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!

Sportsnet’s Wiebe: Evgeny Svechnikov to sign Pro Tryout with Winnipeg

FYI:

Hearing that mutual interest between #NHLJets and UFA F Evgeny Svechnikov has led initially to a Pro Tryout Offer. Svechnikov had a shoulder issue cleaned up in May and the expectation is he should be cleared to play around training camp. Once healthy, look for a two-way deal.— Ken Wiebe (@WiebesWorld) August 20, 2021

Update: Here’s more from MLive’s Ansar Khan:

Evgeny Svechnikov, the Detroit Red Wings’ top pick in the 2015 draft, has signed a one-year AHL contract with the Manitoba Moose.

Svechnikov, 24, will attend Winnipeg Jets training camp on a tryout in an effort to earn a two-way NHL contact.

The Red Wings last month declined to tender a qualifying offer to Svechnikov, making him an unrestricted free agent. They had expressed interest in possibly signing him to a two-way contract.

Also:

#MBMoose announce it’s a one year, #AHL deal with F Evgeny Svechnikov – at least for the time being. The 19th overall pick in the 2015 NHL Draft has accepted a PTO to attend #NHLJets training camp and he will be given an opportunity to earn a two-way NHL deal when healthy.— Ken Wiebe (@WiebesWorld) August 20, 2021

The #AHL salary for F Evgeny Svechnikov is $215,000. If he can earn an NHL deal with #NHLJets one would expect the AAV will be close to the league minimum, given the salary cap gymnastics that will be required this season.— Ken Wiebe (@WiebesWorld) August 20, 2021

Thank you Geno for the many smiles and memories! Good luck in Manitoba. pic.twitter.com/9pjjR3aklB— Grand Rapids Griffins (@griffinshockey) August 23, 2021

Press release: Red Wings single-game tickets on sale today

Here’s a press release of note from the Red Wings, regarding single-game ticket sales:

SINGLE-GAME TICKETS FOR 2021-22 DETROIT RED WINGS SEASON ON-SALE NOW!

Theme Nights for first three months of season unveiled, including Pride Night, Halloween, Military Appreciation, Hockey Fights Cancer Night, Police & Fire Night and more

DETROIT – The Detroit Red Wings announced Friday morning that single-game tickets for all 2021-22 regular season home games at Little Caesars Arena are on sale now. The club also unveiled its Theme Night lineup for the months of October, November and December. Red Wings fans should expect a door-to-door, family-friendly experience at a specialized Theme Night, including several giveaway items, concourse activities and in-game programming.

Fans can purchase individual game tickets TODAY at DetroitRedWings.com/onsale21. The Red Wings schedule, featuring numerous marquee opponents and recently announced game times, is also available at DetroitRedWings.com.

Continue reading Press release: Red Wings single-game tickets on sale today

Duff ponders whether a Coyotes move East would send the Wings West (again)

The news that the Arizona Coyotes would not have a hockey home at Gila River Arena after the 2021-2022 season spurned much discussion on social media and elsewhere yesterday.

While Gary Bettman insisted that the Coyotes will remain in Arizona, Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff states the obvious: with an NHL-ready arena in Quebec City’s Centre Videotron, and some sort of move possible but not probable, it’s conceivable to suggest that, should the Coyotes head to Quebec City, Detroit would be the team moving West, as unlikely as a Coyotes move might be:

Suppose they go to Quebec. The NHL already has 16 teams in the Eastern time zone. Some club would need to head to the Western Conference to balance the books and the budget.

Logically, that team would probably be the Red Wings. In 2013, the Wings were moved from the West to the East. Going back to the West would increase the team’s travel budget but considered the dearth of quality clubs on that side of the NHL, might improve their playoff chances during the current rebuild.

Duff continues; I don’t expect the Coyotes to relocate anywhere outside of Arizona, either, but a Yotes-to-Quebec scenario would have many Wings fans stocking up on Visine and caffeine for more West Coast swings.

Tweet of note: Praise for Simon Edvinsson’s preseason

IceHockeyGifs posted a snippet of a behind-the-paywall article from GP.se this morning, in which Frolunda Indians coach Roger Ronnberg praises Red Wings 6th overall draft pick Simon Edvinsson amidst a strong SHL preseason’s worth of play:

https://t.co/KTFuxLBHLz

Coach Roger Rönnberg about Simon Edvinsson’s preseason:

“- I knew he was good, but that he’s able to play shift after shift at such a high level, being so calm with and without the puck.. it was surprising!”

Simon has grown to 198cm (6’6”) tall. #LGRW— IcehockeyGifs (@IcehockeyG) August 20, 2021

And in the FYI department:

I’m sure that other folks have covered this one, but the Frolunda Indians announced that they’ll call themselves “Frolunda HC” starting on September 1st.https://t.co/1Rf1QL5b5Mhttps://t.co/mDhEL8eh9I

The new logo, nickname and uniform come next year.— George Malik (@georgemalik) August 20, 2021

Frolunda’s chairman, Mats Grauers, tells GT.se’s Leotrim Jusufi that the team “ran out of time” to order new uniforms for the 2021-2022 season, so they’ll still wear the Indian head logo for one more year, but sometime around the new year, the team will unveil its new nickname.

Talking about a 2018 re-draft

It’s not hard to suggest that the last sin of the Ken Holland-era administration took place at the 2018 NHL draft, when the Wings passed on defenseman Quinn Hughes to take Filip Zadina with the 6th overall pick in the ’18 draft.

