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!

Prospect round-up: Buchelnikov’s ice time increases with Admiral; ASP plays 17:00 in Skelleftea Champions League win

Of Red Wings prospect-related note in Europe today:

In the KHL, Dmitri Buchelnikov at least finished even in 9:55 played as the Admiral Vladivostok lost 3-0 to the Ak Bars Kazan;

In the Swedish J20 league, Noah Dower Nilsson’s Frolunda HC lost 3-1 to the Vaxjo Lakers;

And in the Champions Hockey League, Axel Sandin Pellikka finished at +1 with 3 shots and a penalty taken in 16:58 as Skelleftea AIK won 2-1 over HC Kosice.

Here’s a highlight clip:

Tweet of note: Dylan Larkin speaks with WXYZ’s Brad Galli

From WXYZ’s Brad Galli comes this Tweet, which is a 50-second clip of a longer interview with Red Wings captain Dylan Larkin:

Something tired, something old…

Defector.com’s Lauren Thiesen posted an NHL preview this morning, and…

Sigh. I am trying very hard to make sure that I share a broad spectrum of articles with you. I am trying very hard to take those authors seriously whether I agree with their points or not, because the whole point of sharing this stuff with you is giving you the widest range of perspectives possible while focusing on professional writers’ takes (while injecting a little of my own opinion into the mix).

But I’ve got to give some eye-roll to this NHL preview by Defector.com’s Lauren Thiesen, because the premise is getting to be old and tired:

Detroit Red Wings

What’s Old: Patience with the Yzerplan is running out. The former Red Wings captain, returning home after a job well done in the Tampa front office, entered with probably more goodwill than any GM hire in NHL history. That was in 2019, and the Wings still don’t feel like a playoff-caliber team. A bunch of signings last year went nowhere and led to a mini-tear-down where they bailed on key defenseman Filip Hronek and once-valuable scorer Tyler Bertuzzi for more draft picks. And as the Wings finished seventh in their division, with only six more points than the previous year, there were not many bright spots. The goaltending was bad. The scoring wasn’t there. And most worrying of all, the sophomore campaigns for winger Lucas Raymond and D-man Moritz Seider were fairly underwhelming. (I think Seider still has the juice when he’s got the right partner.) This was a team that once owned a luxury hotel in the playoffs, but if they can’t take a major step forward, this will be their eighth straight year in a bedbug-infested basement.

What’s New: Once again, the Wings were active in the offseason, but not necessarily productive enough to make up the four spots in the wild card race they’d need to jump. The most intriguing of their new guys is 25-year-old local boy Alex DeBrincat, who’s a year removed from a 40-goal season in Chicago as a favored son of Patrick Kane. In Kane’s role this year will be Dylan Larkin, another local boy, who just signed an extension to avoid leaving the only team (and state) he’s ever known. Larkin is charming and slick, as good a face as you can have for a franchise this woeful, but he’s also a bit miscast as the top center who’s supposed to carry the team. He’s more like the play-maker who’d make the best guy better, if there was one.

Continued; I will grant you that many Wings fans had hoped that the “Yzerplan” would be a quick fix, but Steve Yzerman was very blunt with fans from the start–stating that the rebuild would be a long, deliberate process, and that the process would involve painful years of rebuilding.

He was blunt about this. And no, we Wings partisans didn’t realize how much was left to tear down before Yzerman began to rebuild. But the Red Wings are not stuck in a “bedbug-infested basement” as they patiently and deliberately rebuild, last year’s regular season did not suck from stem to stern, and Dylan Larkin is a point-per-game player in the NHL, which is not your everyday occurrence.

Bashing the Wings and bashing Steve Yzerman are very much in vogue right now. But the characterizations are just getting to be more inaccurate.

I guess I just disagree vehemently with Ms. Thiesen here–don’t get me wrong, she poured a lot into her NHL preview, which is incredibly deep–but sometimes you just sort of snap, and this is my breaking point as far as these suggestions that what the Wings are doing is plain old dumb.

Lalonde ‘on the hot seat?’ I doubt it

Daily Faceoff’s Naftali Clinton reports that Frank Seravalli and Tyler Yaremchuk discuss a surprising topic in today’s podcast:

Tyler Yaremchuk: You think Derek Lalonde could be the first coach to lose his job?

Frank Seravalli: So I actually took that out of the final cut but I do think that Steve Yzerman for one is feeling a little bit of heat. This is year five of the Yzerplan, they need to take a step forward. I also think that he was pretty unhappy how last season played out and the comments Lalonde made when he was on TV for Sportsnet during the playoffs that the Lightning had to come out and refute.

I think he was probably not thrilled to be in that situation, not to make too big a deal out of that but its pretty rare to see second-year coaches end up getting the gas pipe. So I doubt that it happens, I wasn’t bold enough to put that in. But what’s really interesting about this is this year on the coaching front is that I don’t think there are many guys who enter the year on the hot seat, that it was kind of hard to pinpoint one in particular.

Continued; I do not think that Derek Lalonde is “on the hot seat.” I know that Steve Yzerman may have been frustrated by some of Lalonde’s remarks on Sportsnet, but that’s not grounds for dismissal.

Khan’s notebook: Building a DeBrincat-Larkin line

MLive’s Ansar Khan filed a notebook article in which he discussed the Red Wings’ attempts to build a functional line consisting of Alex DeBrincat, Dylan Larkin and David Perron:

“It’s definitely not a finished product,” Lalonde said Tuesday. “You can see in their exhibitions a lot of positives. Both dynamic players, but probably a little too much time in their own zone, which is self-inflicted, too. I think they have a feel of wanting to be together. I think they’re getting some chemistry.

“Not married to it, but we want it to work because we think it’s two extremely special players that we think can work, and we’re still trying to figure out that wing for them.”

Perron practiced on that line the past couple of days, after Lucas Raymond spent most of camp and the exhibition season there. Perron provides a different dimension with his heavier game and net-front presence.

“Anytime you play with DP, he’s in the battle,” Larkin said. “Obviously, he’s played for a lot of years. He would be the first to admit he probably doesn’t skate the best, but he makes up for it in his play along the boards. He’s one of the best players I’ve played with at winning battles, finding plays from scrum pucks or when he’s getting pressure on the boards.

“I really found that last year playing the bumper on the power play and he was on the half-wall. He always sucked two guys in and found me in the middle and I could make plays from there. I enjoy playing with him. we had success last year. I like playing with Razor, playing with (Michael Rasmusen). It’s good to have a lot of options.”

Continued; I think Perron may be their forechecker…