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The Athletic has produced a significant amount of 2020 NHL draft-related content today, issuing a staff mock draft, Scott Wheeler’s list of his 100 best prospects available, and now The Athletic’s Max Bultman has posted a list of his best 2nd round picks.

Detroit picks 32nd overall, 45th overall and 56th overall in the 2nd round, and they own the 63rd and 65th picks as well, so, in theory, anyway, the Wings will have multiple and significant opportunities to stack their roster with prospects who “fall out” of the first round.

Bultman has zeroed in on 6 potential 2nd round picks, and I’m going to afford you a glance at his take on the “local kid”:

Continue reading Bultman discusses potential 2nd round Wings picks

The Detroit Red Wings will have ample cap space with which to work during the 2020 offseason, but there are a couple of players who’ve become a drag on the team’s salary structure in one Frans Nielsen (signed for 2 more years at a $5.25 million cap hit) and Justin Abdelkader (signed for 3 more years at a $4.25 million cap hit).

Per CapFriendly, the Red Wings would have to pay Nielsen 1/3rd of his salary over twice the length of his contract, which translates to a cap hit that ranges between $666K and $4.4 million for four years (per CapFriendly’s buyout calculator), while buying out Abdelkader would translate to a cap hit between $1.8 and 2.3 million for the next six years.

All of that being said, given that the salary cap will remain flat for the next two seasons (at least), Sportsnet’s Luke Fox believes that the Wings should swallow hard and buy out Abdelkader:

Continue reading Sportsnet’s Fox suggests that the Wings should buy out Justin Abdelkader

The Athletic’s guru for all things prospect-related, one Corey Pronman, reports that Team USA is going to hold an actual evaluation camp in Plymouth, Michigan this October. Regrettably, the event, which essentially replaces the COVID-19-cancelled World Junior Summer Showcase, won’t be open to the public:

Hearing that USA Hockey will have a world junior evaluation camp in October. It will be a closed event.

— Corey Pronman (@coreypronman) September 20, 2020

USA Hockey's world junior camp in Michigan will be from October 8 to 12, beginning the day following the 2020 NHL Draft.

— Corey Pronman (@coreypronman) September 21, 2020

Updated 2x with Kulfan and HSJ @ 12:37 PM: According to MLive’s Ansar Khan and DobberProspects’ Jokke

McIsaac was #RedWings fourth pick in 2018 (36th) and played 28 games last season in juniors after returning from shoulder surgery. https://t.co/yr9Trylk3y— Ansar Khan (@AnsarKhanMLive) September 21, 2020

LHD Jared McIsaac (DET) has been loaned to #Liiga team HPK for the entire 2020-2021 season.

RHD Oskari Laaksonen (BUF) and C Otto Somppi (TBL) have been loaned to Liiga team Pelicans until NHL training camps start.— Jokke Nevalainen (@JokkeNevalainen) September 21, 2020

HPK posted a press release regarding McIsaac’s loan, and it emphasizes the fact that this is a full-season loan for McIsaac, who rehabbed from major shoulder surgery this past season.

Update: Guess who got there first?

Continue reading Khan, Nevalainen: Jared McIsaac heads to Finland to play for HPK Hameenlinna

Yesterday afternoon, Red Wings forward Filip Zadina spoke with iDnes.cz’s Jan Danek and Anton Zelenko regarding the “upper-body injury” which may sideline Zadina for up to a month’s worth of Czech Extraliga action.

As it turns out, forward on loan to Ocelari Trinec gave iDnes.cz a much, much longer interview, but the damn thing is behind a Czech paywall.

Said Paywall for iDnes Premium looks like garble, but it really pisses me off that I can’t even try to make a rough translation of the lengthy missive, because it sounds fascinating.

How to shoot the sniper from the NHL. Zadina about Detroit, dad, Trinec and injuries

He wanted to show Czech hockey that he’s growing as an extraordinary scorer. In addition, he’s playing for the team where his father [is an assistant] coach. However, while Trinec played late in its game against Karlovy Vary, Filip Zadina watched at home like a marauder. No, he didn’t catch COVID. In fact, he feels pretty good.

It happened less than a week ago. He trained first on the ice, and then in the gym. But then he was hurried to the hospital due to a bad accident. “Upper-body injury,” he says in hockey jargon, saying, “I wouldn’t clarify it any more.”

The tags assigned to the article hint at its subject matter as HK Mountfield’s Filip Hronek and Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman are tagged, but I’m suspicious of the paywall’s promise that signing up costs all of 1 Czech Koruna (4 cents), with a monthly fee of $1.70 (which you can cancel at any time!).

If anybody speaks Czech and can help me navigate the paywall, I’d be happy to dig into this article, but in the interim…This is what we’ve got.

Update: MLive’s Ansar Khan reports that Filip Zadina has an injured finger.

Of 2020 draft-related note this morning: MLive’s Ansar Khan filed an article which rounds up several mock drafts, and Khan notes that there’s little consensus as to which player the Red Wings might pick with 4th overall in the first round:

Dobberprospects.com: Lucas Raymond Jokke Nevalainen writes: “Just a high-end offensive talent who can also play a pretty decent defensive game. The Red Wings can really build their roster around him.”

…

TheDraftAnalyst.com: Marco Rossi

Steve Kournianos writes: “It was unfortunate the Red Wings lost out on a top-three pick despite owning the league’s worst record by a significant margin. Nonetheless, they are far from settling by drafting Rossi – an Austrian-born scoring machine who finished as the OHL’s leading scorer and won the top player award. Rossi’s vision and IQ are off the charts, but he also owns a deadly shot and was one of the league’s better two-way centers. The size thing may seem like a turn off but watching him play and it becomes completely irrelevant.”

