FYI:
#RedWings hockey is HERE and we're welcoming you back to Little Caesars Arena with a NO-FEE Flash Sale, good for all home game this season! #LGRW
— Detroit Red Wings (@DetroitRedWings) September 23, 2021
?: https://t.co/itZXhZciQC pic.twitter.com/SgS28a2Ws0
Regrettably, this morning’s Swedish news stories involve two members of the Red Wings’ prospect core, but they’re stuck behind paywalls.
IceHockeyGifs found a story about Lucas Raymond on GP.se…
From https://t.co/wAuNs7oE58 piece on Lucas Raymond ahead of main camp –
“I will do everything to steal a place on the roster”
New weight after summer is 189lbs while having maintained a bodyfat% “in the single-digits”. #LGRW https://t.co/nQmLohKhGx— IcehockeyGifs (@IcehockeyG) September 23, 2021
And Expressen’s Gothenburg-based paper, GP.se, has an article up profiling big Elmer Soderblom, but it’s also behind a paywall.
Sean McIndoe, a.k.a. “Down Goes Brown” of the Athletic, discusses what he considers to be the strangest moves of the offseason via a “bizarro meter’s” worth of power rankings for each and every one of the NHL’s 32 teams, and this is what he has to say about the Red Wings’ offseason:
The offseason so far: It was basically the Alex Nedeljkovic trade and then a handful of depth moves.
But their strangest story was: If Nedeljkovic turns out to be the answer in goal, Steve Yzerman will have added a key piece at a low price.
Bizarro-meter ranking: 3.4/10. Yzerman continues his slow-but-steady rebuild. Every year, we say that he’ll eventually have to get more aggressive, but apparently, that point hasn’t arrived yet. The Wings are on track, but it’s hard to see how they’ll be all that much better this year unless Nedeljkovic goes full superstar.
The Free Press’s Helene St. James posted her pre-training camp article this morning, discussing Moritz Seider’s chances of making the team and Tyler Bertuzzi’s status as unvaccinated and unable to play in Canada:
Seider, 20, comes to the Wings after spending last season with Rögle, where he played so well he was named the Swedish Hockey League defenseman of the year. Previously, he spent a season with the Grand Rapids Griffins and a season in the men’s league in his native Germany.
“Moritz will get every opportunity in the preseason to get as comfortable as he can be to potentially start the regular season,” Yzerman said. “He’s going to compete with not only the other three right shots, but the four left shots as well. Moritz has done well — playing in the men’s league in Germany, he did well. I was somewhat apprehensive his first year in Grand Rapids, as an 18 year old, and he did well. Then going into Sweden last year, he performed well. We are optimistic he’s up for the challenge. I would temper the excitement — it’s a huge step going from the AHL or the SHL to the NHL, the reality is the best players in the world are in the NHL. It is difficult to play in, more so for goalies and defensemen than it is for forwards.
“We expect there to be some learning, but I think he’s physically strong enough, he’s mature enough, and he has enough hockey sense to play. Can he adapt to the speed and excel in the league? Time will tell. He’s 20 years old.”
Continued (paywall)
Update: Here’s a bit more from the Traverse City Record-Eagle’s Andrew Rosenthal:
Moritz Seider, fresh off an year with the Swedish team of Rögle, is a name many fans are itching to know whether or not he will make the 23-player roster or new taxi squad.
What’s certain is he’ll be on the ice a lot in the preseason, Yzerman indicated. The Red Wings took the 20-year-old from Zell, Germany, sixth overall in the 2019 NHL draft. Seider did not play in last weekend’s prospect tournament but is set to appear in Traverse City for camp, which starts Thursday morning at Centre ICE.
Detroit will carry eight defenseman this winter.
“I would temper the excitement and the expectations,” Yzerman said. “I think it’s a huge step going from the American League, the Swedish league, or the KHL for that matter, to the NHL. The reality is the best players in the world are in the NHL, with exception of the young guy who’s stayed in Europe for a year or two more.”
I needed to take a little nap this afternoon, and when I woke up, my Twitter account had blown up, 3 comments needed to be moderated in the moderation queue regarding my take on Tyler Bertuzzi’s status as unvaccinated, and Breitbart of all places showed up in my Red Wings search engine for a story about Tyler this evening.
So: You know my take on the fact that Mr. Bertuzzi has chosen to decline COVID vaccination, to the tune of missing 9 games in Canada and probably about $400,000 U.S.
To say that, as both a Wings blogger who has to be semi-objective and a Wings partisan who does not always stay semi-objective, I am disappointed in his stance is an understatement.
But what gets me the most is the simple part of it all, never minding the whole personal situation with COVID (no uncle, no high school friend, no friend who had a kidney transplant) on my side of the situation:
Tyler Bertuzzi may have “bodily autonomy,” but, put simply, his employer also has every right to have a vaccination policy, and, as a result, an integral part of the Red Wings’ roster is has chosen to not do part of his job as an integral part of the Red Wings’ roster.
That’s what really bothered me during my nap this afternoon. It’s that somebody is more than willing to take a check to make a play or take a cross-check or a hack on the ankles to get to the front of the net and stay there is equally willing to simply sit and watch his teammates for at least nine games–and follow admittedly punitive off-ice measures designed to protect his teammates from him–because of moral or ethical objections to getting a sore arm.
That kind of inconsistency of character is something I can’t quite wrap my head around. He’s willing to make all kinds of sacrifices to his body for his teammates, and that makes him a good, valuable player, but a little vaccine’s worth of fats and MRNA a bridge too far for the temple of a body he’s built. Is that it?
It doesn’t make sense to me. Maybe it does to you, but as a human being, more than a blogger or a Wings partisan, I don’t understand why it is the needle that terrifies the battleship.
