzerman regarding an extension.

The Red Wings, for whom Kane recorded 47 points (20 goals, 27 assists) in 50 games last season after joining the club in late November following his summer hip-resurfacing procedure, can probably offer a longer term deal than the Blueshirts might be comfortable awarding the winger, who will turn 36 in mid-November.

A decision whether to remain clad in the Winged Wheel or hit the open market is expected, well, soon.

FloHockey’s Chris Peters discusses the draft performances of the NHL’s 32 teams this evening, and he gives the Red Wings a rather pedestrian grade:

Detroit Red Wings

Grade: B-

First rounders: Michael Brandsegg-Nygard, RW

Day 2 Picks: Max Plante, LW/RW; Ondrej Becher, C; Landon Miller, G; John Whipple, D; Charlie Forslund, LW; Austin Baker, LW; Fisher Scott, D.

Analysis: The Red Wings certainly have a type when it comes to top draft picks. They may give a little away on the top-end skill front to get a player that has a work ethic off the puck and plays a very competitive brand of hockey. That said, there were a couple of swings later in the draft including Max Plante, who I did not expect to go in the second round, but he is a very heady playmaker. Becher is an older prospect who seems to be a late bloomer and could have some high-end offensive potential. All three of those players were on FloHockey’s Top 100. Detroit added another big goalie in Landon Miller and got some hard-nosed players in John Whipple and Austin Baker from the NTDP. I don’t know that Detroit made a major impact on their prospect pool here, but they got good talent in a variety of positions.

Continued

MLive’s Ansar Khan discusses the Red Wings’ 2024 NHL Draft haul this evening, noting that the Red Wings attempted to restore their depth at forward (in terms of their prospect pipeline) over the course of the last two days:

The Red Wings took skilled passer Max Plante of the U.S. National Team Development Program in the second round (No. 47), overage high-scoring center Ondrej Becher of Prince George (WHL) in the third round (No. 80), Swedish winger Charlie Forslund in the sixth round (No. 176) and speedy Austin Baker, another USNTDP product who is Michigan State-bound, in the seventh (No. 203).

“If you look at our depth chart, we’ve drafted a lot of D over the previous drafts,” Kris Draper, Red Wings assistant general manager and director of amateur scouting, told media at the draft. “If you have a D-man you like, you’re certainly going to step up and take him. Just the way it went we thought we addressed a lot of needs up front — scoring, we got some speed, we got some competitiveness, some smarts. We thought what we wanted to do over the last couple of days, we were able to do it.”

In addition to Plante’s passing ability and skating, the Red Wings like his hockey sense and ability to play up and down the lineup and in all situations. He is the son of former NHL center Derek Plante and will play at Minnesota-Duluth next season.

“He’s smart, he can play on the penalty kill, he can play on the power play,” Draper said. “The important thing that we love is he can play with really good hockey players and he showed that.”

Continued (paywall)

The NHL has posted a 10:52 video which offers the “Stanley Cup Final celebrations” from the last 30 years’ worth of Cup-winners’ celebrations, as related by broadcast crews, and there are four Wings wins involved (and two losses):

NHL.com’s Mike G. Morreale posted a list of his 10 best moments from the 2024 NHL Draft, and he included the Wings’ drafting of Michael Brandsegg-Nygard of Norway on his list:

Norwegian ascent: Michael Brandsegg-Nygard became the first Norway-born player selected in the first round of an NHL Draft when the Detroit Red Wings chose him at No. 15 on Friday. He’s a right wing who played for Mora in Allsvenskan, Sweden’s second division last season.

Stian Solberg, also born in Oslo, Norway, went eight picks later to the Anaheim Ducks to cap an unforgettable opening night for Norwegian hockey. Solberg’s a defenseman with Valerenga in EliteHockey Ligaen, Norway’s top professional men’s league.

“It’s quite an accomplishment for a Norwegian player to be considered as a first-round selection, and it’s a testament to the commitment and passion of the player to find the best development path to pursue his ambition to get to the NHL,” NHL Central Scouting director Dan Marr said. “Both of these players have great futures ahead of them and will be looked up to as examples for other Norwegian players.”

There were four Norway-born players chosen over two days, including defenseman Ludvig Lafton (No. 190, Utah) of Farjestad in Sweden’s junior league and left wing Noah Steen (No. 199, Tampa Bay Lightning) of Mora.

Continued; as Brandsegg-Nygard said yesterday, he and Solberg are best friends.