The Wings are just minding their P’s and Q’s here, ensuring that their taxi squad has enough players so they don’t have to call anyone up from a Grand Rapids Griffins team that doesn’t officially exist until next Friday:
UPDATE: Forwards Taro Hirose and Givani Smith have been assigned to the #RedWings taxi squad.— Detroit Red Wings (@DetroitRedWings) January 27, 2021
Both players are likely to be recalled for Thursday’s game against the Stars. This is a paper transaction.
ESPN’s Emily Kaplan posted a set of power rankings this morning, and the Red Wings are, perhaps unsurprisingly, bringing up the rear of the rankings due to their 2-4-and-1 record. That being said, Kaplan does see some positives for the Wings in the play of Mr. “Prove It Season”:
Previous ranking: 28
Record: 2-4-1
This week: @ DAL (Jan. 28); vs. FLA (Jan. 30, Jan. 31)The Red Wings’ blue line got a significant overhaul this season, but forward Bobby Ryan has made the biggest early impact. The veteran became the first player in franchise history to score four goals in their first three appearances with the team.
Continued; I would argue that Ryan still has more to give. He needs to keep his feet moving a little more and go to the front of the net on a more consistent basis.
He got the feel-good goals early, but his game is more complete than he’s been able to display thus far, and I hope that he can improve as he acclimates to the Red Wings’ systems of play and personnel (see also: Vladislav Namestnikov, who scored a goal last night).
It is also important to remember that the Wings are a 2-4-and-1 team in no small part because they 1) revamped their roster significantly and 2) are without six guys due to COVID protocols and injuries (Filip Zadina, Robby Fabbri, Sam Gagner, Jon Merrill and Adam Erne are all out due to the coronavirus, and Darren Helm is injured).
That’s no excuse for the Wings’ record, but those two factors do help build an explanation as to why they’ve been so starved for offense (especially on the power play).
MLive’s Ansar Khan filed a subscriber-only article this morning, discussing the Red Wings’ belief that their 2-1 overtime loss to the Dallas Stars is, in its own way, a blueprint for success for the upcoming season:
“It’s critical that we play this way,” coach Jeff Blashill said. “In the Columbus game we won in overtime (Jan. 21), there were very few chances both ways. That’s the way we’re going to have to play. We’d love to create tons of chances and not give many up, but if we’re giving up lots of chances it’ll be hard for us.
“We got to make sure we’re a team that’s really good defensively, that protects that critical ice inside the (face-off) dots, that’s good structurally, and then we get our offense from having the puck more. We still got to find ways to create more offense, but it starts by making sure we’re good on the defensive side of the puck.”
Luke Glendening wasn’t satisfied with one point but was pleased with his team’s work ethic and compete level.
“We would love to score more goals, but we got to make sure we’re tight defensively and limit their chances as best we can to give ourselves the best opportunity to win on a nightly basis,” Glendening said.
Continued, with praise for Givani Smith (paywall); I don’t think that the Red Wings executed anywhere near the level that they need to in all three zones, offensively, defensively, or on special teams last night…
But Blashill and Glendening have a point.
Update: The Free Press’s Helene St. James found that Vladislav Namestnikov made a similar point:
Continue reading Morning Khan, HSJ: Building from a defensive templateThe Detroit Red Wings dropped a 2-1 overtime decision to the 3-and-0 Dallas Stars on Tuesday evening, and the entire season’s worth of frustration for the 2-4-and-1 Red Wings could be summarized in the ways in which Troy Stecher, Anthony Mantha and Vladislav Namestnikov were hemmed into a tiny triangle of players on the Stars’ OT-winning goal:
That’s the Red Wings this season. They have more talent, they have more grit and determination, they’ve got more poise–at times–but they don’t have the self-confidence to get in the shooting or passing lanes as the Stanley Cup Finalist Stars work the puck deep, nearly lose the puck, regain control, cycle and find a top shelf shooting angle because the team isn’t on the same page, nor are the players on their different pages demonstrative enough to get shit done.
That’s not a bad thing, per se. The concept that a 2-4-and-1 team views losing to the Stars in overtime, after blowing a horrible game to Chicago on Sunday, as a disappointment is a big step forward in the expectations department.
Continue reading Red Wings-Stars Game 1 wrap-up: This is what progress looks like?Fox Sports Detroit went with very short clips for its post-game show tonight (Detroit lost 2-1 to Dallas in overtime in Game 1 of their 2-game series), so I’m sure that the Red Wings will post longer clips of the Zoom availabilities of Luke Glendening, Vladislav Namestnikov and coach Jeff Blashill later this evening:
Bonus: Highlights:
The Detroit Red Wings attempted to right their listing ship and snap a 2-game losing streak as they opened a 2-game series against the Dallas Stars on Tuesday night.
Despite having dropped a 6-2 decision to Chicago on Sunday, and despite going into the American Airlines Center against a 2-and-0 Stars team that possessed a 5-2-and-0 record against the Wings of late, the undermanned Red Wings desperately needed to…
Well, they needed to play better, from the goal on out, they needed to play better defensively, they needed to score more and get more scoring from more lines, and as Chris Osgood said on the pre-game show on FSD, the Wings’ special teams needed to get their butts in gear. All of that against the Stanley Cup finalists.
Detroit did a good job of hanging in and holding their own vs. the Stars, but they blew a 1-0 lead, went 0-for-3 on the power play, and were ultimately backed into their own zone during overtime, losing 2-1 in OT to Dallas thanks to some self-inflicted mistakes, a bit of a lack of discipline, and a continued lack of secondary scoring. There WAS a lot of improvement from the Sunday Disaster in Chicago, but there’s still work to be done to earn a split on Thursday.
After recalling Taro Hirose and Givani Smith from the “taxi squad,” the Wings dressed the following lineup…
Continue reading Red Wings-Stars Game 1 quick take: Wings drop mucky OT affair in DallasDallasStars.com’s Mike Heika offers a quick pre-game article setting up tonight’s game (and this week’s set of games) between the Stars and Red Wings (8:30 PM EST on FSD/FS SW/97.1 FM):
The shuffling of divisions this season is going to create some interesting matchups for the Stars, and an eight-game slate against the Detroit Red Wings might be the most intense for Dallas fans.
Once one of the team’s most hated rivals, the Red Wings have sort of faded into the backdrop with a move to the East in 2013 and only two meetings per year. But this really was a bitter rival back in the days of the Central Division, so seeing any red sweaters in the stands still has the ability to cause some tension at American Airlines Center.
The Stars are 5-2-0 in their past seven games against Detroit, and the Red Wings have been going through a bit of a rebuild, but coach Rick Bowness said he expects strong play from Detroit, which lost a 6-2 game to Chicago on Sunday.
“They were a much better team against Columbus than they were against Chicago,” said Bowness. “They’re a better team than they have been in the last couple of years, they’ve added some really good veterans, and if they play against us like they did against Columbus, this is going to be a very tough game.”
Red Wings coach Jeff Blashill said his team is determined to get back on the right track.
“Of course there’s urgency. Regardless of how long the season is, nobody wants to get into a streak where you’re losing. Certainly, a shortened season has a bigger impact right away,” Blashill said. “Do we want to nip this in the bud? Absolutely. Is there urgency to do that? Absolutely. Do we face a really good opponent that’s played two great games so far? Yes. So we’ve got our hands full, for sure.”
On the heels of the Toledo Walleye’s decision to opt out of the 2020-2021 ECHL season, Walleye coach Dan Watson appears with DetroitRedWings.com’s Art Regner on the latest “Red & White Authority” podcast:
The Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan took note of Patrik Nemeth’s comments regarding the shortening of travel during the condensed 2020-2021 season, which Nemeth believes should be adopted on a permanent basis:
“I like it. You can be in bed earlier and there’s less travel. It is easier on the body,” Nemeth said. “The second game (of the series) should be really good. It can be a small playoff series, or that’s what it feels like anyway.
“I can see us keeping it in the future. If you’re flying out to the West Coast, you can play your season series there instead of bouncing back and forth. So when you’re on the road, you’re on the road, and when you’re home, you’re home for a stretch.”
On the flip side, the intra-division format, though useful this season, is something that isn’t likely to stay in the future.
While seeing the same seven teams over and over on the schedule can accelerate rivalries and ill feelings toward opponents, it can also bring about boredom.
Nemeth, and players alike, like the idea of seeing every team.
“We should play against every team,” Nemeth said. “It is like four different leagues (currently) because that’s how we’re playing it. In the future, if we’re going to keep this type of schedule, we at least should play against the other divisions for sure.”
Here we go again:
UPDATE: Forwards Taro Hirose and Givani Smith have been recalled from the #RedWings taxi squad. pic.twitter.com/JniKXDlx6v— Detroit Red Wings (@DetroitRedWings) January 26, 2021
