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!

Tweet of note: Seider will be in Detroit for Monday’s practice, reports HSJ

Good news here for both Seider’s preseason preparedness and for his work visa:

Shapiro on the ‘off-hand winger’

EP Rinkside’s Sean Shapiro digs deeply into the “off-hand winger’s” position in his “Shap Shots” Substack today, speaking with Patrick Kane about being a left-shooting winger on the right-hand side of the ice:

While Russians playing on their off-wing is more common, Kane is one of the more pre-dominant North Americans to play that way, carving a Hall of Fame career by slaloming up the right side and cutting to the middle for better scoring chances.

Kane grew up playing as a center, but started his journey as an off-hand winger while playing with the National Team Development Program. Kane was on a line with Rhett Rakhshani at the NTDP and Rakhshani was a right-handed shot that liked to play on his left.

“It just kind of grew, just being on your offside, having the puck to the middle, guys being able to cut to the middle, especially if you are playing with a guy that can one-time the puck,” Kane said. “It seems to work pretty well and you can make those cross-ice passes.”

Thinking about all of this, I decided to pull some video from Tarasenko last season to try and illustrate what Kane is talking about.

Continued (paywall)

Audio link: Friedman discusses Raymond and Seider contracts

Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman, Kyle Bukauskas and Dominic Sramaty discuss the Red Wings’ restricted free agent re-signings right off the bat (at the 3:11 mark) in the latest edition of 32 Thoughts.

Sramati asks Friedman about the Berggren, Raymond and Seider contracts, the fact that they’re under the “Dylan Larkin cap,” and Friedman says that the Free Press reported this past weekend that Seider would be signed for 7 years instead of 8.

Seider may have been looking for an 8th year over Larkin’s number, so things were sorted out by taking it down to 7. If the 8-year deal for Seider happened, it would have started with a 9, so Steve Yzerman wasn’t comfortable with that.

As far as Friedman is concerned, one should never wait to re-sign players, because the price will never go down, and it’s a “win-win-win outcome” as the players are locked for a long time, it’s “W’s all around.”

Friedman also feels that Yzerman bent in terms of term, while Seider’s representation bent in terms of salary number.

Friedman says his former agent suggested that both sides win when they feel that they lost something, and in both negotiation, everyone wins, but they gave up something, and the players are locked up with the organization, so it’s done.

Bounce-back Holl?

Daily Faceoff’s Shane Seney discusses Eastern Conference players who need “bounce-back seasons,” and he includes Red Wings defenseman Justin Holl on his list:

Justin Holl, Detroit Red Wings
2023-24 Stats: 38 GP, 0 G, 5 A, 5 Pts

Year 1 of Holl’s $10.2 million contract did not go over very well in Detroit as he was a healthy scratch throughout portions of the regular season. He’s at his best when he’s keeping things simple, clearing out the front of the net and being effective on the penalty kill. Not a lot of anything went right for Holl last year. With a $3.4-million cap hit, GM Steve Yzerman is hopeful Holl can improve in year two, or else this contract could go down as one of Yzerman’s biggest mistakes. That’s assuming Holl can still crack the lineup as a regular. With Erik Gustafsson in the fray now, it’s possible Holl opens the year as Detroit’s seventh defenseman.

Continued; the Red Wings are hoping that Holl can do anything positive at this point, or he’ll be waived and sent to Grand Rapids (in my opinion). We’ll see how things shake out injury-wise over the course of training camp and the exhibition season.

Stockton talks Seider ‘comparables’

The Hockey News’s Sam Stockton compares Moritz Seider’s 7-year, $59.85 million contract at a $8.55 million cap hit to other defensemen around the league:

Owen Power (Buffalo Sabres, seven years, $8.35 million AAV) & Jake Sanderson (Ottawa Senators, eight years, $8.05 million AAV): the Divisional Rivals

What I like about the comparison here with Seider is that you have three very similar contracts (two seven deals and one eight, with just an AAV range of just a half million.  They’ve also all been signed by Atlantic Division rivals that are looking to make the same leap in the standings over the course of those contracts.  Chances are, all three deals won’t (and perhaps can’t) work out the way the teams signing them envisioned.

