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!

Red Wings-Senators morning skate Tweets and game preview: Lyon starts, Petry still out

The 17-18-and-4 Detroit Red Wings host the 19-17-and-2 Ottawa Senators this evening (7 PM EST start on FanDuel SportsNet Detroit/TSN5/RDS/97.1 FM), and the game is crucial for both teams.

The Red Wings have won 4 straight games, but need to make up ground in the Eastern Conference and Atlantic Division standings; Ottawa has lost 4 of their last 5 games without goaltender Linus Ullmark, who is having back spasms, and the Ottawa Sun’s Bruce Garrioch summarizes the Senators’ situation thusly:

The Senators woke up on the outside of the National Hockey League’s playoff picture for the first time in three weeks on Monday morning.

The club has lost four of its last five games without top goaltender Linus Ullmark and the Senators need to right the ship to stay in the race.

Detroit has won four straight under new head coach Todd McLellan and the Wings are one of the teams the Senators are battling to make the playoffs for the first time in eight years.

The Senators scored a 2-1 win over the Wings on Dec. 5 at home.

“You see the standings. I watch a lot of hockey,” said centre Tim Stutzle after the club’s skate on Monday. “We’ve just got to focus on ourselves, and we want to win as many games as we can. It’s about us in here and it doesn’t really matter what other teams do. We’re just trying to win our games.”

Field Level Media also took note of the Sens’ issues of late…

Continue reading Red Wings-Senators morning skate Tweets and game preview: Lyon starts, Petry still out

Poolies might want to pick up Patrick Kane

ESPN’s Victoria Matiash suggests that fantasy hockey poolies might want to pick up a certain Red Wings veteran who’s looking like his old self again:

Patrick Kane, F, Detroit Red Wings (1.3 FPPG, 48.1% available): The veteran scorer has three goals and four assists during the Red Wings’ current four-game win streak. That correlation is no coincidence. While it’s taken him too long to warm up, on a forward unit with Andrew Copp and Alex DeBrincat, Kane might finally be back to putting up numbers to which we’ve become accustomed.

Continued; it’s just plain old good to see Kane look relaxed and happy again.

Training camp try-out Alex Chiasson retires

One-time Red Wing, Grand Rapids Griffin, and 2024 training camp/exhibition season try-out Alex Chiasson has retired…

And the Hockey News’s Sam Stockton took note of Chiasson’s time in Detroit:

Chiasson’s time in Detroit wasn’t long, playing just his last 20 games with the Red Wings in the 2022-23 season.  He attempted a comeback on a PTO with Detroit during training camp, but it didn’t result in a contract.  Now, unsigned midway through the season, Chiasson has accepted that his NHL career has run its course.

Even back in training camp, Chiasson recognized that his time in the NHL was coming to an end.  “If we go back maybe a year from today, I wasn’t sure where my career was at,” he said in October. “Thought maybe that was it for me. Hockey was hard physically, but just life in general wasn’t much fun. So went through the process and ended up getting surgery in January, and here we are today. [I’m] grateful for the opportunity to be here, obviously worked really hard to come back. It’s not easy at 33 to put in the work and all that, but you can only do this for so long, and hopefully I can show what I can do.”

Red Wings spent Saturday night, Sunday morning in Friendly Manitoba

The Free Press’s Helene St. James reports that the Red Wings spent a little more time in the prairie province of Manitoba than they’d hoped to after Saturday night’s 4-2 win over the Jets:

It happened to the Detroit Red Wings over the weekend, as a mechanical issue with their airplane prevented their scheduled Saturday night departure from Winnipeg, Manitoba, where they had just downed the Jets, 4-2. Instead of getting home around 1 a.m. Sunday morning, the Wings landed, per coach Todd McLellan, around 3:30 p.m. Sunday afternoon.

“Things like that happen,” McLellan said Monday. “You control the things you can control and react to the other. The group was good. It was a bit of a test today because they spent their scheduled day off in Winnipeg; it wasn’t ideal, so how are they going to react in practice? They reacted well.”

The only players not at practice were defensemen Jeff Petry, who is being evaluated for an undisclosed injury suffered Jan. 2 in the game at the Columbus Blue Jackets, and Justin Holl, who was excused for personal reasons. McLellan said Petry will miss Tuesday’s game against the Ottawa Senators at Little Caesars Arena, but expects Holl to be available.

The rest of the players went through a nearly hour-long practice that culminated with a spirited four-team shootout contest.

“They came and worked hard,” McLellan said. “We tried to work on a few concepts and they put them into play, gave us their time, gave us their best. Hopefully that translates into the game tomorrow. Because we had to stay in Winnipeg a few extra hours long doesn’t affect anything we did today or tomorrow or moving forward.”

Continued

Tweet of note: ECHL names Carter Gylander their goaltender of the week

Per the ECHL:

Here’s the ECHL’s press release:

Carter Gylander of the Toledo Walleye is the Warrior Hockey ECHL Goaltender of the Week for Dec. 30-Jan. 5.
 
Gylander went 3-0-0 with one shutout, a 1.67 goals-against average and a save percentage of .952 in three appearances last week.
 
The 23-year-old stopped 30 shots in a 3-2 win at Cincinnati on Tuesday, made 44 saves in a 4-3 victory at Fort Wayne on Friday and turned aside all 26 shots in a 3-0 win over the Komets on Saturday.
 
Under a National Hockey League contract with Detroit, Gylander has appeared in 13 games with the Walleye this season going 9-2-2 with two shutouts, a 2.22 goals-against average – which ranks seventh in the ECHL – and a save percentage of .921, which is eighth in the league.
 
Prior to turning pro, Gylander saw action in 106 career games at Colgate University where he went 46-46-13 with five shutouts, a 2.69 goals-against average and a save percentage of .907.

Videos: Kane, Lyon and coach McLellan speak after Monday’s practice

The Detroit Red Wings practiced at Little Caesars Arena’s BELFOR Training Center this morning, preparing for Tuesday night’s game against Ottawa.

Jeff Petry and Justin Holl did not participate in Monday’s practice, and the Wings’ media corps reported that Petry remains sidelined with an injury, per coach Todd McLellan.

The Red Wings posted a 15:36 clip of Patrick Kane and coach Todd McLellan speaking with the media today…

And the Free Press’s Helene St. James also posted a clip of comments from Kane, Alex Lyon and coach McLellan:

Allen assesses the Wings’ World Junior Championship participants

Detroit Hockey Now’s Kevin Allen posted a summary of the performances of the Red Wings’ four World Junior Championship participants, and here’s what he has to say about Finnish forward Jesse Kiiskinen:

Jesse Kiiskinen, Right Wing,  HPK Hameenlinna (SM-liiga)

Kiiskinen finished with six goals and seven points in the tournament. He scored Finland’s first goal in the gold medal game against USA.

He’s enjoyed an exceptional season (22 points in 26 games) in the Finnish Elite League. He a consistent player, doesn’t take any nights off is what scouts say. He’s a strong skater.

Kiiskinen is the most productive teenager in the Finnish League. He leads his team in scoring.

The Red Wings haven’t tipped their hand about what their plans are for Kiiskinen, but it would make sense to bring him over to play in Grand Rapids next season.

Continued (paywall)

Post-practice Tweets: Petry out vs. Sens on Tuesday; Holl available

The Red Wings prepared for tomorrow night’s game against the Ottawa Senators (7 PM start on FanDuel SportsNet Detroit/TSN5/RDS/97.1 FM) by practicing at the BELFOR Training Center on Monday. Jeff Petry and Justin Holl did not take part in Monday’s skate.

After Monday’s practice, the Red Wings’ coach and players spoke with the media:

Continue reading Post-practice Tweets: Petry out vs. Sens on Tuesday; Holl available

The Atlantic Division is a crowded place

Among Sportsnet’s Ryan Dixon’s “Weekend Takeaways“:

• Speaking of the bottom, Detroit is making a now-or-never push to get back in the Eastern Conference playoff chase under new bench boss Todd McLellan. Saturday’s 4-2 triumph in Winnipeg might have been the win of the year for the Red Wings, who’ve suddenly strung together four straight victories and have dropped just one game — McLellan’s first with the squad on Dec. 27 — since making the coaching change.

• Speaking of the Atlantic, that division has become exceptionally bunched — even by, loser-point, salary cap-parity standards — thanks to Detroit’s surge and the small swoon of another team that made a coaching switch, the Boston Bruins. The B’s dropped two games on the weekend to Toronto and the Islanders and have suddenly lost five of six to hit their first real rough patch since Joe Sacco took over behind the bench. Boston currently ranks third in the Atlantic with 45 points and seventh-place Detroit checks in at 38 points. That means five teams — Boston, Tampa, Ottawa, Montreal and Detroit — are separated by just seven points and each of the four squads right behind Boston hold games in hand on the B’s.

Continued