Author: George Malik

Among the “ramblings” of DobberHockey’s Michael Clifford this morning is this statistically-driven fantasy hockey analysis of one Filip Zadina, who under-performed from a fantasy hockey standpoint last year:

Filip Zadina: With the offseason additions of David Perron, Andrew Copp, and Dominik Kubalik, plus a healthy Jakub Vrana, a top-6 role for Zadina looks more distant than ever. That, in and of itself, is a big issue for his fantasy relevance in most formats. He didn’t produce well last year in terms of raw points, with 24 in 74 games playing 14:11 a game, but he may have been a bit unlucky. His IPP at 5-on-5 was 42.4%, good for 303^rd out of 306 forwards with at least 700 minutes. His first two full-ish seasons saw him post a mark of 65.6%. Had he managed that mark, he would have added roughly eight points to his total, and that would have made his season look considerably better.

Having good line mates helps a lot, and Zadina’s three most-common line mates in 2021-22 were Pius Suter, Adam Erne, and Michael Rasmussen. He has largely been kept away from the team’s top stars and that’s going to continue in 2022-23 barring injury or a huge jump in his game. But he has shown some good offensive flashes and likes to shoot the puck. He is definitely a player to monitor as the season wears on because some improve line mate quality could lead to a much better season, at least in spurts.

Continued; I’m not worried about Zadina’s spot in the lineup causing him production woes. He may do better with Dominik Kubalik and Pius Suter as his complementary winger and center, respectively, on a less pressure-packed third line. I like that trio.

The Athletic posted a meaty article this morning in which it explained how the writers assembled their Top 100 players into four groups, and ranked them by four “tiers”…

It’s the third annual NHL Player Tiers, where we place the top 100 skaters into four groups: the MVPs, the franchise players, the All-Stars, and the bonafide top-liners. The goal is simple: blend analytics and scouting to figure out where the league’s best stand going into the 2022-23 season.

This is more than one person’s ranking, it’s more than the results of a model, and it’s more than the collected perspective of various people inside the game. We want this to be the most complete list of hockey’s best that you can find, one that started based on numbers, then morphed into what it is today after hours of discussions internally and externally.

And if you guessed that Moritz Seider is both the Wings’ second mention and a player who is considered not-necessarily third-tier player (with Dylan Larkin finishing in the fourth tier), you’d be right:

I happen to believe that the Red Wings’ prospect tournament is a near-invaluable resource for the Red Wings’ prospects.

It provides three highly competitive games in which the Wings’ skaters and goalies, both those “turning pro” and first experiencing professional-level competition, get to adjust to the pace and play of North American pro-level hockey while playing among their peers (players between 18 and 25 years of age).

The prospect tournament isn’t a be-all-end-all, but it’s a significant step toward preparing players for the main training camp, where there are 40-60 players skating at 100 miles an hour and no time for player instruction or real systems-building in a “teaching” environment.

Especially with coach Derek Lalonde coming in, the emphasis over the five days of training camp is going to be on building an exhibition season-ready NHL team while very thoroughly presenting a ton of information to the players, and that can really overwhelm the young guys.

In that sense, the practices are almost as important as the games, because Grand Rapids Griffins coach Ben Simon and his staff are able to teach new players the systems that most of them will be playing in Grand Rapids, Toledo or even Detroit, all while both continuing to develop skill and while giving the Griffins and Red Wings’ coaches and scouts a bellwether as to where their potential AHL or NHL employees stand.

This morning, the Free Press’s Helene St. James posted an article in which she highlights three aspects of the prospect tournament worth watching:

Eye on the pipes: When the Wings traded up to draft 6-foot-6 Sebastian Cossa at No. 15 in 2021, it signaled confidence the team had found its goaltender of the future. Cossa, 19, spent the past three seasons starring with the Edmonton Oil Kings in the Western Hockey League (he posted a 1.93 goals-against average and .919 save percentage in 19 playoff games last spring). He cracked Team Canada’s roster for the World Juniors last December and again when the pandemic forced its postponement till August, but both times, he was passed over as the starter. It’s on Cossa to convince management he should have a job in Grand Rapids this season. 

Cossa has a lot to gain and a lot to lose over a very short period of time here. I know that Wings fans are concerned about the Cossa-vs-Wallstedt debate, but right now, the Wings have four goalies in their AHL-ECHL system in Cossa, Victor Brattstrom, Jussi Olkinuora and Jonathan Lethemon, and only two spots in GR.

Cossa could still be sent back to the WHL’s Edmonton Oil Kings if the Wings don’t feel he’s ready, or would benefit best from playing there, but Edmonton’s already gone out and gotten a new starting goalie.