The Athletic also posted a staff mock draft this morning, and Wings beat writer Max Bultman’s going with the “local hero“…

4. Detroit: Cole Perfetti, C, Saginaw-OHL

Max Bultman: The Red Wings need everything, and at this spot in the draft they’ll have the ability to go in a number of directions. But Perfetti, with his widely praised hockey smarts and puck skills, would check a number of boxes for Detroit. He can run the Red Wings’ future power play. He can score. He can make plays. And if he ends up being able to do all of that from the center position, it’ll be all the better.

And in another behind-the-paywall article, The Athletic’s Scott Wheeler posted a list of his Top 100 Prospects, and he’s ranked Perfetti 4th. Here’s part of his scouting report:

Continue reading Regarding mock drafts and top prospects

Okay. Draft Talk I is up and posted, and I’m hoping that you’ll talk both amongst yourselves and with me regarding your takes on the North American-based prospects that the Red Wings will probably choose from on October 6th.

There’s still a possibility, though not a large one, that the Red Wings are going to pluck a European-based prospect with the #4 overall draft pick, so we need to talk about the top three skaters and top goalie not named Tim Stuetzle, who’s gonna be gone by the time the Wings pick.

So, as I continue to work out the “bugs” and grumble aloud about the fact that I haven’t been able to see these guys in person (stupid pandemic cancelling the World Junior Summer Showcase)…

Continue reading Draft talk II: discussing the Wings’ possible European picks

The past year has been especially challenging for this Red Wings blogger, and the area I’ve paid the least attention to is, in all honesty, the 2020 draft.

Between the draft’s delay, the challenges of daily life during the pandemic, plain old grieving, and my belief that one should not get too attached to a prospect, I’m just getting to know the prospects that the Red Wings may or may not pick with their 4th overall pick on October 6th.

The good news for me is that, in doing some late cramming, I’m not able to form the same kinds of emotional bonds to prospects that most of you have.

That means less grumbling from this corner when the Wings pick the player we didn’t think they had their eye on. That also means more sympathy for your likely disappointment when the Wings don’t pick “your guy” (again, let’s remember that the Yzerplan nearly derailed in the public’s eyes when the team drafted Moritz Seider all of 14 months ago).

So let’s get down to it. I’ll start talking about the North American skaters that the Red Wings are likely to pick between, and you’ll continue the discussion in the comments/on Twitter/FB/etc.

I’ve never written an article like this before (I like to see more than highlight clips before weighing in on prospects), so please excuse any hiccups.

Continue reading Draft talk: discussing the Wings’ possible North American picks

As you probably know by now, Filip Zadina missed Sunday’s Czech Extraliga game with HC Ocelari Trinec due to an upper-body injury, and Trinec is estimating that Zadina will miss at least two weeks with the UBI.

In something of a “teaser” piece, iDNES.cz spoke with Zadina regarding his injury, and here’s a rough translation of the interview conducted by Jan Danek and Anton Zelenko:

Trinec must play without their star; Zadina is injured for at least a month

The hockey players of Trinec have to play for at least a month in the Extraliga without forward Filip Zadina. The Detroit forward was injured during upper-body training. “I wouldn’t do it any more,” said the young forward, who didn’t want to be more specific in his interview with MF DNES.

He was going to be one of the mainstays of the ambitious Steelworkers, at least until Detroit recalled him back overseas. But after a promising exhibition season, Filip Zadina is biting himself for not appearing on the ice this week. Right at the start of the Extraliga season, he was sidelined by an injury to his upper body, which he suffered during training.

“It annoys me,” says Zadina in an interview, which you may read in its entirety in Monday’s MF DNES. The son of assistant coach Marek Zadina, who works for Trinec, also adds that Detroit’s not worried about his health.

“They told me that there was still time before I leave for America. They mainly wished me well and that I could start training. Doctors say that the treatment may take four to six weeks. I just hope that the convalescence will be shorter, and that I will have time to play in the Extraliga,” wishes Zadina.

He denies that the injury happened due to negligence [the direct translation says “stupidity”], and it could not have been prevented. “I can’t train that way at all. It’s a pity. Also because I sat down with the boys, we did well as a line. Now I’ll be watching Trinec only from the stands,” says Zadina, regretfully.

Trinec won their first game of the season without Zadina. On Sunday they won at Karlovy Vary 5-2.

Not great news from the Czech Extraliga today: I noticed that Filip Zadina wasn’t listed among Ocelari Trinec’s lineup prior to their 5-2 win over HC Energie Karlovy Vary, and after the game, Ocelari Trinec’s website posted a press release regarding Zadina’s status:

Filip Zadina will be out for a few weeks

The summertime reinforcement of HC Ocelari Trinec from the NHL is out of the game for several weeks.

This is due to an injury that happened to the player during training right before the start of the new season of the Extraliga. The Detroit Red Wings, who loaned Zadina to Trinec, have been informed of the situation.

The 20-year-old forward had suffered an injury to his upper body, which will take him out of the game for several weeks. We believe that he will return to the team in full as soon as possible.

Filip Hronek and HK Mountfield are still playing HC Verva Litvinov at present, and Hronek has no points at present, but he’s already played 22:59 and is a -1 in a game that HK Mountfield leads 4-2. I’ll post an update to the score when the game ends.

Update: HK Mountfield won 4-2 over HC Verva Litvinov. Hronek played 25:54 and finished at -1, skating alongside former Wings prospect Richard Nedomlel.