As far as the Edmonton Journal’s Jim Matheson is concerned, the Red Wings should raise a banner for former GM Ken Holland, who will visit Detroit on Tuesday with his current team, the Edmonton Oilers.

I’m going to disagree with one of my sportswriting idols, but offer you his reasoning anyway:

Former Red Wings general manager Ken Holland makes his first trip back to Detroit Tuesday night as a minted Hockey Hall of Famer but the current Edmonton Oilers GM won’t be getting his banner raised as a salute.

It’s a ‘players only’ club in Detroit. The Red Wings have Gordie Howe (9), Sid Abel (12), Ted Lindsay (7), Alex Delvecchio (10), Nick Lidstrom (5), Terry Sawchuk (1) and present-day general manager Steve Yzerman (19) up in the rafters at Little Caesars Arena.

So seven players, same as the Oilers. No coaches, managers, owners/builders. Even if Hall of Famers.

They don’t have coach Scotty Bowman or GM Jimmy Devellano, who preceded Holland, or owner Mike Ilitch. All in the HHOF. It isn’t like Edmonton where coach/GM Glen Sather rightfully has a banner. Also their storied play-by-play man Rod Phillips, who called over 3,500 games.

Holland, GM of three Cup winners in 1998, 2002 and 2008 and assistant to Devellano in 1997, has been back to Detroit once on Oct. 29, 2019 as the GM of the Oilers. He wasn’t a Hall of Famer in the builder category then, though. The team may salute him in some way, but no banner.

Holland himself said this to Matheson:

“In Detroit, we drafted Jimmy Howard who played 500 plus games for the Red Wings and Chris Osgood won a couple of Stanley Cups. I do think I have a feel for it and I like talking to goalies, but as I’ve been in the industry 35 years, it’s evaluating players at whatever position. It’s deciding who’s going to be good. It’s not an exact science. Look at the NHL Guide and Record Book. As a scout, you are trying to predict an 18-year-old’s future,” he said. “Scouting? It’s hard. You listen to your area scouts, a lot. In Detroit, we had a guy named Paul Crowley, who really pushed for a kid named Darren McCarty whom we got in the second round. He was a blue-collar player, enough skill,” said Holland.

How about this?

Given that Darren McCarty, Kris Draper and Kirk Maltby won’t ever have their numbers retired, either, maybe the Red Wings should establish some sort of Detroit Red Wings Hall of Fame, Ring of Honor, etc., and have theme nights where they, oh, I dunno, bring in the Russian Five, the Grind Line, Chris Chelios, Dominik Hasek, Scotty Bowman, Jimmy Devellano, yes, Ken Holland, etc. and induct them.

It would sell tickets, and be a fitting, permanent honor for the people who helped build Hockeytown. And Gord knows, it would be fun.

The Detroit Red Wings defeated the Vegas Golden Knights in a 5-2 win that was one of the closest 5-2 decisions I’ve ever witnessed. Detroit was dominant at times early, rallying from a 1-0 deficit with 3 straight goals (from Lucas Raymond, Robby Fabbri and Pius Suter, thanks to a 2-for-2 1st period power play), but Vegas was tremendously resilient.

Even after Vladislav Namestnikov made the score 4-1, Vegas refused to surrender, battling back via 20 3rd period shots and a total of 40 shots and 70 attempts overall, a good half of them taken in the 3rd.

Detroit continued to struggle in the faceoff circle, so, despite having 2 power plays in the latter half of said 3rd period, Vegas all but continually buzzed in the Wings’ zone, and the final five minutes were exemplified by a flurry of Greiss stops.

That being said, both teams were playing their 2nd game in 2 nights, their 3rd in 4 nights and 4th in 6 nights total, so the fact that the Red Wings could attribute their third period struggles to a “learning experience” was, in no small respect, due to physical and mental fatigue.

Long story long, the Red Wings won both Saturday and Sunday, rebounding nicely from their 0-3-and-1 stretch, and Dylan Larkin’s return from a family emergency seemed to give the team just enough “oomph” to win the race to 60 minutes’ worth of play.

Perhaps just as importantly, the Red Wings left the Golden Knights flummoxed with their effort, as the Las Vegas Review-Journal’s David Schoen noted:

In the ECHL, the Toledo Walleye were playing 3 games in 3 nights this weekend, and somebody had to go back-to-back after Billy Christopoulos played in a 6-4 win over Kalamazoo on Friday.

That somebody was Red Wings prospect Kaden Fulcher, the only Wings prospect currently playing on the Walleye, and Fulcher back-stopped Toledo to a 6-0 win over Kalmazoo on Saturday, stopping 22 shots.

On Sunday, Fulcher got the nod ahead of Christopoulos, and he had a rough night, giving up 5 goals on 25 shots as Toledo lost 5-2 to Fort Wayne. The Walleye’s website posted a recap and a highlight clip:

Now we know:

Red Wings captain Dylan Larkin on missing three games: “I had to be home for a family emergency.”

