Enjoy:
Kronner → Fil Hronek. ? #DRWTC pic.twitter.com/A6XEJ1Tmix— Detroit Red Wings (@DetroitRedWings) September 24, 2021
Speaking of unique Tweets from the Wings…
Best @AdamSandler movie…
— Detroit Red Wings (@DetroitRedWings) September 24, 2021
Go. ⤵️#DRWTC pic.twitter.com/Gk5MRaTn4u
Very cool:
Hey Wings fans, good news we will be streaming the Red Wings vs Buffalo game on September 30th from @LCArena_Detroit on the Wings website only. Facebook and You Tube viewers….we will miss your comments lol. Hope you’ll be able to join Paul Woods and yours truly on the call.— Ken Kal (@KenKalDRW) September 24, 2021
Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff notes the following amusing storyline:
During Jeff Blashill’s NHL coaching career, new strands of hair on his head sprout up about as often as victories.
For both of those reasons, the Detroit Red Wings coach is somewhat fascinated by Red Wings prospect Chase Pearson.
“With respect to Chase, number one I like his flow,” the follicly-challenged Blashill admitted. “I think his flow looks great. It’s something I’m super jealous of that I wish I could still have. I used to have a flow just like that back in high school. It was pretty high end, I guess I would say.”
Pearson’s wild, out of control hairstyle is certainly making him stand out in the crowd of hopefuls seeking to get noticed during Red Wings training camp.
“This is a quarantine experiment,” Pearson explained of his flowing locks. “Let’s see how long it can go. I’m going with it.”
DetroitRedWings.com’s Ethan Sears posted a training camp notebook which offers this take on Moritz Seider’s first day at camp:
“He’s a special player,” Larkin said. “You see with him, Lucas Raymond as well. They’re smart players, they’re smart guys. They work extremely hard. You see those high-end skill guys, they play pro, they understand the game, so watching them skate with NHL players, they seem to fit right in and it’s great to see.”
Seider, the Red Wings’ first-round pick in 2019, comes into camp with excitement swirling around him. Though he’s yet to make his NHL debut, the German put together an impressive season in Sweden last year, and is widely projected to make Detroit’s roster out of camp.
Though it’s just one day of camp – meaning next to nothing in the long run – Seider playing opposite Nick Leddy on Thursday, making up what could ostensibly be a top defensive pairing should expectations be blown out of the water, will do little to slow down the excitement.
“I think (Leddy) can bring some of that wisdom not just to Seider but to other guys on our team,” Red Wings coach Jeff Blashill said. “They’ve introduced some young defensemen there over the last couple of years in New York and I think Leds has seen those guys develop, so I think he can impart some of that wisdom to Seids as well. … That’s the pairing we had today and we’ll see what tomorrow brings but we think it was potentially a good pairing.”
The Traverse City Record-Eagle’s Andrew Rosenthal welcomes us to Friday morning with a set of notes from Red Wings training camp:
The Detroit Red Wings kicked off their annual training camp Thursday morning at Centre ICE in Traverse City.
The stands were not exactly full, but fans from the area got an up close and personal look at the faces of a franchise in rebuilding mode. That included 11 draft picks from 2021, defenseman Nick Leddy acquired in a trade with the New York Islanders; then young stars-to-be like Moritz Seider, Lucas Raymond, Jonatan Berggren and Joe Veleno.
Seider was paired with Leddy in defensive line rushes.
“Moritz has a chance to be a really good player,” Blashill said. “How good and how quickly, we’ll see.”
Fans are asking the same questions, particularly when Seider — the sixth-overall pick from the 2019 NHL draft — will get a chance on the ice at Little Caesars Arena this season. He spent last year with the Swedish team of Rögle and did not play in the NHL Prospect Tournament last weekend.
“I played with him in Grand Rapids, and it just seems like he’s gotten better every time,” defenseman Michael Rasmussen said. “He’s just improved a lot during the summer. I can tell he’s gotten stronger. He’s worked real hard, so it’s great to see him. He’s a heck of a player.”
