Category: Uncategorized

Bultman: He may not be the captain, but Dylan Larkin is still ‘D-Boss’

The Athletic’s Max Bultman posited six questions regarding the Red Wings training camp, and #1 is very accurate:

I don’t think I’m the only person who had that takeaway from Larkin’s Day 1 news conference, when he said he wasn’t disappointed by the team’s decision (for now) to stick with four alternates and no official captain. I’ll echo the obvious in saying Larkin appears, from the outside, deserving of being the team’s next captain, whenever Steve Yzerman feels confident enough in making it official.

What struck me just as much, though, was what Larkin said when talking about what steps forward he can make individually this season. Mind you, he’s coming off a year in which he nearly scored a point per game, played in some of the toughest situations and generally established himself as a top-line center.

He started by talking about how he can grow as a player, teammate and leader, as well as in the community. More captain-ly talk. But then:

“On the ice, I want to be more dominant,” he said. “I think I showed it at times, in stretches, through the season last year. But I believe in myself that I can dominate for long periods of time. I can take over games and win games for our team. And ultimately that’s the next step in my career, is to win games, and be a winner and play like a winner.”

Continued (paywall)

Duff on Nemeth’s turnaround remarks

Hockeybuzz’s Bob Duff penned an article regarding Patrik Nemeth’s training camp comments, in which Nemeth suggested that the Wings aren’t as far removed from a turnaround as some might think:

“It was just trying to build a different mindset,” Nemeth, 27, explained to Detroitredwings.com. “Once you get the feeling that you are actually winning some games, you’ve got some confidence in the group. I think that’s when you’re starting to believe that things can happen.”

In his brief time with the Wings, based on what he’s seen and heard from new GM Steve Yzerman, Nemeth is certain changing the mental make up of the team is a big part of the strategy Yzerman is deploying in Detroit.

“Steve coming in, he’s wanting to switch some things,” Nemeth said. “It’s more the direction of where he wants the team to go. I don’t know how it was here before. When you talk to him, what he tells you that he wants to see from everyone, I think that’s really appealing, what he tries to say.

“With him and (coach) Jeff (Blashill), what they’re trying to do is have that mindset switched, so you’re expecting to win. That’s something that you have to change in order to turn this thing around. That’s what I think is appealing. It’s interesting. It’s a fun thing to be part of. I just think it’s a team that really wants to do the right thing.”

Continued

White team wins ‘Red vs. White Game’; post-game audio from Adam Erne, Filip Zadina and coach Jeff Blashill

A Frans Nielsen shootout goal yielded a 2-1 win for the White Team at the Red vs. White Game in Traverse City on Sunday, and after the game, several players and coach Jeff Blashill spoke with the media (for the record, Dylan Larkin, Mike Green and Darren Helm were sidelined with “tweaks,” and Andreas Athanasiou had to leave the game after the first period with another “tweak”–at this point it sounds like the preventative measures are just that, however).

Erne was well-spoken and thoughtful as he discussed what he needs to do to earn a top-nine role in Detroit. He felt somewhat stagnated in Tampa Bay, and the 24-year-old believes that he’ll work his way into a bigger role here:

Filip Zadina was somewhat demurring during his interview, suggesting that he will find a way to score more goals while playing a more complete game regardless of whether he plays in Grand Rapids or Detroit. He was coy about his confidence level, insisting that it would be shown over the course of the exhibition season:

Coach Blashill addressed his team’s minor injuries, discussed the pace of play in the Red vs. White Game, he spoke about Erne, Zadina, Justin Abdelkader and Michael Rasmussen, among others, and he announced his retirement from playing in alumni games after pitching a shutout last night in the Alumni and Celebrity Game:

HSJ in the morning: Optimism spelled with a ‘Y’

The Free Press’s Helene St. James penned a lengthy article this morning, discussing reasons for Red Wings optimism as elucidated by the Wings’ general manager, Steve Yzerman:

Yzerman sounded excited about the challenge in front of him. It took 14 years for him to win a Cup as a player, and that was expedited when, management headed up by Jimmy Devellano, hit the mother lode in the 1989 draft with Nicklas Lidstrom, Sergei Fedorov and Vladimir Konstantinov. It will take patience, and luck, to restore the Wings, but there’s a buzz at this camp and it’s coming from the young guys.

“We need more, but I’m encouraged,” Yzerman said. “There’s a good group of young players that are prospects that have potential. We’re going to try to add to that group but with that group, we’re trying to create an environment that allows them to go from prospects to good NHL players, and that’s the big step.

“I came in ’83, we went through it to eventually win a Stanley Cup was very gratifying. I’m hoping we can again do that at some point in the future.”

St. James continues…

Here’s Jimmy Howard’s 2019-2020 season mask

I’m a bit late to Instagram tonight, so kudos to Detroit Sports Nation‘s Michael Whitaker for getting it first: here’s Jimmy Howard’s 2019-2020 season mask, as he’s worn during training camp. Flint native Ray Bishop painted it:

Impressions from the second day of the Red Wings’ training camp ’19

The Detroit Red Wings’ players were generally healthy when they began Saturday’s practice sessions, but ice packs and wraps abounded after the players engaged in coach Jeff Blashill’s on-ice sessions and strength and conditioning coordinator Mike Barwis’s off-ice workouts.

The three teams’ worth of players will be whittled down to “Team Red,” “Team White” and the non-red-white players for Sunday’s Red vs. White game, and they will continue to practice as those three teams come Monday (which is a full day at Centre ICE Arena).

On Saturday, some of the drills resembled Friday’s puck retrieval-and-breakout drills, but there was a much greater emphasis on skating hard through the neutral zone today, and regrouping once possession of the puck was achieved.

Continue reading Impressions from the second day of the Red Wings’ training camp ’19

From the green, Henrik Zetterberg weighs in on the Wings’ captaincy

Former Red Wings forward Henrik Zetterberg was taking part in the Ally Challenge on Saturday afternoon in Grand Blanc, and he spoke with the Detroit News’s Eric Coughlin regarding the Wings’ decision to not name a captain:

“I think we all know who’s going to be the captain when they announce it, when they move the ‘C’ to the next guy,” Zetterberg said. “In the same way, it’s not a bad thing to wait a little bit. He’s going to be the captain for a long time. Obviously, it’s ownership’s and Steve Yzerman’s decision and we all go with it.”

With a massive crowd gathered around the 18th, Zetterberg admitted that even after a 16-season NHL career, nerves came into play.

“You can’t really compare them, but you’re out of your element (playing golf). I played in front of thousands of people for many years, but this was different,” Zetterberg said.

A little less nutty

When you’re the owner of a small blog, you don’t like to police things like the comments section. Ideally, especially after so many years working on bigger blogs, you assume that the people you’ve brought with you know how to act like adults and how to get along civilly when disagreements arise.

Regrettably, a couple of bad apples found a bigger soapbox to speak on around here, so we dealt with one person a couple of months ago, and now we’re not going to be dealing with Wingnut any more.

I’ve made the decision as benevolent dictator of this blog that people who can’t or won’t respect one another don’t earn the right to be part of the conversation just because they can type on a keyboard, and in this case, fewer comments may lead to more community discussion.

Those of you who have literally bought and paid for this blog have been among those who’ve suggested that it was time to prune the tree, so I listened to my constituents, and ultimately came to a decision that I feel is in the best interests of the TMR community. That, and it’s my blog, too. I don’t want my community harangued or harassed for disagreeing with the flow of discussion.

That’s enough about that. On with content.