Author: George Malik

The Detroit News’s Steve Kornacki filed a Friday notebook article in which he discusses the Red Wings’ struggling power play, noting that the Wings have scored 2 power play goals over the course of 4 games, running at 14.2% efficiency:

Coach Jeff Blashill was asked to explain why his team came up empty on three power plays in Thursday night’s 3-0 home loss to the Calgary Flames.

“We didn’t handle their pressure good enough,” he said. “When we had chances to attack, we didn’t attack. When we had chances to make plays, we didn’t make plays. And we turned the puck over too many times when we didn’t need to do that.”

Red Wings captain Dylan Larkin added: “We’re going to look at the film and try to be better. We have the guys in the locker room to have a good power play unit. We believe that.”

Forwards Tyler Bertuzzi and Filip Zadina have Detroit’s power-play goals.

It won’t help that Bertuzzi can’t play in Montreal because he’s the lone Red Wing electing not to get the coronavirus vaccine and isn’t allowed in his native country. He’s scored a team-high five goals and is the kind of aggressive shooter who makes opponents pay for being down one man.

Blashill said even one power-play goal would’ve made a big difference against Calgary. But Detroit was blanked on two opportunities while putting 14 shots on goalie Jacob Markstrom in the second period.

“We had enough opportunities,” Blashill said. “If you score one or two, it’s a different atmosphere. … Ultimately, the power play needs to be better than it was.”

Continued; simpler, quicker passing, moving their feet, pucks and bodies to the front of the net, and motion instead of passing from stationary player to stationary player. The answers to the Wings’ power play woes aren’t hard to figure out. It’s just a matter of executing.

The Detroit Red Wings aren’t necessarily receiving balanced scoring going into this weekend’s back-to-back series vs. the winless Canadiens and Blackhawks, so Detroit Hockey Now’s Kevin Allen names 4 culprits in the 2-1-and-1 Wings’ struggles, in a subscriber-only article. Here are two of the four sources of offense that Allen lists:

Center Pius Suter: After playing superbly in the preseason, Suter’s offensive touch has gone cold. It’s not about effort. Suter leads the team with 12 shots on goal. But he doesn’t have a point yet. To make matters worse, he’s minus-3. He’s a smart player who helps even when he doesn’t get points.

But Suter has to score for the Detroit Red Wings to show any measurable improvement this season. They must have two scoring lines.

…

Center Michael Rasmussen: The Red Wings coaches are trying to convince Rasmussen he can be another Jordan Staal. To do that, Rasmussen will need to be more physical. This season, Staal has played three games and Rasmussen had played four. They each have two assists. But Staal has 10 hits and Rasmussen shows two.

The Red Wings appreciate that Rasmussen works at his game. He is trying to become a better player. He’s 6-foot-6 and he needs to use that size to his advantage. Quality teams usually have a No. 3 center that plays with an edge.

Continued (paywall); I knew that Pius was going to struggle adjusting to playing on the Red Wings, but my hope is that playing against Chicago on Sunday will spark him–and he is as talented as advertised–and Rasmussen is equally a battle of self-belief, because “The Moose” does a fine job of playing physically when he buys into his job.

The Grand Rapids Griffins play the Manitoba Moose tonight and Sunday (tonight it’s at 8 PM EDT on TheAHL.tv), and the Grand Rapids Griffins posted a video preview of the back-to-back set:

The Athletic’s Eric Duhsatchek discusses Moritz Seider’s very early-season candidacy for the Calder Trophy as the NHL’s best rookie this evening, noting that it’s not easy for a defenseman to win the award:

There is always considerable interest in the NHL’s rookie race, and a question was posed about the chances of the Red Wings’ fine prospect, Moritz Seider, actually challenging for the Calder. My answer is yes, for a couple of reasons. One: Voters are more willing than ever to look at defencemen in rookie of the year balloting. For a long time, it was a black hole. From 1990, when Sergei Makarov won the Calder, until 2014, when it went to Nathan MacKinnon, only three defencemen won the award: Bryan Berard in 1997, Barret Jackman in 2003 and Tyler Myers in 2010.

Since then, we’ve seen Aaron Ekblad (2015) and Cale Makar (2020) win the Calder and in Makar’s year, two other defencemen were in contention for the award (Quinn Hughes and Adam Fox). This year’s race could be interesting, because the two odds-on favorites up front, Zegras and Montreal’s Cole Caufield, have been slow off the mark offensively. In theory, you could see three defencemen in the running again: Seider, Colorado’s Bowen Byram and Anaheim’s Drysdale. One thing Jason Robertson’s unexpected Calder challenge last year taught us: There’s always going to be one candidate that comes from a little off the grid to make it a race. Maybe Seider is that candidate this season.

Continued (paywall)

Of Red Wings prospect-related note in Europe on Friday:

In the Finnish Liiga, Eemil Viro finished at +1 with 2 shots in 17:32 played as TPS Turku won 3-2 over Assat Pori;

Otto Kivenmaki had an assist, finishing at +1 with 4 shots in 14:25 played during the Lahti Pelicans’ 4-2 win over Karpat;

In the Swedish Allsvenskan, Jesper Eliasson served as the back-up as Almtuna IS lost 5-4 in a shootout to HV71, whose Filip Larsson was also a back-up today;

In Mora IK’s 3-2 loss to AIK Stockholm, Albin Grewe had 2 assists but finished at -2 with 3 shots, and Gustav Berglund finished at -1 with 1 shot;

And in the Swedish J20 league, Liam Dower Nilsson scored a goal in Frolunda HC’s 5-3 loss to Orebro.