In retrospect, Hughes would have been a perfect fit on the Red Wings’ blueline; the fact that the then-Tyler Wright-led draft staff had Oilers prospect Evan Bouchard ranked higher than Hughes, and Zadina even higher, is a little concerning, and that’s just part of the reason why Kris Draper and company took over for the 2020 and 2021 drafts.

That being said, many Red Wings fans still believe that Zadina has star potential.

The Athletic’s Scott Wheeler is not one of those people. Wheeler conducts a re-draft of the 2018 class of prospects this morning, and he ranks Zadina as the 11th-best prospect available, with Zadina falling to the New York Islanders, due to concerns about Zadina’s ability to play at NHL pace:

11. New York Islanders: RW/LW Filip Zadina
Actual draft pick: No. 6 (change: -5) to Detroit
My final ranking: No. 3 (change: -8)

If I was right about my reluctance in ranking [Jesperi] Kotkaniemi in the top five, I was wrong about slotting Zadina there in retrospect. Zadina was the player who bounced between third and fourth on my list with Hughes and I was pretty firm in my belief that they were the best two prospects after Dahlin and Svechnikov were picked. I got one of those players right and the other wrong. I still think Zadina has one of the more high-end skill packages at the time but I should have been more cognizant of the troubles his pace and decision-making would present him as he progressed beyond the junior level and he wasn’t able to hang onto the puck quite like he was accustomed to. I still think he’s going to settle in as an offensively gifted middle-six forward who can do some damage on the power play. But I believed he was on a 60-70 point player trajectory and that now looks very unlikely.

Wheeler continues (paywall), having the Red Wings draft now-Columbus Blue Jackets defenseman Adam Boqvist instead.

The good news about his re-draft is that Jonatan Berggren does slot into Wheeler’s first-round draft class at 18th overall, but the “bad news” is that the Wings’ second first-round pick, Joe Veleno, earns an “honorable mention” instead of a spot in the top 31.

Continue reading Talking about a 2018 re-draft

A bit about the Frans Nielsen buyout

CapFriendly revealed that the Red Wings are going to buy out Frans Nielsen today, and the “takes” came raining down from The Athletic’s Sean Gentille, the Hockey News’s Mike Stephens, Sportsnet, MLive’s Ansar Khan, the Free Press’s Marlowe Alter, Detroit Hockey Now’s Kevin Allen, etc.

The consensus is the same regarding the native of Herning, Denmark: Frans Nielsen, now 37, has outlived his usefulness as an NHL player. He was waived and on the taxi squad at times last season, and while Ken Holland himself suggested that Nielsen’s contract might not age well in its final years…

The $4.75 million cap hit that the Wings are saddled with (and $1 million in actual dollars) for the two seasons ($4.25 million this upcoming season, and only $500,000 in 2022-2023) are worth the investment.

As many have suggested, the Nielsen that the Red Wings signed in 2016, when Ken Holland swung and missed at signing Steven Stamkos (who did not even consider the Red Wings’ offer), inking Nielsen and Thomas Vanek instead…Was not the Nielsen that was playing and sitting for the Red Wings during the 2020-2021 season. Nielsen appeared exhausted from the Red Wings’ losses, and the grind of professional hockey.

In a happy world, he goes home and plays for the Herning Blue Fox of the Dansk Metal League this upcoming season, wrapping up his pro career in his hometown, a Danish NHL pioneer and idol of many of his contemporaries who simply never lived up to the expectations he was given as “Pavel Datsyuk’s replacement” in Detroit.

More than anything, Nielsen’s departure frees up a roster spot for a younger, hungrier and less beaten-down-by-the-losing player on the Wings’ forward roster.

This also closes a chapter of late-era Ken Holland signings that bit the Wings in the butt (via dead weight on the cap in the form of Nielsen and Justin Abdelkader’s buyouts), and it’s just a relief to know that the late-Holland era of Red Wings roster-filling has passed us by.

Nielsen’s departure doesn’t guarantee improvement, but it helps forge a younger, leaner and hungrier Red Wings roster, from stem to stern, and that’s the direction this team needs to take starting in mid-September.

MLive: Jeff Blashill to play in Ally Challenge

MLive’s Brendan Savage reports that Red Wings coach Jeff Blashill will take part in the Ally Challenge in Grand Blanc, MI:

Detroit Red Wings coach Jeff Blashill will be teeing it up alongside three Hall of Famers in the Ally Challenge Celebrity Shootout Aug. 28 at Warwick Hills Golf and Country Club in Grand Blanc Twp.

Blashill will join Jack Nicklaus, Lee Trevino and Michigan State basketball coach Tom Izzo in the Celebrity Shootout, which will raise money for six Southeastern Michigan charities.

The nine-hole event will feature a $30,000 purse and will have a new format this year. The players will switch partners every three holes and will play a match-play scramble.

Each team will be playing for a specific charity and each hole will be assigned a dollar value.

“I’m thrilled to join the lineup for the Celebrity Shootout and look forward to raising money for charitable organizations in my home state of Michigan,” Blashill said in a statement. “Having the opportunity to play alongside golf legends Jack Nicklaus and Lee Trevino is incredibly exciting and I hope along the way to pick up a few tips to improve my game.”

Red Wings to buy out Frans Nielsen

Per CapFriendly on Twitter: