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Of Red Wings-related note this afternoon:

1. According to the Detroit News, the Vegas odds of the Wings winning the Stanley Cup in the 2018-19 season are understandably long…

It’s not an indicator of making the playoffs, but sports betting site Bovada’s opening Stanley Cup odds aren’t kind of the Red Wings, who own 75-1 odds to win their first Stanley Cup since 2007-08.

Sixteen teams make the NHL playoffs. Only three teams — the Arizona Coyotes (80-1), Vancouver Canucks (80-1) and Ottawa Senators (100-1) face longer odds to win the Stanley Cup.

The Tampa Bay Lightning are the favorites, at 9-1. The Washington Capitals, who defeated the expansion Vegas Golden Knights to win their first Stanley Cup, own 14-1 odds, just eighth on Bovada’s list.

2. And the Hockey News’s Jared Clinton offers an in-hindsight selection of players who could have and perhaps should have won the Conn Smythe trophy during their teams’ Cup runs:

SERGEI FEDOROV, DETROIT RED WINGS — 1997
Since the NHL’s original wave of expansion, there are 57 goaltenders who have played at least 20 games in a post-season, and there’s a big gap – a chasm, really – between those netminders in terms of how often they were tested. For example, Tim Thomas faced 849 shots in 25 games during the 2010-11 post-season, but Martin Brodeur was only tested 463 times in 20 games during the 1994-95 playoffs. But Mike Vernon holds the distinction of being the only Conn Smythe-winning netminder to play in at least 20 games while seeing less than 500 shots. The Red Wings goaltender faced only 494 pucks en route to his Conn Smythe win in 1996-97, a run that saw him post a .927 SP and 1.76 GAA.

So, while Vernon’s post-season play was all well and good, it’s difficult to understand how he took the award over Fedorov, who was dynamite for Detroit. Fedorov scored eight goals and 20 points in 20 games for the Red Wings, including four game-winning goals. Better yet, two of Fedorov’s game winners came in the final against the Flyers, and Game 3 against Philadelphia was a monster contest from Fedorov. He finished that game with two goals and four points to help give Detroit to a commanding 3-0 series lead in their eventual sweep of the final.

Continued, and it really was a toss-up between Vernon and Fedorov in 1997.

The Red Wings just posted a video spotlighting the team’s front office as they worked at the NHL’s scouting combine in Buffalo last week:

 

MLive’s Martin Slaghter reports that there will be a screening of The Russian Five tonight in Ann Arbor:

Attention Detroit Red Wings fans: If you didn’t have the chance to check out “The Russian Five” documentary, you are in luck.

The documentary will screen at 7 p.m. Friday, June 8 at the Michigan Theater in Ann Arbor as part of the Cinetopia Film Festival. Tickets for the documentary are available at the box office only.

“The Russian Five” documents the story of former Red Wings Slava Fetisov, Sergei Fedorov, Igor Larionov, Slava Kozlov and Vladimir Konstantinov, who became the first all-Russian line in the history of the NHL. It documents the journey they took to escape the Soviet Union and become Stanley Cup champions with the Red Wings.

DetroitRedWings.com’s Arthur J. Regner examines Wings prospect Kasper Kotkansalo’s 2017-18 season this morning. Kotkansalo, who played at Boston University this past season, projects to be a middle-pair defenseman of the Kyle Quincey-at-his-best variety, but a physical, two-way defenseman is quite useful.

Regner spoke with Wings director of player development Shawn Horcoff regarding Kotkansalo’s freshman campaign:

Quotable: “He had a great freshman year. Like a lot of freshmen, it took him a few games to get comfortable early on and actually his game really took off and excelled. At the end of the season he probably got a little bit tired and his game fell off a little bit, but that’s just a normal routine, the normal learning curve a player has going to college. It’s no easy step, it’s the first time you’re playing against men. Everyone is older, anywhere from 18 to 24, and sometimes it may take some time to learn that, but Kasper is a guy we’re really excited about. We were really happy with his freshman year. I’d say he’s more of a defender. He’s going to be a guy that’s going to be hard to play against. He is intense, he has really good hockey sense, he has a really good first pass. The offense that he’s going to create is from his passing ability and his hockey sense in general. He’s a guy that we’re going to rely upon hopefully down the road to play against other team’s better players and defend them hard and physical. His overall strength needs to improve, much like every guy his foot speed needs to improve. At the World Juniors this year I think he realized that, we talk to Kasper lots and it’s not that he’s a bad skater, just that if you want to get to the next level you have to defend against guys like (Sidney) Crosby, (Auston) Matthews and (Connor) McDavid, you’ve got to be able to move and you have to be agile. So he’s in the same boat as a lot of young guys in that regard, but BU has an outstanding physical fitness program, one of the better college programs for that, so we know he’s in very good hands out there.” – Shawn Horcoff, Red Wings director of player development

Continued

 

This has nothing to do with hockey, but it matters to me. 1-800-273-TALK is the number of the U.S. Suicide Prevention hotline, and it’s a number that those of us with serious/severe mental illnesses always keep in the backs of our heads.

I woke up this morning to find out that one of my idols, Anthony Bourdain, took his own life today in France, and it’s just devastating to hear that the dark dragon of suicide has taken another life. So needless, so sad.

You are never truly alone in this world, but we often believe that we are on our own, and that’s simply not true. I hope that if you are struggling with mental illness, you are able to seek out help. There is absolutely no shame in suffering from what is a biochemical illness.

The Athletic’s Craig Custance examines some of the Red Wings’ draft options with their 3 picks “in the 30’s”:

At this point, the Red Wings feel like they have a pretty good idea how the top five picks in front of their first draft choice are going to play out. Sure, there are always wild cards. There are trades and surprises. But they feel really good about their ability to land a top player at No. 6.

That may be the easy part. The area that makes or breaks Detroit’s draft are the picks that come after that. The cluster of three picks — No. 30 overall (assuming the Capitals win the Stanley Cup) acquired from Vegas in the Tomas Tatar deal, No. 33 and No. 36.

This is where they have to win this draft.

Detroit likes the talent available in that range. Director of amateur scouting Tyler Wright said he believes we’ll look back at the 2018 draft as one that was deep and full of impact NHL players.

“We really believe as an organization that this draft is deep in the Top 50,” Wright told The Athletic on Wednesday. “It’s not going to surprise anybody that someone who goes 28, 29, 30 might be better than someone who goes at 10 or 12.”

Custance continues (paywall)…

The Free Press’s Helene St. James has filed a mailbag article, and among her questions and answers is this note about the Wings’ likely first-round pick:

HSJ: From people I talk to in the organization, Evan Bouchard appears to have slight edge over Noah Dobson. It was interesting at the the combine, of the top defensive prospects I interviewed (Bouchard, Dobson, Hughes and Adam Boqvist) — Bouchard sounded the most confident he can help an NHL team as soon as next season. Now, it is just up to the player, of course, but still, he clearly feels he’s ready for another level after posting 25 goals and 62 assists for 87 points in 67 games with London in the Ontario Hockey League. 

St. James continues, and in my opinion, it’s very close between Bouchard and Dobson, but Bouchard is older and more physically mature.

MLive’s Ansar Khan wrote an article discussing the Red Wings’ rebuild some 10 years after the Wings last won a Stanley Cup and 21 years to the day the team ended its 42-year Cup drought by winning the 1997 Stanley Cup championship:

Building from the ground up through the draft is the strategy. They made several trades to accumulate 11 picks this year, including seven in the first three rounds. They have nine selections in 2019, including an extra second-rounder.

“That’s the blueprint for our future,” [Christopher] Ilitch said on April 7, when announcing [GM Ken] Holland’s two-year contract extension. “It’s going to be a process, we’re all going to need patience, but (Holland) has the skill and the experience to lead us through that process again.”

Holland said they’re not starting from scratch. They have a good core of young forwards in Dylan Larkin, Anthony Mantha, Andreas Athanasiou and Tyler Bertuzzi. They’re high on 2015 top pick Evgeny Svechnikov. They believe 2017 top pick Michael Rasmussen can make the leap from juniors to the NHL next season.

More than anything, they need to upgrade their defense, if not with a star, at least with one or two stronger top-four, mobile, puck-moving defensemen. They hope 2016 top pick Dennis Cholowski and Filip Hronek, their top defenseman this season with the Grand Rapids Griffins, are ready to move up in the next year or two.

They also need a goaltender. Jimmy Howard is 34 and has one year remaining on his contract. If he’s re-signed for a year or two, it would be more of a stopgap measure until they can identify their next franchise goalie, whether it’s someone in their system, someone they’ve yet to draft or someone they’ll acquire through trade.

Khan continues, mostly reiterating the concept that the Red Wings’ attempt to rebuild without completely tanking is going to be difficult and probably long.

Roster-wise, I would suggest that the Red Wings have a few prospects who could develop into stars on defense and in goal, but player development is key in that department, and that’s where Daniel Cleary, Shawn Horcoff, Griffins coach Ben Simon and Toledo Walleye coach Dan Watson come into play. The Red Wings rather desperately need a couple of prospects to jump the developmental curve, and that’s up to both the players and their mentors.

According to the Traverse City Record-Eagle’s Jake Atnip, Centre ICE Arena in Traverse City has finished upgrading its facility to NHL standards, affording the rink the ability to hold the Red Wings’ prospect tournament and main training camp in September…

But the rink is still attempting to raise funds to pay for the renovations:

“We are lucky that half of the $220,000 was covered by Traverse City Tourism and obviously we have raised some of the money,” [Centre ICE executive director Terry] Marchand said. “The great thing is that I was able to borrow money. We had to borrow the money to pay for this.”

Cherryland Co-Op allows members to borrow money with up to a 10-year payback with no interest. Marchand is happy they were able to take advantage of the program, but hopes to raise enough money to offset the loan.

Centre Ice took out a $100,000 loan from Cherryland to cover the rest of the renovation, and raised $37,344 of that so far. A donation deadline at the end of Training Camp in September could get those numbers even closer.

The arena will need to dish out another big chunk of change soon, Marchand said.

“We’ve got another thing going on right now that a lot of people don’t know about,” Marchand said. “We have a thing called an ammonia chiller back in our compressor room and it is a huge chiller. That and the compressors are what make it possible to have ice. We thought we were going to get another five years out of it and it is failing. We are right in the process in the next 30 days of replacing that, which is $200,000.”

Continued, and you can visit Centre ICE’s fundraising page if you’d like to give a hand.

Per MLive’s Brendan Champion:

Sorry Vegas, Detroit isn’t giving up the Hockeytown title anytime soon.

According to a study released by the personal finance website Wallethub on Wednesday, June 6, the Motor City is the second-best place for hockey fans in the United States. It trails only Boston, according to Wallethub.

To arrive at its rankings, a panel of sports experts from around the U.S. ranked 73 U.S. cities based on 21 key indicators of a good hockey city including ticket prices, stadium capacity and performance level of each city’s teams.

Detroit, which is obviously bolstered by the Detroit Red Wings and their 11 Stanley Cups, finished No. 1 in the NHL rank.

Continued