Author: George Malik

Farjestads BK coach Johan Pennerborn spoke with HockeyNews.se’s Mattias Ek regarding Red Wings prospect Albert Johansson, who’s on loan to Pennerborn’s SHL team. The Swedish coach believes that Johansson would be best-served by spending another year in Sweden. What follows is roughly translated from Swedish:

The Farjestad coach about the NHL-aiming great prospect: “Stay another year”

Stockholm. Detroit-drafted Farjestad defenseman Albert Johansson, 20, has established himself at the SHL level.

But his head coach, Johan Pennerborn, prefers that he wait another season before going to the NHL.

“In my opinion: stay another year. Be a real leader. Grow into it fully. Put on four more kilos,” says Pennerborn.

Probably a paper transaction (or two):

Update: Center Michael Rasmussen has been assigned to the #RedWings taxi squad.

— Detroit Red Wings (@DetroitRedWings) January 29, 2021

Update: The #RedWings today reassigned right wing Riley Barber from the team’s taxi squad to the Grand Rapids Griffins » https://t.co/IwHefu6oez

Additionally, Forwards Taro Hirose and Givani Smith have been assigned to the #RedWings taxi squad. pic.twitter.com/xJP2XQWfzM— Detroit Red Wings (@DetroitRedWings) January 29, 2021

From the Red Wings this morning:

RED WINGS REASSIGN RILEY BARBER TO GRAND RAPIDS … Winger Has Appeared in 12 NHL Games with Washington and Montreal …

DETROIT – The Detroit Red Wings today reassigned right wing Riley Barber from the team’s taxi squad to the American Hockey League’s Grand Rapids Griffins

Barber, 26, is a veteran of 283 American Hockey League games, posting 217 points (106-111-217) and 204 penalty minutes over five seasons with the Hershey Bears, Laval Rocket and Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins. Barber saw time with three teams during the 2019-20 season, appearing in nine games with the Montreal Canadiens, logging 31 points (13-18-31) in 39 games with Laval and recording six points (3-3-6) in seven games with Wilkes-Barre/Scranton after he was traded from Montreal to Pittsburgh on Feb. 20. Barber previously had a three-game NHL stint with the Washington Capitals in the 2016-17 season and has totaled 12 NHL games over his professional career. The 6-foot, 190-pound winger also has 15 points (5-10-15) in 38 career AHL postseason games.

The Free Press’s Helene St. James posted her customary morning-published column regarding the Red Wings’ struggles over the course of last night’s 6-3 loss to the Dallas Stars. Wings captain Dylan Larkin in particular was very hard on himself and his teammates in the post-game Zoom call:

“I was probably the most lousy out there as a leader,” he said. “I wasn’t hanging onto pucks and I wasn’t leading the way for the forwards up front. We need to be harder on pucks, we need to support each other and get pucks on net and find ways to score.”

When the Wings started the season 2-2, Larkin spoke of how noticeable it was that, unlike last year, this season’s squad wanted the puck. That confidence has ebbed. The Wings were under siege Thursday, shriveling before a strong Stars forecheck. The Wings had seven power plays, had 11:41 with an extra skater, and had just one power play goal, from Tyler Bertuzzi, to show for it.

“Now we’re fighting against ourselves,” Larkin said. “Not actually fighting, but we have the puck on our stick and we’re nervous to make plays. We don’t want it on our stick. We have a man advantage and we’re second-guessing everything, we’re not moving it around, we’re not hard on it to get the entries we want and to get set up.

“I think every power play goal we’ve scored this year we’ve just kept it simple and thrown it to the net. We didn’t do that early enough, didn’t do it enough. That’s where we have to create momentum for our team.”

Continued, with quite a bit from coach Blashill about the Wings being undermanned on offense due to their COVID reserve list players…

This is a particularly interesting story from The Athletic’s Eric Duhatschek, consisting of observations from members of the “London Lions,” an English hockey team that served as one of the Red Wings’ minor league affiliates in the 70’s:

The Lions were the brainchild of Red Wings owner Bruce Norris who wanted to start a European professional league. So Norris divided the Red Wings’ minor league teams in two: one would play in Virginia Beach in the AHL, the other would be based in London, England.

Norris entrusted the project to two men: Doug Barkley, who was coaching in the Red Wings system, and Al Coates, who in addition to being the team’s trainer was also the de facto travel secretary, equipment manager and jack of all trades.

The Lions played their home games at what was then known as Empire Pool in Wembley (northwest of London), an arena that housed the swimming events for the 1948 Summer Olympics. The ice surface had been installed over a wooden floor, placed atop the original swimming pool.

Because a figure skating show annually took up residence in the arena for three months every year before and after Christmas, the Lions became a barnstorming team from Dec. 1, 1973 until March 1, 1974, playing 41 consecutive road games in nine countries.

“It was really a travelling circus,” says forward Brian McCutcheon. “We were laughing about it being the longest road trip in hockey history; a real education — and we even got to go behind the Iron Curtain, which was a big black hole for us in those days.”

Continued (paywall)

Here’s Rogle BK’s website reporting an update on Moritz Seider’s condition, roughly translated from Swedish. The long story short is that Seider is headed back to Angelholm for further examination, but it sounds like he’s dealing with a sprained shoulder and not a tear of the musculature:

Update on Seider: “Better than we feared”

Defenseman Moritz Seider was injured in the final stages of Thursday night’s game away against Brynäs and had to leave the ice. He was examined at the hospital during the night and the report afterwards says that the prospect defenseman did better than feared.

“Moritz took a real blow and of course is in pain. Further examinations were performed at the hospital, including an X-ray, which shows that it was better than we first feared. He has soft tissue injuries and will go home [to Angelholm] for further examinations. Moritz will not play for a while but exactly how long we do not know today,” says Rögle’s physiotherapist Sven Thomsson.

Moritz Seider has been one of Rögle’s best players this season and in the game against Brynäs (which Rögle won 5-4 after penalty shootouts) he scored two goals and an assist before he was forced to step down.

Rögle goes on for the game in Skellefteå on Saturday but it will be without Moritz.

SHL.se’s Sixen Funqvist posted a great profile of Joe Veleno earlier this week. Funqvist reports that Veleno is learning about both sides of the game (offense and defense) in southern Sweden…

The League

The SHL is a highly acclaimed league internationally and although Veleno admits he didn’t know much about the league before coming here, he’s adjusted to the style of play and out of his nine goals and five assists, five goals and one helper has come in his past eight games.

What sticks out to you in the SHL?

“I think playing here now, I realize how hard teams are in their structure and they take their defensive responsibilities. It’s tough to get the odd man rush, three-on-two or two-on-ones. It’s very rare you see that, and I’ve noticed a lot of teams are backchecking to the very end and that’s something I’ll take with me going back to North America, the relentlessness to backcheck and compete. I think that’s one thing we’ve harped on a lot. And that is obviously really important going back to those leagues where it’s hard to score goals. Now I can see why, in this league pretty much everyone is backchecking like a dog on a bone and that’s something I’ll take with me.”

And Funqvist asked Veleno about his status as playing close by Rogle BK in Angelholm, where Moritz Seider plies his trade:

The Detroit Red Wings dropped a puzzling, perhaps infuriating 7-3 loss to the Dallas Stars in the second game of the teams’ road-and-still-on-the-road series Thursday night.

After making some progress over the course of their 3-1 loss to Dallas on Tuesday, the Wings seemed to reverse course for far too much of a tentative, low-event first period.

Things got interesting as the Wings’ seven power plays piled up over the course of the second and third periods, but whenever the Red Wings made things close, Dallas pulled away with ease, if not surgical precision, and when the bad breaks and bad bounces came, they came Detroit’s way (with the exception of Tyler Bertuzzi’s lone power play goal).

By the end of the game, Dallas had pulled away with 3 straight goals (two of them shaky ones) on Thomas Greiss, who came in to relieve an injured Jonathan Bernier, and the depleted Red Wings roster looked like it wasn’t just “not on the same page”–the players were reading different books (if they were reading anything).

The Detroit Red Wings lost a weird one to Dallas on Thursday night, dropping a 7-3 decision that was both closer and not nearly as close as the score indicated.

After the game, Fox Sports Detroit posted clips of Dylan Larkin, coach Jeff Blashill, and color commentator Mickey Redmond’s remarks:

The Detroit Red Wings attempted to earn a split against the Dallas Stars on Thursday evening.

Detroit had made a significant amount of progress over the course of a disappointing 2-1 OT loss on Tuesday, and getting back at ‘er against the slightly undermanned Stars (who are without Jamie Benn, Roope Hintz, Tyler Seguin and others) offered a measure of redemption, if not revenge, as Dylan Larkin battled his way through some sort of minor injury, Darren Helm made his return to the lineup, and the Stars started a first-timer in Jake Oettinger opposite Jonathan Bernier.

You guys and gals know I’m a person who believes that “learning” is going to matter more than wins or losses this season, and I’m baffled by the 7-3 result tonight. The Red Wings fell down 2-0, 3-1 and 4-2, but they rallied to make it 5-3, and surrendered two very late, very soft goals. They lost Jonathan Bernier in the middle of it all to an upper body injury as well…

But the Wings’ competence was exciting–if only for a few minutes. The Wings’ struggles, going 1-for-7 on the power play, for example, were maddening. The Red Wings’ rally was something to behold, until they imploded, at least…

And they go home 0-and-2 against Dallas and 2-5-and-1 on the season, with Detroit facing Florida on Saturday and Sunday.

What to make of this? Maybe we’ll have to wait until Saturday and Sunday to find out.