St. James also talks about Simon Edvinsson before offering this concluding point:

Sizing up the rest: Keeping on the topic of big men, 6-8 forward Elmer Soderblom (No. 159, 2019) is also part of the cast. He led Frölunda with 21 goals in his first full season in the SHL, and led the club’s under-21 players with 33 points. He and defenseman Albert Johansson (No. 60, 2019) are vying for spots in Grand Rapids as they get started on their North American careers. Johansson posted 25 points in 52 games with Farjestad, plus eight points in 19 playoff games to help his club claim the 2022 SHL Championship. Other prospects include defenseman Donovan Sebrango (No. 63, 2020), who already has appeared in 96 games with the Griffins and is coming off helping Canada win gold at the World Juniors, and forward Cross Hanas (No. 55, 2020), who had 86 points in 63 games with the Portland Winterharwks in the Western Hockey League. 

I am very curious to see Soderblom, who may or may not be AHL-ready, and Johansson, who’s an under-the-radar prospect, but Eemil Viro, Kirill Tyutyayev and even back-up goalie Jan Bednar will pique my interest as well.

The Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan posted his pre-2022 Prospect Tournament take as to which Red Wings prospects are worth keeping a close eye upon this weekend. Among his picks are the following:

► Sebastian Cossa, goaltender: With the goaltending situation appearing set in Grand Rapids, it seems the Wings will return Cossa (a 2021 first-round pick) to Edmonton (WHL) for one more junior season. Cossa, 19, wasn’t able to win the starting job for gold-medalist Canada at the recent world junior championships but was dominant leading Edmonton to the Memorial Cup Finals. Cossa will likely get a lot of playing time in this tournament.

…

► Elmer Söderblom, forward: After the social-media highlights from Sweden and breathless reports, the 6-foot-8 Söderblom, 20, is likely going to attract a lot of attention. Söderblom scored 21 goals for Frolunda and showed the shot and hands that, combined with his size, make him an intriguing prospect. It’ll be interesting to see how well Söderblom handles the speed and quickness in this tournament.

…

► Cross Hanas, forward: A positive tournament and training camp with the Wings could land Hanas, a 2020 second-round pick, a roster spot in Grand Rapids. Hanas scored 26 goals for Portland (WHL) last season and reversed a sub-par 2020-21 COVID-marred season (five goals). Hanas will be looked to for offense this weekend.

Continued; I’ve weighed in regarding the roster, and here’s my take on the above-mentioned players:

Way back in late July, I found an article from WLUC TV 6 in Marquette which stated that the Red Wings Alumni Association would be playing in a charity hockey game against the “Yoopers United” in Marquette, MI to raise funds for the United Way.

It turns out that the game is scheduled for this Saturday, September 17th, and the Yoopers United and United Way spoke about the event on WLUC 6’s morning show (non-embeddable video).

The tickets are still available from Northern Michigan University’s website for $20 apiece, and it sounds like Mickey Redmond and Joe Kocur will headline the Wings’ roster.

Of Red Wings prospect-related note today:

In the KHL, the good news is that SKA St. Petersburg won 3-2 over Lokomotiv Yaroslavl, advancing to 6-and-0 (though they’re 5-0-0-and-1 thanks to the KHL’s rule that an overtime win is only 2 points).

The bad news if you’re a fan of Red Wings prospects as opposed to the KHL’s flagship franchise is that Dmitri Buchelnikov continues to be used very sparingly. After playing a staggeringly regular 13:19 in the previous game, he finished even in 4:41 of ice time on Thursday, over the course of 8 shifts.

He may play in SKA-1946’s MHL game (i.e. in the Russian under-20 league) on Friday before returning to SKA on Saturday, but playing yo-yo hockey isn’t great, and playing for five-to-eight minutes per game at the KHL level “because that’s how they break young players in” isn’t ideal, either.

Regrettably, it’s going to be one or the other for Buchelnikov, and he’s going to have to be patient and wait for his chance to impress.

Daily Faceoff’s Scott Maxwell is ranking every NHL team’s salary cap situation, and while he feels that the Red Wings are kind-of-sort-of trending upward…He’s not a fan of Steve Yzerman’s offseason moves, or two of them, anyway.

As such, he ranks the Red Wings as having the 22nd-best salary cap situation in the NHL:

22. Detroit Red Wings

Good Contract Percentage: 16th
Quality Cheap Deals: 15th
Contracts with No-Trade/No-Move Clauses: 9th
Dead Cap Space: 27th
Quality of Core: 26th
Cap Space to Skill Differential: 9th

As far as teams recovering from terrible cap situations go, I don’t think anyone had it worse than the Red Wings in the late 2010s. We’re starting to see the Yzerplan take action as the Wings slowly work their way up this list, although part of the reason the Wings aren’t higher is because of some of the moves Steve Yzerman has made, even as recently as this offseason.

Where the team really takes a hit is its dead cap space and the quality of its core. The dead cap space isn’t necessarily Yzerman’s fault, as almost $3 million of that is due to him having to clean up Ken Holland’s mess with the buyouts of Justin Abdelkader and Frans Nielsen, although I’d argue that Yzerman could have ridden those deals out a year or two more since he didn’t necessarily need the cap space. But what is his fault is the quality of core. The Wings have just two players locked up to long term deals, and both were 2022 free agent signings in Andrew Copp and Ben Chiarot. Part of that is because their actual young core is in a transition phase with their deals, with only Filip Zadina, Robby Fabbri, and Ville Husso locked up longer than two years. But if anything, that should be a sign that you don’t use cap space to sign players like Chiarot and Copp when you’re going to need that space in the next couple seasons.