I’m kind of looking at this article and going, “Do I have to post it?” but I suppose that’s a sign that I do indeed have to post it. The Athletic’s Sean Gentille and Dom Luszczyszyn offer their latest set of power rankings this morning, and while the Red Wings’ 3-0 loss to the Calgary Flames last night was a major bummer…

The “vibes” around the Red Wings are good?

14. Detroit Red Wings

Record:  2-1-1
Last Week: 27
Dom rank: 15
Sean rank: 14

Sean: We adjusted after the Wings’ 3-0 loss to Calgary on Thursday night, and we could’ve dropped them further, but … whatever. They get the 14th spot based on vibes. I watched a decent chunk of that game, and Moritz Seider may well be as good as everyone says. If and when they stink, that’ll give the fanbase something to glom onto. Same goes for Lucas Raymond. That’s good enough for now.

Dom: They had 6.9 expected goals against Columbus the other night so their vibes are indeed very nice.

Continued (paywall); shit, if you’re gonna rank the Wings 14th based on anything other than objective criteria, I’ll take it at this point, but the 2-1-and-1 team needs to get its shit together opposite desperate Canadiens and Blackhawks teams this weekend.

I think this weekend’s back-to-back games will reveal a lot about the Wings’ character and resolve going forward.

This article comes to us via the invaluable IceHockeyGifs on Twitter: Red Wings prospect Elmer Soderblom engaged in a “20 Questions” interview with Johannes Haggelund, and here’s a rough translation of Soderblom’s answers to Haggelund’s questions:

1. If you had to pick an aspect from another player in the SHL, whose skill would you pick?

“[Teammate] Ryan Lasch‘s passing game.”

2. Who is your most difficult opponent in the SHL?

“Last year, Moritz Seider (of Rogle) was hard to play. I’m often around the goal and in the corners, and I met him a lot there and it was tough.”

3. What physical exercises do you think are the most fun, and the most boring?

“Bench presses are always fun. It’s one of the most fun exercises. The most boring physical exercises are chin-ups. I’m tall and heavy [Soderblom is 6’8″ and 238 pounds]. They’re not my favorite.”

4. What do you do in the bench press?

“I’ve gotten up to 137.5 kilos [303.13 pounds] this season.”

5. When were you the most starstruck?

“When I met Peter Forsberg at the Globen Arena after we won the Under-18 World Championship [in 2019] in Ornskoldsvik. After that we had to go to the Globen and I met “Foppa.” It’s the most starstruck I’ve ever been.

The Red Wings lost a 3-0 decision to the Calgary Flames on Thursday night, and the 2-1-and-1 Red Wings will face extraordinarily difficult challenges this weekend in heading northeast to battle the 0-and-5 Montreal Canadiens on Saturday, and then turning around to tangle with the 0-4-and-1 Chicago Blackhawks on Sunday.

MLive’s Ansar Khan posted an article this morning which discusses the fact that the Wings fell into the Flames’ trap last night, letting an emotional let-down from their first three games affect their play against a trap-happy, slow-the-game-down defensive team…

“The first three games were emotional, and we practiced hard (Wednesday), and we didn’t have our legs today,” Dylan Larkin said. “We didn’t have that emotion that we played with. You’re not going to have it every night in the National Hockey League. It’s 82 games. It’s hard. But when we don’t have our legs, our emotion, we got to find a way to simplify and play a better hockey game.”

The Red Wings showed much energy the first five minutes, but some of it was sapped after the Flames jumped ahead 2-0 in the first period on goals by Elias Lindholm (10:06) and Andrew Mangiapane (14:33) against Alex Nedeljkovic.

It was the first time this season the Red Wings trailed in a game and despite outshooting the Flames 33-29 and getting some open looks in the slot against Jacob Markstrom, Detroit didn’t have enough push to come back.

“In the third, they did an excellent job,” Red Wings coach Jeff Blashill said. “They just put it in, made us go 200 feet. We stayed on the outside. I didn’t think we shot enough pucks. We didn’t have the same level of energy that we’ve had, especially in the third period.”

Khan continues, and the Free Press’s Helene St. James looks ahead to the Wings’ difficult weekend schedule, which is of course made more difficult by Tyler Bertuzzi’s impending absence from the lineup:

The Detroit Red Wings fell into the Calgary Flames’ trap over the course of a 3-0 loss to Calgary on Thursday night, and now the 2-1-and-1 Red Wings face two extremely difficult tasks this weekend:

First, the Wings will take on 0-and-5 Montreal Canadiens team coming off a 4-1 loss to Carolina on Saturday (minus the unvaccinated Tyler Bertuzzi), and then Detroit will head to Chicago to battle an 0-4-and-1 Blackhawks team that will have rested since tonight’s 4-1 loss to Vancouver.

Long story long, it’s out of the frying pan and into the fire for a Red Wings team that had no “oomph” on Thursday evening, and the Red Wings may very well have to manufacture emotion and urgency going into Montreal on Saturday, as well as some energy heading into Chicago on a back-to-back Sunday.

As far as Thursday’s game was concerned, Calgary came into the night sitting at 0-1-and-1, and the Flames’ players and coach told the Calgary Sun’s Kristen Anderson that Calgary had no problem manifesting urgency or emotion at Little Caesars Arena:

Of prospect-related note in North America on Thursday:

In the OHL, Pasquale Zito finished at +1 with 1 shot and a 5-for-7 faceoff record in the Windsor Spitfires’ 7-4 win over Owen Sound;

And in NCAA Hockey, Jack Adams finished even with 1 shot in the University of Notre Dame Fighting Irish’s 3-2 OT loss to Rochester.