He’s not doing his effing job by refusing the vaccine, and that’s not good enough for George the former soccer player or hockey player who had no talent but did whatever it took to run through walls for his teammates.
And that is why I am still so upset with Tyler Bertuzzi today. He’s not willing to go the extra mile to protect his teammates from himself, and that makes no sense to me.
Pro Hockey Talk’s Adam Gretz posted a list of “X Factors” for each and every one of the NHL’s Eastern Conference teams, and he earns an “art of understatement” award for this take on Moritz Seider:
Detroit Red Wings: Moritz Seider. If he is as good as the Red Wings think he can be that would be quite the immediate boost to their rebuild. The perception of this pick has rapidly changed in two years.
Continued; you could say that, yeah, you could say that…
The Windsor Star’s Jim Parker took note of the fact that Red Wings 2021 draft pick Pasquale Zito earned a nod from Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman as one of the better performers at the Red Wings’ prospect tournament. The Windsor Spitfires forward didn’t play a game last season in the OHL due to the pandemic:
Yzerman was so impressed by Zito’s performance at the club’s prospect tournament on the weekend that he earned an invite to the team’s main training camp, which begins on Thursday in Traverse City, Mich.
“We were down to nine forwards,” Yzerman said of the final game of the tournament. “Some of these kids hadn’t played, like Pasquale Zito didn’t play last year.
“I thought he looked really good out there for someone who hadn’t played (and) for someone who’s 18-year-olds old. He hung in there good. Some of these teams had guys that have been pro for a few years or that have just left college and are 23-, 24-years-old (and) he did well for an 18-year-old.”
The 6-foot, 176-pound Zito had a power-play goal in three games and was even in a tournament where Detroit was outscored 16-10.
“I feel I played OK,” Zito said “Obviously, having a year off in the OHL, being away a year, of course, for the first game (I) felt a little slow being back. I felt progressively I got better and got adjusted to the speed.”
Here’s WXYZ’s Brad Galli’s report regarding Steve Yzerman’s press conference this afternoon, including Tyler Bertuzzi’s status:
MLive’s Ansar Khan discusses the Red Wings’ competition for spots on the roster, in terms of both younger and older players, this evening:
“I expect and hope the players all recognize — whether it’s Bobby Ryan coming in on a PTO, Givani Smith, Moritz Seider, you name it — they got a lot to play for and have a good training camp and good preseason and then ultimately, once the regular season starts, maintain their role or play an increased role,” [Red Wings GM Steve] Yzerman said. “I am looking forward to watching the new faces and see how the players that have been here respond to the opportunity to get a bigger role and compete with some of the younger players or new faces for those spots.”
Veleno appears furthest ahead among the waiver-exempt players making a push for a roster spot. He made his NHL debut by playing five games at the end of the season.
“Physically, he’s very strong, he’s a strong skater, good puck skills,” Yzerman said. “I thought he was very good in the (Prospects) tournament. I’m excited to see him in preseason. He’s pretty fit, thick. He looks like a guy who physically has been in the league 7-8 years and that’s going to bode well for him.”
Yzerman said Raymond and Berggren, coming over from Sweden and dealing with minor injuries from the Prospects Tournament, need to show they can keep up and be positive contributors. They’re up against it, as Yzerman said they likely will need to be among the top nine forwards and playing significant minutes to start the season in Detroit.
“Both looked good in limited play in the rookie tournament,” Yzerman said. “Hopefully, Jonatan isn’t out too long, and Lucas is able to go with zero restrictions starting (Thursday) and they can get into the drills and show that they’re strong enough, They’re good skaters, but can they play at the pace of the NHL level, adjust to the smaller ice surface?”
The Detroit News’s John Niyo took in Steve Yzerman’s press conference from earlier this afternoon, and he paid particularattention to Yzerman’s remarks regarding the Wings’ youngsters, who still have to earn spots on the Red Wings’ roster:
A year ago, the Red Wings’ opening-night roster was the second-oldest in the league, which is not at all how a rebuild is supposed to look. But with the offseason departures of players like Frans Nielsen, Valtteri Filppula and Darren Helm — just to name a few — the 2021-22 roster will be considerably younger. Just how young, though, we’re about to find out.
Yzerman’s first draft pick, 2019 first-rounder Moritz Seider, is a lock to make the roster and play top-four minutes on the blue line after an impressive season that saw him earn top defenseman honors in the Swedish Hockey League as a 19-year-old.
But some of the other young European prospects — namely Swedish forwards Lucas Raymond and Jonatan Berggren — likely are ticketed for Grand Rapids and the American Hockey League this fall. Then again, if we’re to take Yzerman at his word, anything is possible. And where they start the season is up to them now.
“Our younger players, I’m not purposely leaving them in the minors to marinate or whatnot,” Yzerman said Wednesday on the eve of the Red Wings’ training camp in Traverse City. “When they’re ready to play in the NHL, when they’re better than the players that we have on our team, I’m more than happy to put them in there.”
There’s a “but” that followed that, as you’d expect. And that’s the part that buys any GM cover when it comes to decisions like these and the realities of roster manipulation. Yet it’s also true that a rebuilding team like Detroit naturally feels more freedom to toss the kids out on the ice and let them flail than a team that’s intent on making the playoffs. Yzerman finally has the flexibility to do that here, too, after spending the last few years clearing out some of the bloated veteran contracts he inherited when he took this job nearly 2 ½ years ago.
“But I want them to play well and I want them to play meaningful minutes,” Yzerman said of his team’s top prospects. “I don’t want them playing seven or eight minutes (a night), or in a goaltender’s case once every fifth or sixth game. I just believe they’re better off, in the long run, to play significant minutes. And when they’re ready to do that, I’m not gonna wait an extra year, in our position, to do that.”
Continued (paywall)
