Author: George Malik

The Dallas News’s Matthew DeFranks notes that tonight’s Wings-Stars game involves a reunion between a certain Dylan Larkin and Jamie Benn:

Tuesday night’s Red Wings-Stars game will be the first time Dylan Larkin plays against Dallas since he injured his neck on a cross-check by Jamie Benn last season.

The play ended Larkin’s season on April 20, and he spent the night in the hospital and eight weeks in cervical hard collar, Red Wings coach Jeff Blashill said previously. Larkin has talked about how his anger about the play lingered.

There was no penalty called on the play, and Benn received no discipline. The Stars and Red Wings played twice more after the Larkin injury, but he did not play.

On Tuesday, Benn had this exchange with a reporter after morning skate.

Do you expect anything tonight from Larkin?

“No, why?” Benn said.

He was pretty upset last year after his injury.

“We’ll see,” Benn said.

Benn has 27 career fights, including one this season at Ottawa with Josh Brown.

The Red Wings have one fight this season, and the player involved (Givani Smith) is not expected to be in the Detroit lineup on Tuesday night. Here is a table with the Red Wings roster’s fight history, according to Hockey Fights.

For those wondering what the Jamie Benn-Dylan Larkin situation is about, this is the play from last season. pic.twitter.com/Pe0NZ0Fmdk

— Matthew DeFranks (@MDeFranks) November 16, 2021

The Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan filed a notebook article in which he discusses the Red Wings’ need to improve their defensive game:

The Red Wings rank 24th (out of 32 teams) in the NHL allowing 3.24 goals per game. That’s not going to keep the dream alive of possibly stealing a spot in the playoffs.

The Wings have been far too loose for the majority of the season. But victories have masked defensive miscues.

“We made a couple of mistakes and the next thing you know it slips away,” [coach Jeff] Blashill said. “But we’ve got to play better hockey than we’ve been playing. We won a few games in the last little bit that we haven’t been playing quite good enough. We’re giving up too many chances. We have to be a better team defensively if we want to have success.”

What hurt Monday was the fact the Wings appeared to be in control twice, and let Columbus rally. The second time, on Lucas Raymond’s late goal, the Wings enjoyed a 3-2 lead with just over six minutes left. But the Wings collapsed defensively.

“You get the lead late you have to buckle down and at the very least, make them earn it,” Blashill said. “In those last two goals they didn’t have to really earn it. We kind of gave it away. We have to be way better than that. You get the lead at under the six-minute mark, no way should you come away out of it without at least a point and most nights two (points).”

Continued

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And there’s a lovely nexus of helping the aunt pay the property taxes, saving up for a cell phone replacement (my screen is literally peeling off my old S7) and generally keeping the lights on, with an emphasis on the last part.

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Updated 3x at 12:11 PM: The Detroit Red Wings face the Dallas Stars tonight in an ESPN Plus exclusive (8:30 PM EST start on ESPN Plus/hulu/97.1 FM), and the Red Wings will be looking to rebound from a 5-3 loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets on Monday night.

The Stars took to the ice at the American Airlines Center around 11:15 AM EST for their morning skate…

Jason Robertson and Jake Oettinger the first two in the ice for morning skate pic.twitter.com/0be1o6RYyV— Saad Yousuf (@SaadYousuf126) November 16, 2021

Oettinger and Bishop on the ice early for pregame skate— Bruce LeVine (@BruceLeVinePuck) November 16, 2021

Anton Khudobin has just entered the chat.— Bruce LeVine (@BruceLeVinePuck) November 16, 2021

Jake Oettinger is with the team on an emergency loan due to cap constraints…So this should be interesting…

Jake Oettinger in the starters net for pregame skate— Bruce LeVine (@BruceLeVinePuck) November 16, 2021

Lines! Well, Dallas’ lines:

Former Red Wings GM Ken Holland was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame while his former team was playing a game on Monday–which was a shitty turn of the NHL schedule–and here’s his HHOF induction speech, via NHL.com:

I have my reservations about Holland’s later-day Red Wings management, as well as his treatment of Mike Babcock, but I still believe that his HHOF induction was richly deserved.

Red Wings forward Robby Fabbri speaks with DetroitRedWings.com for 9-and-a-half minutes today:

Just a reminder that, regardless of whether you live in the Metro Detroit market or not, you need an ESPN Plus and/or hulu subscription to watch tonight’s game between the Red Wings and Dallas Stars (8:30 PM EST start):

8:30pm ET on @ESPNPlus! ?

