Author: George Malik

Sportsnet’s Ryan Dixon posted a set of early-August power rankings, and he’s not yet sold on the Red Wings’ potential for the 2025-2026 season:

21. Detroit Red Wings – While you can certainly still talk yourself into some existing Wings players like Moritz Seider, Lucas Raymond and Simon Edvinsson moving the team forward, it just feels like Detroit needs an acquisition to give this thing a meaningful push.

Continued; the Wings have more than Seider, Raymond and Edvinsson. I think this is a little light on not recognizing the Larkins, Kanes, DeBrincats and Gibsons of the Wings’ world.

But yes, the Wings need to add a top-six forward and/or a top-four defenseman. Whether those trades happen this summer is uncertain.

Red Wings prospect goaltender and 2025 draft pick Michal Pradel was selected by the Regina Pats in the CHL Import Draft, and at the time, Pradel was committed to playing for the USHL’s Tri-City Storm.

This morning, Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff reports that Pradel has yet to make a final decision as to where he’s going to play this upcoming season:

“That’s in the process of being resolved,” Pradel told Slovak website TVNoviny.

He is certain about the factor that is weighing the heaviest in his decision-making process, though – playing time.

“I’m making sure I get as much match experience as possible,” Pradel said. “The head coach left Tri-City, and some things changed there.”

Former NHL head coach and one-time Red Wings assistant coach John Torchetti is now in charge at Tri-City. Late last month, he was named head coach, as well as director and president of hockey operations for the Storm.

“I like Tri-City so much,” Pradel said. “They gave me a lot of games in a short amount of time. So I really like it there.”

Continued; as Duff notes, Pradel’s ultimate destination will be an NCAA Division 1 team, but for now, he wants to continue playing Major Junior hockey while he finishes high school.

Chris Osgood and John Keating discuss hockey and much more with FanDuel Sports Network Detroit analyst and Red Wings alumnus Jimmy Howard on this week’s “Ozzy and Keats” podcast:

Lists in themselves are not a good thing or a bad thing–they’re arbitrary exercises in ranking “bests” and “worsts” of something, they’re attempts to make sense of the order in which to rank, rate or arrange, to make order out of chaos, if you will.

All of that being said, when NHL.com’s list of the top 10 forwards under 25 did not include Lucas Raymond, even the Red Wings were a bit annoyed by the exclusion; it was not a surprise when Raymond was named to next year’s likely top 20 wingers in the NHL, either.

Now that July has turned to August, the NHL is ranking its best wingers, centers, defensemen and goaltenders over the course of a series of special shows on the NHL Network, and it should come as no surprise to Red Wings fans that one Moritz Seider has also earned a “Maybe Next Year” from the NHL’s “Top 20 defensemen” list:

NHL Network will reveal its list of the top 20 defensemen in the League right now Wednesday when the second of a nine-part series debuts (NHLN, 6 p.m. ET).

While we wait for that much-discussed annual list, NHL.com asked a panel of its writers to identify players who could join the top 20 list next season.

And Moritz Seider? He gets an honorable mention, though it’s in the form of a heartfelt endorsement from Tracey Myers:

I missed this one, and it’s not huge news, but it’s a nice compliment for a young Red Wing:

on Sunday, NHL.com’s “32 in 32” series posted a preview/check-in for the Detroit Red Wings, and on Monday, Pete Jensen named a player who might break out in the fantasy hockey realm:

Detroit Red Wings: Marco Kasper, F

Kasper had strong linemates in center Dylan Larkin and wing Lucas Raymond as a rookie last season and ranked tied for third among his class in even-strength goals (17). Kasper also provided strong category coverage of hits (156; second on Red Wings) and finished strong with a four-game point streak with five points (three goals, two assists) and 19 shots on goal in the span. At 21 years old, Kasper joins Raymond and defenseman Moritz Seider on NHL.com’s top 100 keeper rankings and could see expanded power-play usage (four power-play points last season) in the years ahead. Per NHL EDGE stats, Kasper also excelled in terms of 20-plus mph speed bursts (163; 88th percentile among forwards). — Pete Jensen

As far as I’m concerned, the 21-year-old Kasper is the Red Wings’ second-line center they’ve been searching for, period.

August isn’t just trade rumor season, part 2: It’s also the beginning of a full month’s worth of exhibition games and “friendly” tournaments for European teams from Russia to Finland, Sweden, Czechia, Slovakia, Switzerland, et. al.