“I hope everyone can respect my family’s privacy at this time.” pic.twitter.com/K4VX5kDFgu— Brad Galli (@BradGalli) November 8, 2021

Dylan Larkin said it was a tough week as he was dealing with a family emergency and hopes everyone can respect his privacy. #RedWings— Ansar Khan (@AnsarKhanMLive) November 8, 2021

Dylan Larkin says it was tough for him, had to be home for a family emergency. “It’s a private matter I hope everybody can respect … during this tough time.” Was gone from Red Wings for a week.— Helene St. James (@HeleneStJames) November 8, 2021

Update: Here’s WXYZ”s Brad Galli’s clip of Larkin’s presser:

The Detroit Red Wings hoped to get back on a regular winning track by defeating the Vegas Golden Knights in the second half of a back-to-back set of games.

With Dylan Larkin back in the lineup…

Detroit sure as shit played with fire on Sunday, but the Red Wings roared out to an early lead, generating 3 first-period goals from Lucas Raymond, Robby Fabbri and Pius Suter (going 2-for-2 on the PP); Vladislav Namestnikov scored an unlikely second-period marker to afford Detroit a 4-1 lead, and while Vegas made it 4-2 in the 3rd–and peppered Thomas Greiss with 20 3rd period shots–Detroit held on for a 5-2 victory, punctuated by a Tyler Bertuzzi empty-netter.

Thomas Greiss stopped 38 of 40 shots, and Vegas had THIRTY more attempts thanks to a 3rd period in which Vegas, which, like Detroit, had played 2 games in 2 nights, 3 in 4 and 4 in 6 total–both teams were mentally tired–Detroit held on, and they learned the hard way what not to do in the 3rd period when they face Edmonton on Tuesday.

Per the Red Wings on Twitter:

UPDATE: The Detroit #RedWings today assigned center Joe Veleno to the AHL’s Grand Rapids Griffins.

Additionally, the Red Wings activated defenseman Gustav Lindstrom from injured reserve. pic.twitter.com/hCvLBi8UKF— Detroit Red Wings (@DetroitRedWings) November 7, 2021

Update: This is why:

Dylan Larkin takes the ice for the Red Wings in warm up— Max Bultman (@m_bultman) November 7, 2021

The Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan filed a notebook article in which he discusses the performances of Moritz Seider and Lucas Raymond:

Raymond, 19, assisted on three Wings goals, helping him extend his NHL rookie lead to 13 points (five goals, eight assists). The five goals tie San Jose’s Jonathan Dahlen for the rookie lead. Seider, 20, is second to Raymond with 10 points. Seider’s nine assists leads all rookies.

The two players have shown they’re ready for the NHL from the first puck drop this season.

“It’s a really hard league to be good on a night-to-night basis — they’ve been pretty good on a night-to-night basis,” coach Jeff Blashill said. “(Raymond) really dug in in the third (period). That line (with Tyler Bertuzzi, Pius Suter) was excellent as we got going. Moritz plays big minutes. I didn’t think he’d played as good through parts of the game, but when the game was on the line in the third, he was really good.”

As good as Seider was Saturday, Raymond’s contributions were just as important. Raymond’s playmaking ability has been a pleasant development for the Wings, who are in need of offense.

“There’s a reason he (Raymond) was drafted that high,” Seider said of Raymond, the fourth overall pick in 2020 by the Wings. “He’s showing what he’s got. We know what his abilities are in the locker room. He’s just doing his job but he’s doing it phenomenally.”

Continued

DetroitRedWings.com’s Daniella Bruce and 97.1 the Ticket’s Ken Kal previewed tonight’s game between Detroit and Vegas:

I spent my “extra hour” of time as Daylight Saving Time shifted back to Eastern Standard Time here in Michigan writing a fairly comprehensive Red Wings-Golden Knights preview ahead of tonight’s game between the two teams (6 PM EST start on Bally Sports Detroit/ATT Sportsnet Rocky Mountain/97.1 FM).

This morning, in lieu of a morning skate (Detroit won for the first time in 5 tries last night, defeating Buffalo 4-3 in overtime; Vegas won for the 5th time in 6 last night, defeating Montreal 5-2), both teams’ websites have posted their own game previews.

VegasGoldenKnights.com’s Gordon Weigers sets up tonight’s game as follows:

We knew this was going to happen, and it has come to pass.

Former Red Wings coach Mike Babcock is currently coaching the University of Lethbridge in Lethbridge, Alberta this season, and Sportsnet sent David Singh (with whom I have no beef) to check in on Babcock as he attempts to rehabilitate his reputation by re-starting his coaching career as a volunteer coach for Lethbridge

Babcock, who spent last spring analyzing playoff games on NBCSN, has of course “fallen from grace” after the Toronto Maple Leafs fired him more for not getting results and being the hire of former GM Lou Lamoriello instead of current GM Kyle Dubas much, much more than the Leafs fired Babcock for demeaning Toronto’s players.

By now, you already know that (during the period of time when I was busy managing my mom’s estate right after her death, and was away from the blog), Johan Franzen accused Babcock of bullying the crap out of him repeatedly. The fact that Ken Holland apparently told the Wings’ players that they could ask for a trade if they didn’t like Babcock’s tactics (and rumor has it that more than a few of them were pissed off during Babcock’s final years behind the Wings’ bench) doesn’t help…

But the bottom line here is that you and I both know that, long before Babcock’s 8-year, $50 million contract with the Maple Leafs ends in 2023, he’s going to earn a spot coaching in the NHL again.

So we come to the part of this story where I quote Sportsnet’s Singh’s article: