Not hockey news, but pretty cool: former Red Wings defenseman Chris Chelios took a dive of a different kind this past weekend, jumping out of a plane in a tandem jump with the Army’s Golden Knights (the parachute team, not the team from Nevada).
Chicago Magazine’s Robert Chiarito described the scene, and DS Shin posted a video of what was truly a unique occurrence:
The Athletic’s Sean McIndoe, a.k.a. Down Goes Brown, attempts to hazard guesses as to whether 10 teams that are predicted to miss the playoffs by The Athletic’s Dom Luszczyszyn could conceivably buck the pundits’ predictions and make a playoff push. DGB is not confident in the Wings’ chances thereof:
But hear me out … : Uh, Yzerman comes back and centers the first line?
OK, coming up with a scenario in which the Wings zoom to the top third of the standings is near impossible. They’re not good on paper, they’re not really focused on getting better in the short-term and unlike most of the other teams on the list, there’s not even a new coach or goaltender or NHL-ready first-round pick who could conceivably show up and change everything. Instead, we’d need to count on a major leap from Dylan Larkin, the team’s only legitimate star. We’ll also need Jimmy Howard or one of the backups to have one of those incomprehensible .930 seasons that veteran goalies occasionally have for no particular reason. And even then, we’d probably also need a few unexpected breakouts from guys in the Anthony Mantha and Tyler Bertuzzi tier.
If all of those things happen, well, the Wings probably improve all the way up to 90 points and still miss the playoffs. But mix in some momentum from a hot start – which is possible, with seven of their first 11 games against teams who missed the playoffs – and some old-fashioned “nobody believes in us” swagger, and crazier things have happened. Not much crazier, though.
Continued (paywall), and I know that the Wings are highly, highly unlikely to make the playoffs, but it’s hard to read the, “The Wings are going to stink and stink badly” predictions be repeated over and over again.
MLive’s Ansar Khan issues a season outlook for Luke Glendening this morning. Glendening has proven to be very useful when he’s utilized as a third or fourth-line center; former Wings coach Mike Babcock may have been reaching when he penciled Glendening in as the Wings’ shut-down center, however.
Anyway, here’s Khan’s season outlook for Glendening:
2019-20 outlook: A fixture among the Red Wings’ bottom six forwards for six seasons, Glendening will continue his grinder’s role by leading or being among the team leaders in hits and blocked shots. He is the team’s top penalty-killing forward and has improved considerably in the faceoff circle, so much so that he takes many draws in the defensive zone.
Glendening figures to center the fourth line but can play the wing, too. He can match up against the opposition’s top center, as can newly acquired Valtteri Filppula.
Glendening can contribute some offense. He didn’t score a goal in his first 51 NHL games but has scored 44 goals in his past 388 games.
Alex Wood, a.k.a. awood40 on YouTube, continues his Henrik Zetterberg career highlight reel by showcasing Zetterberg’s best from the 2013-14 through 2015-16 seasons today:
Here are the previous four installments of Alex’s clips:
Continue reading AWood40 posts fifth installment of Henrik Zetterberg career highlightsAugust news for you:
• Dr. Anthony Colucci — is a board certified emergency room physician. He has been involved with the Detroit Red Wings since 1989 as a part of the training and medical staff and an active member of the NHL Team Physician Society (NHLTPS) for which he serves on several committees. As the Emergency Room Medical Director at Henry Ford Hospital Macomb and the Medical Director for the Paramedic Program at Macomb County Community College (MCCC), Colucci is involved in the education and development of ER residents and paramedic students. He is also an ATLS instructor at Michigan State University and participates annually in the certification and re-certification of health care providers.
2. Former Grand Rapids Griffins forward Eric Tangradi signed a deal with Barys Astana of the KHL today, so he’s headed to Kazakhstan for the upcoming season:
?️?«Барыс» официально объявляет о заключении контракта с американским нападающим Эриком Тангрэди. Игрок подписал одностороннее соглашение до 30 апреля 2020 года.
Подробнее о новичке ?https://t.co/E50LNB0KBw pic.twitter.com/KgUp7S5Sw0— ХК Барыс (@AstanaBarys) August 19, 2019
3. And the Red Wings are asking fans to share their favorite photographs on World Photography Day:
HOCKEYTOWN ‼️
It’s #WorldPhotographyDay! ?
Let us see your favorite #RedWings photos! pic.twitter.com/iOOR3mGeXk— Detroit Red Wings (@DetroitRedWings) August 19, 2019
The Oakland Press’s Pat Caputo penned a column in which he suggests that the Detroit Red Wings’ 2019-2020 season may not produce as much hand-wringing or frustration as many pundits–and the Hockey News’s annual yearbook, specifically–have suggested:
[Dylan] Larkin is the leader of a group of five, solid young players, who should be coming into their own collectively this season, along with forwards Tyler Bertuzzi, Andreas Athanasiou, Anthony Mantha and Filip Hronek. It is not out of the realm of possibility first-round draft picks Filip Zadina and defenseman Dennis Cholowski join this group in ’19-20. Former Michigan State standout Taro Hirose also showed promise, and is advanced.
Year-to-year improvement from Hronek and Cholowski on defense is especially imperative. The Red Wings’ puck possession stats have been a disaster, primarily because of a lack of puck-moving skill during an era of the NHL’s forechecking being particularly fierce.
No one is expecting a Vezina Trophy, but the goaltending with veterans Jimmy Howard and Jonathan Bernier should be respectable.
Yzerman inherited a lot of dead-weight, overvalued contracts from Ken Holland. Anything the Red Wings get from Mike Green, Trevor Daley, Justin Abdelkader, Jonathan Ericsson or Darren Helm would be unexpected at this stage.
But defenseman Danny DeKeyser does have some room to grow, Luke Glendening is good in his specific role and Frans Nielsen probably has more left in the tank than the other overpriced vets Ken Holland strapped onto the franchise.
The Sporting News’s Steve Kournianos ranked the NHL’s prospect pipelines, suggesting that the Red Wings’ farm system is in 10th place among the NHL’s 31 teams:
10. Detroit Red Wings
Steve Yzerman’s tenure as Detroit’s general manager’s got off to a questionable start when he bypassed conventional draft wisdom and took two-way defenseman Moritz Seider with the sixth overall pick. The move certainly will be monitored for several years, but what shouldn’t be lost in the post-draft hysteria is that Yzerman had already inherited an excellent group of young talent and had the flexibility to roll the dice.
Goal-scoring winger Filip Zadina and center Joe Veleno – the last two first-round picks made by predecessor Ken Holland – are among the elite of the elite. Zadina is the odds-on favorite to beat out his peers for a roster spot and Veleno is the primary target to center Team Canada’s top line at the under-20 world juniors. To no one’s surprise, the majority of the organization’s other notable neophytes are Swedes, with goalie Filip Larsson coming off another stellar campaign in which he posted a .932 save percentage and 1.95 goals-against average as a freshman for Denver. Detroit also owns a pair of confident three-zone puck movers in Gustav Lindstrom and Albert Johansson and won a key free-agent derby by luring former Western Michigan defenseman Oliwer Kaski away from Finland, where he was the top-scoring blueliner in the SM-Liiga. Left winger Robert Mastrosimone, a Boston University recruit who was of the more underrated players from this year’s draft class, has a bit of Gustav Nyquist in him and should be considered having first-round value in a second-round pick.
New Red Wings defenseman Patrik Nemeth engaged in a lengthy conversation with HockeyNews.se’s Mattias Ek, and here’s a rough translation of the Swedish interview:
Continue reading Roughly translated: Patrik Nemeth speaks with HockeyNews.seMeeting crucial for NHL Swede’s team decision: “They want to change things”
Stockholm. After making the playoffs for 25 consecutive years, and winning four Stanley Cup titles during that time, the Detroit Red Wings have missed the playoffs for three consecutive years.
For new defenseman Patrik Nemeth, a meeting with new general manager Steve Yzerman became crucial to his decision to sign with the NHL team in the middle of its transformation.
“As soon as the new GM or new coach comes in, there is a new focus. They want to see some other things, maybe, change some things,” Nemeth tells HockeyNews.se.
Of Red Wings-related note this morning:
2. DetroitRedWings.com’s Arthur J. Regner examines Frans Nielsen’s 2018-2019 season “By the Numbers” this morning…
100 – On Jan. 18 in Calgary, Nielsen notched his 100th career point as a Red Wing when he drew the second assist on Mike Green‘s goal at 4:16 of the third period in Detroit’s 6-4 loss to the Flames. Thomas Vanek picked up the primary assist.
200 – Nielsen reached another Red Wings milestone on Jan. 11 when he played his 200th game as a Wing against the Winnipeg Jets in Winnipeg. In Detroit’s 4-2 loss, he had an assist on Dennis Cholowski’s power-play goal at of 6:50 of the third period. In 230 games with Detroit, Nielsen has 109 points (43-66-109) is minus-25, has been assessed 46 penalty minutes with an average ice time of 16:33 per game. His face-off percentage is 49.9 percent and he has notched seven game-winning goals.
3. And Bob Duff penned a list of the Red Wings’ “most important players” for Featurd, and he chooses Andreas Athanasiou, Filip Hronek and Jimmy Howard as the Wings’ most pivotal players at forward, defense and in goal.
ESPN has posted 31 sets of “All-Decade Teams” representing the best that each and every one of the NHL’s franchises has to offer, and here’s who they picked to represent the Red Wings from 2010-2019:
C: Henrik Zetterberg (154 G, 401 A, 0.85 PPG)
LW: Justin Abdelkader (106 G, 143 A, 0.36 PPG)
RW: Johan Franzen (104 G, 123 A, 0.73 PPG)
D: Nicklas Lidstrom (36 G, 109 A, 0.62 PPG)
D: Niklas Kronwall (67 G, 243 A, 0.45 PPG)
G: Jimmy Howard (243-168-68, .914 SV%, 2.54 GAA)Coach: Mike Babcock (245-170-67)
The past decade has consisted of two starkly different eras for the Red Wings. It began after a Stanley Cup Final loss to Pittsburgh in 2009, in the midst of a playoff streak that would last 25 seasons. Gaze upon the talent on that roster: Lidstrom, Pavel Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Marian Hossa, Franzen, Brian Rafalski, Tomas Holmstrom, Chris Osgood and so on. That was 10 years ago. It might as well feel like 90, with how the team has fared since.
As for the team selected above — look, Justin Abdelkader isn’t everyone’s bucket of octopi. You could easily make the case for Tomas Tatar here considering he had better numbers and is a better player. But outside of Kronwall’s 693 games, no one played more than Abdelkader’s 686 for the Red Wings in the decade. If you’re looking to define the past decade for the Red Wings, Justin Abdelkader is part of that definition (for better or worse).