Most European teams have already had their “ice premiere,” in which the teams make their first public appearances before fans after practicing informally for a couple of weeks together, and then the month-plus of exhibition games and tournaments begin around the 10th-to-14th of the month.

Now it’s incredibly important to remember that we’re talking about a month-long preseason in August here, but it is good to hear GP.se’s Viktor Freden report that Noah Dower Nilsson had 3 assists in today’s exhibition game between NDN‘s Frolunda HC and HV71.

Frolunda won 5-0, and 20-year-old Dower Nilsson, a 6,’ 185-pound winger, posted those three “apples” on a line with former Red Wings draft pick Theodor Niederbach.

Here’s a short translation of the pertinent part of Freden’s article:

My English professors in college always told me to cite my sources, and so we’re citing a third source regarding the Edmonton Oilers’ long-term interest in Sebastian Cossa, from one Jim Matheson of the Edmonton Journal:

Have written in past about Oiler trade interest in ex Oil Kings G Sebastian Cossa. They wanted to draft him in 2021 but Red Wings got him at No 15. Locked into AHL role with Gibson and Talbot in Detroit this year. Wings also have high-end G prospect Augustine at Michigan State

— Jim Matheson (@jimmathesonnhl) August 12, 2025

So we’ve got a third source in addition to yesterday’s pair thereof, and three sources is usually the threshold for accuracy. I’d trust Matheson and Cam Robinson and Bob Stauffer, to be honest, so this rumor has legs in my book…

But interest is one thing, and making a deal happen with an organization that wants to see both Cossa and Trey Augustine in its goaltending system two years down the line is a very different matter.

I’m posting this with a big caveat here: It’s August 12th.

So Bleacher Report’s Frank Seravalli suggests that, should Winnipeg Jets forward Kyle Connor not re-sign with his team, he might return home to Detroit as an unrestricted free agent next summer:

Kyle Connor moving out of Winnipeg? Not so fast, BUT Detroit would make a lot of sense @frank_seravalli pic.twitter.com/pvwsgsVaCy

— B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) August 12, 2025

Now I have literal tons of respect for Mr. Seravalli, who’s one of the most respected experts in hockey. And he’s right that the Red Wings could use a player like the 28-year-old Connor, obviously.

But Seravalli himself suggests that the Jets have every opportunity to re-sign their own player for the next 11 months before Detroit would get its chance to swing at Connor next July.

Yesterday was a particularly good day on the fundraising front. We’re about $300 of the way to that $617 set of bills.

As you know, things get tougher as fundraising continues, so I don’t want to hammer the fundraising drum, but that’s exactly what I have to do to keep the blog running.

I hope that you can lend a hand in some way, shape or form. I’m very happy to provide content and commentary for you, and I wish that I could do it for free, but that’s just not how things work.

The Red Wings may very well be interested in Pittsburgh Penguins forwards Bryan Rust and/or Rickard Rakell to supplement the team’s goal-scoring, but the Wings’ front office is an airtight nuclear submarine, and it offers no hints as to what the management team might be examining.

There is presumed to be interest from Detroit, however, so Bleacher Report’s Adam Gretz discusses the Wings as a possible landing spot for the latter forward, 33-year-old Rakell:

Detroit Red Wings

The Red Wings have to do something else this offseason…don’t they?

They cannot possibly go into this season without any major moves beyond trading for John Gibson. They cannot possibly open the season with a roster that is largely unchanged from the one that hasn’t been good enough to snap their playoff drought.

They cannot go into the season with more than $12 million in unused salary-cap space.

None of that would be an acceptable offseason.

They have the need for more scoring up front, they have the salary-cap space to easily fit Rakell’s contract in, and they have young players who could be flipped and would fit into the Penguins’ long-term rebuild.

There has to be some urgency for Steve Yzerman and the Red Wings right now given how long the playoff drought has been and how little progress has been made in the standings under his watch.

The free-agent market was a bust for Detroit. Trades are going to have to be the path from here. Any of the Penguins’ potential trade chips would fit here.

Continued; Rakell, 32, stands at 6’1″ and 205 pounds, and he posted 35 goals and 35 assists last season. He’s making a $5 million cap-hit deal for the next 3 seasons, and I think that he’d be particularly difficult to pry from the Penguins given his status as an almost-point-per-game player with strong skating skills.

Would the Swede fit right into Detroit’s top six? Sure, but the question always remains: what’s he going to cost?