Among other team notes, Blashill said the hope is for Jakub Vrána to fly to the U.S. Friday. The Czech Republic native was acquired via trade with Washington in April but missed the start of training camp because of visa issues.
The Athletic asked its 32 NHL correspondents to assess the status of each and every one of the NHL’s 32 teams, and, this morning, they offer Max Bultman’s take on the Wings’ 2021-2022 season prospects (literally and figuratively):
Season prediction: Lottery team by a mile
Offseason grade: BBetter. Trading for Nick Leddy and signing Pius Suter are two short-term boosts in the top half of the lineup, and the expected arrival of top prospect Moritz Seider should be another. The Red Wings were already sound in net, but they younger and add some upside there, too, with Alex Nedeljkovic. Health will be key, but they should be more talented. -Max Bultman
Continued (paywall); it’s more likely than not that The Athletic’s Dom Luszczyszyn will preach a gloomier picture for the Red Wings when he gets around to previewing them on Saturday or Sunday.
The Detroit Red Wings have something of a puzzle on their hands in defenseman Alex Cotton. The 20-year-old defenseman was drafted as a 19-year-old after posting a point-per-game season at the WHL level (20 goals and 47 assists for 67 points in 63 games in 2019-2020), and Cotton kept that pace up this past season (posting 7 goals and 19 assists for 26 points in 24 games during 2020-2021).
The 6’2,” 190-pound Lethbridge Hurricanes defenseman is probably headed back to the WHL for one final season before turning pro with the Red Wings, but The Athletic’s Max Bultman has profiled Cotton, and he notes that big #84 wants to make the AHL or ECHL this year:
“[The Red Wings have] got a really good feel of what Cotts is. I don’t think they’re in any real rush. Plus they’re loaded with prospects and they’ve had so many picks over the last little while that it’s going to be a challenge for any of their prospects to move forward. My expectation is that he’s going to have to be a little more consistent with his play and his puck movement. He’s got to be a little more patient and not try to force things all the time. He’s got to learn that he doesn’t need to hit the highlight reel every play,” [Lethbridge Hurricanes GM Scott] Anholt said. “That’s maturity for me. It’s learning how to conserve your energy, too, because he’s going to be playing against the best players (if he’s back in the WHL this year) and they’re good too.”
Cotton understands that, too. In Traverse City, he made his defensive play his focus, first in the prospect tournament (where he posted a plus-1 rating and four shots on zero points in three games while running one of the power plays) and now into main camp, where he’s one of 20 defencemen on the roster.
“I’m an offensive defenceman who tries to produce and run the power play and the area of my game that needs work is in the D zone so here I’ve been trying to show what I can do defensively and how hard I play. They know what I can do offensively, so I’m trying to prove myself defensively. It’s my first time here. I’m just trying to take everything I can from the pros who have been here before. And on the ice I just love the pace. It’s so much better than junior. It’s so much faster,” Cotton said.
“It would be awesome to go back (to Lethbridge) but at the same time I think I feel ready for pro and that’s my goal. I want to show the big guy up there what I can do and hopefully I can sign a contract here and stay down here for a while.”
Continued (paywall)…
The Free Press’s Helene St. James discusses the return of the Dylan Larkin-Tyler Bertuzzi pairing this morning, noting that both players suffered significant injuries which required offseason recovery (and repair in Bertuzzi’s case):
“It felt great to be back out there with the guys,” Larkin said Thursday. “We had been skating for a while at LCA, and just to have an organized practice, to be back up here — see all the familiar faces. We’re excited. Skating with Tyler and playing with Z a little bit today, it felt good.”
Bertuzzi echoed Larkin’s enthusiasm, saying he was “really happy with my progress and my recovery. I stayed in Detroit all summer, worked out and skated. I feel really good.”
