Of prospect-related note this afternoon:

In the ICE Hockey League, Jesper Eliasson served as the back-up in the Red Bulls Salzburg’s 4-1 loss to the Vienna Capitals;

Michael Rasmussen remained injured as his Graz99ers won 3-2 in OT over HCB Foxes;

In the Finnish Liiga, Victor Brattstrom stopped 16 of 17 shots as KooKoo won 4-1 over Jukurit;

Eemil Viro finished at -2 in 19:25 played as TPS Turku lost 4-1 to Lukko;

In the Swedish Allsvenskan, Gustav Lindstrom had 2 assists, finished at +3 and played 24:49 in Almtuna IS’s 4-2 win over AIK;

And in the Swedish J20 league, William Wallinder scored a goal in MODO Hockey’s 5-4 loss to Leksands IF;

And Theodor Niederbach had 2 goals and 2 assists in the Frolunda Indians’ 9-2 win over Oskarshamn, finishing at +4.

Theodor Niederbach (DET) has 26 points in 14 games.

But not enough to make the national team, apparently.— Jokke Nevalainen (@JokkeNevalainen) October 23, 2020

Update: Kienan Draper took 3 minor penalties in the Chilliwack Chiefs’ 3-0 loss to Surrey.

Per MLive’s Ansar Khan:

Tyler Bertuzzi will more than double his salary from last season. How much remains to be seen.

The sides have submitted their briefs prior to Sunday’s arbitration hearing. Bertuzzi is asking for $4.25 million and the team countered with $3.15 million, according to Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet.

Bertuzzi, 25, earned $1.4 million last season, when he led the Red Wings with 21 goals, the second year in a row he’s reached that total, and tallied 48 points, one more than his career high from the previous season.

Update: Here’s more from the Free Press’s Helene St. James:

It’s common practice for a player to aim high and a team to aim low. The sides can continue to negotiate with one another even after an arbitration hearing has started.

In 2018, then-RFA Andreas Athanasiou filed for arbitration, but the sides reached an agreement before needing an arbitrator. 

If an arbitrator decides, it will be for a one-year deal, leaving Bertuzzi an RFA again next summer.

Bertuzzi, 25, certainly has earned a raise on the $2.8 million deal he’s coming off. He led the Wings last season with 21 goals, the second consecutive season he’s hit that mark. He also reached a career-high 48 points.

DobberProspects’ Tomas Zahorak posted a Swedish Hockey League report, and said report includes discussions regarding four Red Wings prospects:

Jonatan Berggren, LW, Skellefteå AIK (Detroit Red Wings): Imagine a missile flying full speed right through your defense. That is the perfect description of  Jonatan Berggren’s game during this season. Right from the start, it seemed like he already forgot about a little underwhelming preseason and started producing on a whole new level. But do not get me wrong, I have been high on him since the beginning of September, but the production just did not come until the serious games started. Then he exploded just like the missile, hitting the back of the net twice and setting up teammates for 11 goals in nine games. 

Berggren plays all-around the ice. He is just everywhere. Focused, more mature, and in the best shape, I have seen him in a while. He is still very fast, very skilled, but now also more physical, confident, and just better overall. I, personally, have loved him since game one. If he can stay healthy, I am pretty sure that he is going to have a huge season.

…

Lucas Raymond, LW, Frölunda HC (Detroit Red Wings): Raymond’s game has been steadily progressing and evolving very well. It is not a secret that he is an excellent overall player with a tremendous skill set and a very accurate wrist shot. He has been using all these tools to its full potential while adding physicality, which is paying off perfectly. The fourth selection in the 2020 NHL Draft has already scored three goals and recorded 5 points in nine games. He has been averaging slightly over 15 minutes of ice time per game and collecting seven hits, which ties him for the sixth place on the team. 

Continued, with scouting reports of Albert Johansson and Matias Brome…

Red Wings prospect Filip Zadina shared his Instagram, Facebook and Twitch pages this morning:

Follow me ?
Instagram: https://t.co/yPlFoJAm3e
Facebook: https://t.co/wOHL5wtzlA
Twitch: https://t.co/qA6coj4sBk
?e-mail: zadinafilip11@gmail.com pic.twitter.com/2WIbJAw5sW— Filip Zadina (@zadina_filip) October 23, 2020

The Athletic’s Max Bultman and Prashanth Iyer spoke with Red Wings director of player development Shawn Horcoff in their latest “Wings For Breakfast” podcast, and this morning, Bultman posted part of his Q and A with Horcoff in article form:

You mentioned Nik [Kronwall], his first year with the player development department last year. What did you notice as the early advantages of that? What have been the impacts of Nik joining?