Subscribe: https://t.co/6EVJQGwV7j
Watch: https://t.co/LWOiIdfXGF pic.twitter.com/Hj7lsFhFla— Detroit Red Wings (@DetroitRedWings) November 16, 2021

If you don’t have an ESPN Plus subscription or have hulu (paid), you’ll need to dig through those semi-legal streaming sites.

The Detroit Red Wings face the Dallas Stars this evening (8:30 PM on ESPN+/hulu only/97.1 the Ticket), and this will be the first meeting between the teams since Jamie Benn raked his stick over the back of Dylan Larkin’s neck off a faceoff, injuring Larkin for the entirety of last summer’s offseason.

I’m wondering what you think might happen to Benn, all 6’2″ and 205 pounds of him, as the Red Wings are simply not built as a team that has many instigators…

But I have this gut feeling that Larkin might do something to let the Stars’ captain know that his Shea Weber moment wasn’t appreciated.

The Athletic’s Corey Pronman is a damn fine evaluator of NHL prospects, but everybody who evaluates prospects makes mistakes in their evaluations, because the art of prospect development often involves a nexus of projections vs. actual players developing above and beyond their performance envelopes.

Still, Proman and The Athletic’s writers like to “Admit they were wrong” about certain prospects, and while I think the “mea culpa” (or, “Oops, my bad”) is unnecessary, it’s interesting to read what Pronman has to say about Red Wings prospect Moritz Seider, who he feels he ranked too low:

Moritz Seider, RHD, Detroit: Seider was a unique evaluation in 2019. He played in the Deutsche Eishockey Liga (DEL), not a league many were used to contextualizing top-10 picks in at the time. His club in Mannheim was very strong, and he didn’t receive a ton of ice time or power-play opportunity. You still saw this huge, mobile, competitive defenseman with some puck game and it was clear he was a very good prospect. Whether he had the offensive upside to be a true top-end prospect was the question for myself and a lot of NHL scouts. I rated him as a mid-first-rounder.

There probably wasn’t the evidence at the time to support what he’s done offensively since then, but there was evidence to suggest he was going to be an excellent two-way defenseman. Seider went to the U20 B pool that winter and was the clear best defenseman, helping elevate Germany to the A pool. Even that, while impressive, is not usually indicative of an elite prospect.

His world championship was different. He showed up for Germany versus some of the best players in the world and didn’t look like a fish out of water. It was around that time I started to hear from NHL scouts that this player was for real, and it was here that I erred in not valuing how good he looked for a U18 defenseman at arguably the second-highest level behind the NHL. I don’t think I would with that information have moved him up to a top-five range as he’d go now in a redraft, but he should have been rated as a very reasonable top-10 pick.

Continued (paywall)

ESPN’s Greg Wyshynski offers a selection of 10 possible 2022 Hockey Hall of Fame inductees in a column for ESPN+, and two of his suggestions are former Red Wings. One is Daniel Alfredsson, who only spent one season with the Wings…

Daniel Alfredsson, right wing (sixth year): The former Senators captain could be part of a Swedish invasion with the Sedins in 2022, or he could continue to inch closer to being in “The Hall of Very Good” instead. His 444 goals are 64th all time and his 1,157 points are 54th. He won the Calder Trophy in 1995-96 and won Olympic gold along with the Sedins in 2006, plus a silver in 2014. But he never won another individual award or the Stanley Cup.

Jarome Iginla was enshrined for being a great player and an even better ambassador for the game. Alfredsson fits that description, too.

And you’ve heard of this guy:

Henrik Zetterberg, center (first year): Zetterberg finished his career with 960 points in 1,082 games, including 337 goals. A great two-way forward, he never won a Selke Trophy and was nominated only once. He was second for the Calder in 2002-03 as well. His greatest individual accomplishment was winning the Conn Smythe in the Red Wings’ 2008 Stanley Cup win. That ring earned him Triple Gold Club status, along with championships in the 2006 Olympics and the 2006 world championships with Sweden.

One could argue his former teammate Pavel Datsyuk has a stronger case. One could also argue that Guy Carbonneau’s enshrinement swung the door open for the former Red Wings captain.

Continued (paywall); I really wonder what people would say about Zetterberg if he had a fully healthy career. It turns out that the degenerative disc issue that plagued him during the second half of his career took a lot of pre-game work in order for Zetterberg to simply play through the pain. As good as he was, and he was damn good, he could have been better with a fully healthy back.