Author: George Malik

NHL.com’s John Kreiser notes that today is an auspicious day in hockey history:

1995: The Red Wings under coach Scotty Bowman make history by playing five Soviet players (Viacheslav Fetisov, Vladimir Konstantinov, Igor Larionov, Sergei Fedorov and Vyacheslav Kozlov) as a unit during a 3-0 road win against the Calgary Flames. All five had played for the Central Red Army in the Soviet Union. The “Russian Five” become a fixture in Detroit and help the Red Wings win the Stanley Cup in 1997.

The Red Wings brought Phil Osaer into the organization as the team’s full-time goaltending scout when Steve Yzerman rejoined the Wings’ roster, and the Ferris State Pioneer’s John Raffel posted a profile of the FSU alumnus:

Osaer played his college hockey at Ferris from 1998-2001. He was named the Bulldogs’ Team MVP and voted to the All-CCHA second team in 2001. He was seventh-round NHL draft pick of the St. Louis Blues in 1999, Osaer went on to play 12 seasons of professional hockey. He earned call-ups with both the New York Rangers (2003) and Florida Panthers (2005) and later played in Europe. In 2011, he was the starting goaltender for the Norwegian Champion Sparta Warriors.

Ferris coach Bob Daniels called Osaer a goalie who was “very athletically gifted. He played in Europe for a long time. While he was in Europe, he went to the University of St. Andrew in Scotland to finish up his degree. I’m really proud of him for doing that.

“He’s now the full-time goaltending coach for the Red Wings. He has not worked with us (officially) as a coach. But what we’ve had is having him working with our goaltenders this year, getting on a Zoom call with them and talking about the mental approach to be coming goaltender at the elite level and how you have to train and how you have to have your mind right and how you go about your profession.”

Continued

I am a self-admitted hockey glove nerd. As a typing monkey of sorts, I’m fascinated by the human hand, and as a hockey fan, I’ve always been intrigued by the ways in which equipment companies design the mitts with which our fragile fingers grasp hockey sticks. I think I have seventeen or eighteen pairs of hockey gloves, and I’m not planning on stopping buying them…

So it is with sympathy for an innocuous hobby that I’m posting this video from the Red Wings. It’s a thirteen-minute video of Dennis Cholowski’s shoe collection, and I hope that his shoes bring him the kind of joy my hockey glove collection brings me.

One Red Wings prospect took part in a hockey game today. In the Swedish Allsvenskan, Gustav Berglund finished at -1 in 13:39 played for Vasteras IK as Vasteras won 7-2 over Vita Hasten.

Tomorrow will be a much busier day as Eemil Viro and Victor Brattstrom will play in the Finnish Liiga, and Albert Johansson, Joe Veleno, Malte Setkov, Jonatan Berggren, Matias Brome, Lucas Raymond, Elmer Soderblom and Moritz Seider will all battle in SHL hockey.

Per the Pittsburgh Penguins:

The Penguins have added Trevor Daley as a Hockey Operations Advisor.

Full details: https://t.co/ghPfX6hTaz pic.twitter.com/Ed5zcoacIk

— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) October 26, 2020

Here’s the Penguins’ press release:

Via CBS Detroit’s Tim Lawlis, the St. Jude Foundation of Detroit is holding its charitable gala on a virtual basis, and one of its auction items involves a meet-and-greet session with former Red Wings defenseman Chris Chelios, as well as a private tour of Little Caesars Arena.

The Windsor Star’s Dave Battagello reports that the Bob Probert Ride, which wasn’t formally held due to the coronavirus pandemic this past June, is still celebrating a significant milestone via hitting a charitable mile-marker:

The Bob Probert Ride annually attracts more than 1,000 motorcycle riders and has raised up to $160,000 each year for cardiac care in Windsor and Essex County operated under Hotel-Dieu Grace Healthcare.

But this year, the popular fundraiser was postponed due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

That didn’t stop the Probert family — plus lead event sponsors Unifor Locals 444 and 2458, plus Thunder Road — from coming up with the idea this year to stage a raffle for a new 2020 Harley-Davidson Road Glide motorcycle as a replacement.

The winning ticket was drawn Saturday outside Tecumseh Arena with an expectation to raise at least $20,000 after expenses under the Probert Ride banner — now in its 10th year — to go toward cardiac care and rehabilitation, according to Bill Marra, vice-president of external affairs for Hotel-Dieu Grace Hospital.

The motorcycle fundraiser overall in its history has raised well beyond $1 million.

“The Probert event has been integral for us,” Marra said. “It has allowed us to invest $500,000 into angioplasty when we were still on Ouellette. Then when we moved to Prince Road it helped purchase all of the equipment for our 10,000 sq. ft. cardiac rehab facility.

Continued

Per AntonJ85 on Twitter, the Swedish Ice Hockey Federation announced its team for the Karjala Cup tournament in Finland today, and Jonatan Berggren will be making his men’s team debut as part of the Swedish squad:

Truppen till Karjala. Om det nu blir något spel. pic.twitter.com/AueFmsp4wd

— Anton (@antonj85) October 26, 2020

The Swedes will battle the Finns between November 2nd and 8th in Helsinki, Finland.

Update: Per Swehockey.se, Gustav Berglund, Albert Johansson, William Wallinder, Lucas Raymond and Elmer Soderblom will spend November 2nd to 7th skating for the Swedish World Junior team warm-up camp as well.

It’s an even bet as to whether I’ll be around to cover the news regarding Tyler Bertuzzi’s arbitration award, especially if it breaks today. I have to take my Uncle Jamie to Beaumont today for a bone marrow test.

That’s going to require driving from South Lyon to Westland, taking Jamie to Beaumont in Royal Oak for the 11 AM appointment, returning him to Westland and returning to South Lyon sometime in the afternoon (when, I do not know).

Adding “fun” to the mix is the fact that the WiFI at Beaumont is a disaster on wheels, too.

I’m running on about three hours of sleep due to a rough night as well (Aunt Annie dropped a pop bottle at 4:45, and pop bottles make that same CRASH-bounce-CRASH sound that little old ladies do when they hit the ground after a fall)…

But the short story long is that I’d usually camp out in front of the laptop today to wait for an arbitration ruling, and that’s not going to happen today. I’ll cover things as I’m able, and I’m sorry if that’s an inconvenience.

MLive’s Ansar Khan posted a list of the NHL’s top unrestricted free agents remaining on the marketplace this morning, and my answer as to which player(s) the Red Wings should sign is “none.”

The Red Wings will indeed probably have significant salary cap space left over after they re-sign Tyler Bertuzzi (via arbitration), Anthony Mantha and Dmytro Timashov, but I don’t believe that the Red Wings should sign anybody who’s left on the market as their roster is mostly full at this point.

With the salary cap not slated to rise until the 2022-2023 season at the earliest, I want to see the Wings bank away their cap space to save for a rainy day–unless a team makes it worth Detroit’s while to add on a “bad contract” in exchange for draft picks and/or prospects.

Here’s what Khan has to say…