If I could have any of the three regardless of contract, I think I would chose Seider.  The immediacy with which he emerged as an impact player (and, in fact, Detroit’s number one defenseman) and his ability to confront an obscenely difficult work load.  

Regardless, it will be an interesting Atlantic Division storyline for nearly the next decade to track the health and viability of these contracts, as well as the teams and players who signed them.

Continued

Training camp Tweets of note: the second day

Updated at 12:49 PM: Just as I did on Thursday, we’re going to have a single thread for the vast majority of the Tweets/X posts made from the second day of Red Wings training camp. This post will be updated throughout the day.

We begin with a recap of Thursday’s events, from the Red Wings:

I enjoyed this one from yesterday…

FYI:

Of note from Detroit Hockey Now’s Kevin Allen’s “The Daily“:

One of the Red Wings’ biggest questions in training camp is whether Ville Husso can stay healthy. He’s the team’s highest paid goalie, but he will have to battle to get playing time over Cam Talbot and Alex Lyon. Day 1 first impressions were glowing. “Huss looks really good,” Detroit captain Dylan Larkin said. “He’s really committed and obviously had a tough stretch last season. So I’ve seen it, he’s really dialed in.”

Patrick Kane, the lurker:

Three things: on high expectations, the Raymond/Seider re-signings and the Wings’ second line

Updated at 7:43 AM: Of Red Wings-related note this morning:

  1. MLive’s Ansar Khan kicks off our survey of morning news by discussing the heightened expectations for the Red Wings as they begin training camp with the goal of making the playoffs:

The Red Wings were in the postseason chase, leading by eight points on Feb. 27, due largely to their offense and their power play (both ranked ninth in the league). They didn’t get there because they weren’t good enough defensively (ranked 24th).

“Appreciated the goals last year. We’ll need those goals again this year,” Lalonde said. “But … finishing in the bottom half of the league with goals against (isn’t a) recipe for success. It’s certainly a point of emphasis from (Wednesday), our meetings into (Thursday).”

The Red Wings have increased their point total in each of the past four years, a trend Lalonde knows must continue.

“We keep going like this (upward) with our points. We keep going like this in the standings,” he said. “An 11-point improvement last year. You’re literally in a virtual tie for the last playoff spot. Of course, the expectations are going to keep moving this forward, but it is a little bit different. I think it was pretty clear that we were not expected to be a playoff team going into (last) season. And when you get to that point, when you start flirting with that type of season, you start getting those points … of course everyone wants a natural progression and that’s the way we see it and that’s what we want.

“We expect some internal growth and some guys that experienced that run last year and some help from some free agents and some help from our young guys. So, expectations have changed, and it’s going to be a reality, and I think our group will handle it well.”

2. The Free Press’s Helene St. James offers two columns this morning, with the first one discussing Lucas Raymond and Moritz Seider’s re-signings as restricted free agents:

Continue reading Three things: on high expectations, the Raymond/Seider re-signings and the Wings’ second line

Carter Mazur has the right attributes to make the Wings’ roster

Detroit Hockey Now’s Kevin Allen posted an overnight column which discusses whether Red Wings prospect Carter Mazur may be able to make the Wings’ roster out of training camp:

Perhaps no one in the Red Wings organization is as fluent in Mazur’s charge to the top of the hockey world as Kris Draper. Detroit’s assistant GM and director of amateur scouting was Mazur’s youth hockey coach.

“Carter is an incredible kid,” Draper said. “The one thing I knew about Maze was that this kid was always low maintenance. It was just go out and play. You could see at 15, 16 years old he had a good feel for the game. He had the smarts, he had the competitiveness.

“He’s a wiry, strong player. You look at him and everyone says he’s gotta get stronger. But the thing you realize when he goes out and plays the game is No. 1, he has the puck. No. 2, he’s always hard to knock off the puck and that’s something that you don’t teach. It’s just something that’s there.

“He’s got that inner drive. He’s got that competitiveness. Carter was a kid that always wanted to get better. He was always asking the right questions. At practice time, a lot of the little things. The puck protection, the wall play. Understanding PK stick placement.”

Continued with comments from Patrick Kane, Dan Cleary and Shai Buium…