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HSJ in the morning/morning Khan: it’s trade deadline day, and the Wings’ fate is uncertain

The Free Press’s Helene St. James and MLive’s Ansar Khan weigh in on the Red Wings’ 4-2 loss to Utah Hockey Club last night, with St. James wondering aloud whether the Red Wings are repeating last year’s floundering March full of losses that cost them a playoff spot…

“We just can’t find a win,” captain Dylan Larkin said after Thursday’s 4-2 loss to the Utah Hockey Club. “We’ve lost not playing well and we’ve lost playing well. We’re losing in different ways. You look at the big picture and kind of zoom out a little bit, it’s four games.”

It’s four games, but it’s four games in the stretch run, the phase of the NHL season when good teams separate from the lesser ones and cross the finish line to the postseason. That stretch run only has 20 games remaining, and only seven of those are at home — and the next one is on the road, against the elite Washington Capitals, the same day as the NHL trade deadline.

(That would be this evening at 7 PM EST on FanDuel SportsNet Detroit/Monumental Sports/Sportsnet Pacific/Sportsnet 360/TVA Sports/97.1 FM)…

“You zoom out from Christmas time,” Larkin said. “We talked about it as a group, how far we’ve come. We didn’t really see ourselves in this position, but we put the work in and we got ourselves here. I feel we’ve made a case to continue to push this thing and keep playing for the playoffs and get in.”

[Coach Todd] McLellan spoke earlier this week about how at this time of year, “we have to expect tighter checking and a little more grind to the games. It’s supposed to feel hard, it’s supposed to hurt a little bit, it’s supposed to stress you a little bit, it’s supposed to stretch you to the max in whatever way, shape or form during the game, and we’re learning that.”

But is the lesson sinking in fast enough?

MLive’s Khan also took note of McLellan’s comments regarding the imminent trade deadline, which hits today at 3 PM EST:

Continue reading HSJ in the morning/morning Khan: it’s trade deadline day, and the Wings’ fate is uncertain

Is it the goaltending, stupid?

The Detroit News’s Bob Wojnowski offers a novel suggestion as we reach 2 AM on trade deadline day:

Yzerman didn’t add anyone at [last year’s] deadline, and you’d hope he’d at least snatch a decent defenseman this time. But the seasoning process can’t dramatically be sped up at one trade deadline. It can only be sped up by a larger roster overhaul, and that’s a debate for the offseason.

For now, I might just take a flyer on a goalie switch. The Wings outshot Utah 40-19, and Alex Lyon reasonably should’ve stopped two of the four goals. Yzerman keeps spinning the veteran goalie wheel, from Alex Nedeljkovic to Jonathan Bernier to Thomas Greiss to James Reimer to Ville Husso, now to the interchangeable Lyon and Cam Talbot.

If St. Louis is willing to listen, I’d offer Lyon or Talbot plus a pick or another asset for Jordan Binnington, 31, who won the Stanley Cup with the Blues in 2019 and was brilliant leading Canada to the recent Four Nations tournament title. His overall numbers aren’t much different than Lyon or Talbot, but he’s considered a big-game goalie and has two years left on his contract at $6 million AAV, not unreasonable.

Yzerman has been forced to plug and play with veterans while waiting for his prized young goalies — Sebastian Cossa and Trey Augustine — to sufficiently ripen in the minors and college hockey. In the meantime, the Wings are getting average-to-subpar goaltending too often. They’re last in the league in penalty-killing and 19th in goals-against, and while that speaks to a young defensive corps — rookies Edvinsson and Albert Johansson man the second pairing — it also speaks to weaknesses elsewhere.

“Obviously we gotta play better defensively, and get another save,” McLellan said. “But we also gotta give our goaltenders and our overall defensive game a little bit of breathing room for mistakes, and we haven’t done a lot of that lately.”

Continued; it’s a thought….

Red Wings-Utah HC wrap-up: sloppy loss to the Hockey Club from Utah belies deadline jitters, from the team as well as its fans

The Detroit Red Wings’ self-inflicted mistakes and bad bounces yielded a 4th straight loss on Thursday night, in the form of a 4-2 loss to Utah HC.

Perhaps the worst loss of the night was in the form of one Carter Mazur, who suffered what Facebook told us was a dislocated left elbow in a collision with Jack McBain, as the Free Press’s Helene St. James noted…

The affable forward got hurt on his second shift Thursday, when he got tangled up along the boards with Utah Hockey Club forward Jack McBain. Mazur immediately went down the tunnel to the locker room. The Wings announced during the first intermission that Mazur would not return because of an upper-body injury.

“You basically really have to be banged up if you’re not going to return to the ice your first night that early in the game,” coach Todd McLellan said after the 4-2 loss. “He won’t travel with us, and he’ll be further evaluated.”

But coach Todd McLellan wasn’t using Mazur’s loss as an excuse for the team’s flip-flop from confident team back to the Struggle Bus, as he told Detroit Hockey Now’s Kevin Allen:

Continue reading Red Wings-Utah HC wrap-up: sloppy loss to the Hockey Club from Utah belies deadline jitters, from the team as well as its fans

The official word on Carter Mazur’s ‘upper-body injury’

The official word on Carter Mazur is that he’s got an upper-body injury…

But even Ken Daniels said that Carter’s father posted on Facebook that Carter suffered a dislocated left elbow, and it had to be reset in a hospital ER, probably at the Detroit Medical Center.

He will be reevaluated tonight, but it’s hard to imagine a dislocated elbow not costing Mazur some significant recovery time.

Here’s to a full recovery ASAP.

Red Wings-Utah HC quick take: bad juju

The Detroit Red Wings attempted to snap a 3-game losing streak as they faced Utah HC on Thursday evening.

And the Red Wings were cursed, absolutely cursed, losing a 4-1 decision to Utah despite out-shooting Karel Vejmelka 40-19.

It wasn’t as if Alex Lyon sucked, or the Red Wings sucked…It was a situation where there were some very bad defensive reads–two by the Seider-Chiarot pairing–Utah got some very lucky bounces, and ultimately, losing Carter Mazur to a dislocated left elbow appears to have been too much for a fragile team to overcome.

So the Wings have lost 4 straight, they play 7 of their next 10 games on the road, and thing suddenly look quite desperate for a Detroit team that needs everything to break its way in order to make the playoffs over the final 19 games.

The good news? Detroit got goals from Larkin (25th) and Berggren (10th) to take a 2-1 decision in the 1st period, but really, after the Utah power play goal that made it 2-2, Detroit sort of nodded off a bit defensively, and…

I hope that whatever the Red Wings’ GM and management do, they find a way to un-curse themselves by the time that Detroit plays Washington tomorrow night at this time in the nation’s Capitol.

Continue reading Red Wings-Utah HC quick take: bad juju

Tweet of note: Mazur suffers upper-body injury in NHL debut

An unfortunate development for a great young man:

As the trade deadline looms, McLellan and the Red Wings’ players emphasize self-belief

MLive’s Ansar Khan ponders the costs of adding player(s) to the Red Wings’ roster for the sake of adding at the trade deadline, and he inquired as to coach Todd McLellan’s take on what the Red Wings’ management might be thinking:

“Well, we would take (Wayne) Gretzky and Bobby Orr, but they’re not available,” coach Todd McLellan said.

He then illustrated the delicate balance teams face this time of year.

“It’s like Christmas right now and everybody has a wish list. But Santa doesn’t always answer the wish list,” McLellan said. “He’d love to deliver everything. But it takes other teams, there’s cap situations, There’s a lot that goes into that. And trust me, our staff is working hard. They’re looking and analyzing and it’s up to us to push, ride the horses, that are in the race. We can’t walk by the stables, and see that Seabiscuit’s over there and you just want to bring him in. You ride the horses that you’re on and you get the best race out of them. And right now, we have to get a better race out of some of our guys right now.”

…

Moritz Seider said the team’s performance prior to this slide, including a pair of seven-game winning streaks, bolsters confidence in the room.

“I think there is so much belief in this locker room,” Seider said. “I think our fans believe in us. We believe in ourselves, and I think the organization does, too. And now it’s up to us to kind of send the message that we’re the right team, even though the trade deadline is ahead.”

Patrick Kane told Khan that the deadline never gets any easier from a players’ perspective, even if you’re not the one on the trading block:

“You never really know what’s going to happen, is going to be the group we’re going forward with (or) going to be additions or subtractions,” Kane said. “So, yeah, this week especially is always a little bit, it’s kind of like uneasy just wondering what’s going to happen. I think we’re confident in the group, we have confidence in the players in this room, and we’ve proved that throughout the last few months. But, yeah, we’ll see what happens.”

Continued (paywall)

Mazur prepares to make his NHL debut and Rasmussen returns to battle a plucky Utah HC team

As Carter Mazur prepares to make his NHL debut against Utah HC tonight…

The Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan reports that Mazur’s parents were spilling the beans about their son’s recall yesterday afternoon on Facebook:

For sure there wasn’t — or isn’t, by this time — anyone in Jackson who doesn’t know Carter Mazur was recalled by the Red Wings. His parents Jeff and Erin pretty much let everyone know the day before on social media.

“My dad knows enough people who are his friends, and (Mom) spread the news, too; I think everyone knows,” said Mazur, a Jackson native who the Wings officially recalled Thursday and inserted into the lineup against Utah. “They’ve been part of the journey. I’m going to have 200 to 300 friends and family, and it’s going to be pretty exciting.”

Yes, you read that right. Mazur expected to have over 200 family and friends at Little Caesars Arena.

“I don’t have 200 to 300 family members, and I have a lot of friends, but nowhere near that number,” coach Todd McLellan said with a smile. “This guy is pretty popular.”

Mazur has 15 points (eight goals, seven assists) in 20 games with the Grand Rapids Griffins, and 11 points (seven goals) in his last 11 games. Mazur (6-foot, 170 pounds) missed much of the first half of the season after suffering an upper-body injury. The Wings are hoping Mazur’s combination of offensive ability and edgy play can spark the lineup.

“It sounds like he has a tenacity to his game we could use right now,” said McLellan, adding Mazur was going to open the game on the fourth line. “But if we’re relying on Carter to drive our team, to spark us, it might happen a little bit, but there are some other players that have to find their own internal spark, too.”

97.1 the Ticket’s Will Burchfield also told Mazur’s story, and coach McLellan’s take on his new young winger…

Continue reading Mazur prepares to make his NHL debut and Rasmussen returns to battle a plucky Utah HC team

The Forecheck previews Red Wings-Utah HC

Daniella Bruce and Ken Kal preview tonight’s game between the Detroit Red Wings and Utah HC (7 PM EST start on FanDuel SportsNet Detroit/Utah16/97.1 FM) on the latest episode of “The Forecheck”:

Tweets of note: Utah starts Vejmelka vs. Lyon

Per the Salt Lake Tribune’s Belle Fraser, we receive a few morning skate updates from Utah HC…

And here’s coach Andre Tourigny’s morning presser, via Utah HC:

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