First off, we needed a defenseman. … Danny (Cleary, the Red Wings’ assistant director of player development) was a winger, I played center, we talked a little bit about trying to add a defenseman to the group, especially someone that played. And then when Nik came by, that’s hitting a home run, to be able to get one of the better Red Wing defensemen of all time. Obviously someone that played his position at an elite level for many years, but also just the road he took to get there.

We didn’t have anyone on the development staff that had played in Europe; obviously Nik grew up there and played there. He took his time coming over, he played in Grand Rapids. His development curve was a little bit longer, so that really also helped really round out our experience as a development staff.

We feel like there’s over 3,000 games or close to it between the three of us, and really there’s not a situation that we haven’t been in before, whether it’s a scoring winger to a grinding centerman to a defenseman (that) played all special teams out there, in the important times of the games, out there in the last minute, and obviously leadership as well. We’ve all held leadership positions on our team before. So I think we feel like we’re in a great position in terms of what we can offer these kids as a staff.

Continued (paywall)

Of Red Wings-related note this morning:

1. The Athletic’s Pierre LeBrun posted an article which discusses whether certain coaches are close to contract extensions, and LeBrun included Jeff Blashill on his list:

Jeff Blashill, Detroit Red Wings: Blashill had his one-year option picked up by the rebuilding Red Wings after last season. I don’t have any hard intel on this situation but my gut tells me not to expect anything on this front, either way, anytime soon.

2. Also, NBC Washington’s J.J. Regan compiled a list of “Too Early 2020 NHL Power Rankings,” and the Red Wings are mentioned first…as the last-place team:

31. Detroit Red Wings: The offseason was a nice change of pace for Detroit as the team picked up some actual NHL players. In all seriousness, GM Steve Yzerman did some good work in picking up cheap, experienced players who can make the team better right away while also not mortgaging the team’s future. They are still not great, but they won’t be the embarrassment they were in 2019-20.

Of prospect-related note this morning: a couple of days ago, the Swedish Ice Hockey Federation released a roster of World Junior Championship-eligible players who will play a series of exhibition games against Finland this November.

This morning, Hockeysverige.se’s Rasmus Kagstrom confirms the roster per Swedish coach Tomas Monten, and the roster includes Red Wings prospects Albert Johansson (Farjestads BK), Gustav Berglund (Vasteras), William Wallinder (MODO), Lucas Raymond (Frolunda) and Elmer Soderblom (Frolunda).

Grand Rapids Griffins play-by-play announcer Bob Kaser speaks with long-time AHL’er and Hershey Bears vice-president of hockey operations Bryan Helmer, who possessed quite the cannon from the point during his time with the Griffins:

After Rogle BK defeated the Frolunda Indians 5-4 today, Moritz Seider spoke with Roger Bengtsson on Rogle’s website’s post-game show (in English).

You can watch the interview from the 6:30 mark to the 10:30 mark of the 17-minute-long video; if you want to watch Roger Bengtsson and Andree Brendheden chat about the game and chat with Rogle’s coach, that’s what the rest of the video is about.

The Edmonton Journal’s Jim Matheson wrote an article discussing the fact that Oilers GM Ken Holland and alumnus Kevin Lowe won’t be preparing for the Hockey Hall of Fame’s 2020 induction speeches as the induction ceremony has been delayed to 2021.

That’s disappointing, but the worrisome part of Matheson’s article comes in the form of an update from the KHL regarding another former Red Wing:

KHL coach Bob Hartley, who has Nail Yakupov on his [Avangard Omsk] team, has managed to avoid COVID but his Omsk team has been hit hard, including his assistant coach Slava Kozlov, the former terrific Detroit Red Wings/Atlanta Thrashers forward who played almost 1,200 NHL games.

“Touch on wood, I’ve been very lucky but Slava spent the last three weeks in hospital on oxygen. He got it really, really bad,” said Hartley. “Last year he was skating with my players and was in NHL shape. I told him I would put him in a game.”

Kozlov is 48 years old.

“We have three coaches who didn’t get hit and maybe three players. One of our masseuses got it pretty good in training camp and spent a week in hospital and the players were sick for two or three days but couldn’t come back for two weeks (quarantine). For three weeks, I was going on the ice with eight players.

“We were supposed to play against Dynamo Riga (Wednesday) but it was postponed. Their junior team was been affected, their KHL team, too. We have a rink that holds 5,500 and they’ve been allowing 1,200 in for games but the Ministry of Health says we can’t have any fans until further notice.”

Continued; that’s scary, plain old scary.

Update: From the Detroit News’s Gregg Krupa:

GOOD NEWS!

a source close to slava kozlov’s family tells me he is out of the hospital and did have a difficult case of COVID-19.#RedWings @georgemalik— gregg krupa (@greggkrupa) October 23, 2020