Not all of Yzerman’s signings this offseason were bad, though. Husso’s deal complements Alex Nedeljkovic’s for a solid duo in net, Olli Maatta and Mark Pysyk’s deals impress on the back end, and David Perron and Dominik Kubalik look great up front. The Wings also boast some solid cheap deals, although maybe not enough for a team on the up and up. At the end of the day, the biggest issues for the team are the uncertainty of their top players with their contracts up, as well as the fact that they currently have seven replacement level players signed for more than $1 million. There’s no question Yzerman has proven himself to be one of the smartest executives in the business, but he has a few blind spots in his rebuild in Detroit that might get in the team’s way in the future when they really look to be competitive.

Continued…

I admittedly don’t like the Chiarot deal at all, even if he plays like the Ben Chiarot that was great in Winnipeg, and the Wings admittedly have a LOT of dead cap space thanks to the Abdelkader and Nielsen buy-outs…

And, given that the cap is going to rise significantly in two years, when the NHLPA has repaid its pandemic escrow earnings to the NHL, and the new TV deals’ bucks kick in, I was okay with the Copp signing. I think that he overpaid a bit for a second-line center, but sometimes you have to do those things.

Where we disagree the most is obviously on the “quality of core,” because I believe that the Red Wings are improving. No mention of Larkin, Bertuzzi, Seider or Raymond here, and that’s an eyebrow-raiser for me, but…We’re all free to disagree.

Good evening. I just wanted to drop a quick note that I made it to Traverse City safe and sound around 5:45 PM, and have been setting up Blanket Fort Malik for the last two hours in my hotel room so that I can camp out for two weeks.

Speaking of which, we never crossed that $200 gulf funds-wise, and the lovely Comfort Inn chomped $971 out of Paypal right away, so I made the hotel bill, but only just.

Sometimes that’s what happens when your 17-year-old Pacifica has a surprise wiring problem and you spend $348.30 the weekend before you leave to fix the Gord Downie headlights.

Shit happens, you fall short sometimes–Gord knows that it’s hard for everybody right now–and complications are complications. No concern, other than the fact that the aunt’s bank account is backing me up temporarily.

Anyway, if you can drop me a couple of bucks for groceries so that we can get to the next fundraising mark (i.e. me putting out stuff and asking for money after putting out a GD product), I’d appreciate it.

As a reminder, here’s the schedule for the prospect tournament, from the Centre Ice Arena website (tickets are still available):

NHL Prospect Schedule

Thursday, Sept 15
3:00 pm – Columbus vs  St. Louis     –     6:30 pm – Dallas vs  Toronto

Friday, Sept 16
3:00 pm – Columbus vs  Detroit     –     6:30 pm – Toronto  vs  St. Louis

Saturday, Sept 17
6:00 pm – Detroit  vs  Dallas

Sunday, Sept 18
11:00 am – St. Louis vs  Dallas     –     2:00 pm – Toronto  vs  Columbus

Monday, Sept 19
11:00 am – Detroit  vs  Toronto

If you’re are willing to lend an assist, you can use PayPal at https://paypal.me/TheMalikReport, Venmo at https://venmo.com/george-malik-2, Giftly by using my email, rtxg@yahoo.com, at https://www.giftly.com. And you can contact me via email if you want to send me a paper check. I’m also on Cash App under “georgeums” (an old nickname).

12:51 of Paul Boyer and crew readying for Traverse City

DetroitRedWings.com’s Jonathan Mills filed a notebook article in which he looks back at Red Wings prospect and Arizona State University senior forward Robert Mastrosimone’s remarks made during the Red Wings’ summer development camp:

After three seasons at Boston University, Robert Mastrosimone wanted a change of scenery. So in April, the Detroit Red Wings forward prospect entered the NCAA’s transfer portal and announced the following month that he committed to Arizona State.

“There was a lot of thought with my family, my advisor and everyone close to me that went into that decision,” said Mastrosimone, who was Detroit’s 54th overall pick in the 2019 NHL Entry Draft. “It was the right thing for me. I thought I needed a fresh start just to get out in front of some new eyes, new teammates, new coaches, new area to get my game to that next level.”

Mastrosimone enjoyed a standout season at Boston in 2021-22, setting career-highs in goals (11), assists (14) and points (25) in 34 games. In three seasons with the Terriers, Mastrosimone recorded 21 goals and 29 assists in 83 games. According to the 21-year-old, navigating the transfer portal was advantageous.

“It’s kind of like recruiting all over again,” Mastrosimone said. “But it was a really cool experience being able to talk to all different coaches, hear what everyone has to say and hear how everyone wants to coach their team.”

Continued