Only so much can be read into lines at camp, especially because a visa issue has delayed Jakub Vrana’s arrival. But however the lines shake out, it makes sense to keep Larkin and Bertuzzi together. They’ve been linemates when possible for the last three seasons and read off one another extremely well.
“I like the two together,” coach Jeff Blashill said. “They’re a pair I’d like to keep together all season if I can. They complement each other. They have real good chemistry on and off the ice, so it’s definitely a pair I’d like to stay together. And then we’ll see who earns a spot with them. That will be determined over time.”
Continued (paywall)
MLive’s Ansar Khan posted an article this morning which discusses Dylan Larkin’s injury status, addressing Larkin’s recovery from a neck injury suffered at the hands of Jamie Benn this past season. Larkin’s recovery is not complete yet, so he’s not been cleared for full-contact practices or games:
“I don’t think I thought about (the injury) much today, which is a great sign and I just think for myself, why take a risk right now?” Larkin said. “I haven’t had a hit since the last one I took. I want to go into the season healthy. I don’t want to have anything nagging. I don’t want to have to deal with it, so I want to make sure I’m ready.
“Yes, there’s going to be a time to take a hit and it’s going to be good, more mentally than anything, to take a hit. But at least for the first couple days, I don’t want to risk something. I want to be a little bit cautious.”
Larkin said he couldn’t say whether he would be ready to play if there were a game this week.
“Our medical staff has done a great job since the night of the injury to make sure I’m here today and playing and healthy,” Larkin said. “We have a plan and we’re going to stick with it. I don’t think anyone on our staff expects this is going to slow me down or hold things up, but there’s still a couple last steps to take to make sure everything is good.”
Continued; WXYZ’s Brad Galli also filed a report regarding Larkin’s status:
NHL.com’s Nicholas J. Cotsonika posted a 2021-2022 season preview for the Detroit Red Wings this morning, assessing the three keys for Wings success this upcoming season:
1. Offensive improvement: They simply need to score more. They scored 125 goals last season, one more than the Anaheim Ducks, who scored the fewest in the NHL. Part of the problem was injuries. Part of it was the power play (11.4 percent), second-to-last in the NHL behind the Ducks (8.9 percent).
Forwards Tyler Bertuzzi, Robby Fabbri and Dylan Larkin are expected to be healthy. Forward Jakub Vrana wants to show what he can do in a larger role after coming from the Washington Capitals in a trade April 12. Detroit added defenseman Nick Leddy and center Pius Suter in the offseason, plus assistant Alex Tanguay to coach the power play.
2. Nedeljkovic’s numbers: Goalie Alex Nedeljkovic needs to follow up on last season, when he was a finalist for the Calder Trophy, which goes to the NHL rookie of the year as voted by the Professional Hockey Writers Association, after going 15-5-3 with a 1.90 goals-against average, a .932 save percentage and three shutouts in 23 games (all starts) for the Carolina Hurricanes.
That would help the Red Wings win in the short term and address the concern about the small sample size of his NHL career (29 games). After trading for the 25-year-old on July 22 and signing him to a two-year contract, general manager Steve Yzerman said they think he has the potential to be their goalie “for a number of years.”
3. Seider’s development: The most important thing for them to return to Stanley Cup contention is the development of their top prospects, and the top prospect most ready to make an impact in the NHL is 20-year-old defenseman Moritz Seider.
The No. 6 pick in the 2019 NHL Draft scored 22 points (two goals, 20 assists) in 49 games for Grand Rapids of the American Hockey League in 2019-20. After he was loaned to Rogle of the Swedish Hockey League amid the coronavirus pandemic last season, he scored 28 points (seven goals, 21 assists) in 41 games. He won the SHL Elite Prospects Award and was named SHL Defenseman of the Year.
Continued; NHL.com’s Dan Rosen and Cotsonika discuss the Red Wings’ season to come in a 6-and-a-half-minute-long video as well:
