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Prior to today’s waiver wire frenzy, PuckPedia posted a Tweet which is notable.

It spells out the Red Wings’ options for signing Austin Watson to an NHL contract and then waiving him to send him to Grand Rapids on or before the NHL’s 23-man roster deadline of 5 PM on Monday, October 7th:

In order to send a player that requires waivers down prior to tomorrow's 5pm opening roster submission, they must be on waivers today.

The exception is if a team signs a player tomorrow, they can place him on waivers and he won't be on the opening roster.

— PuckPedia (@PuckPedia) October 6, 2024

So now we know.

The Hockey News’s Tony Ferrari lists four players which he believes will graduate from “star player” status to that of superstars, and Lucas Raymond is one of the players Ferrari believes will continue to blossom:

Detroit Red Wings: Lucas Raymond, LW

Late last season, Red Wings captain Dylan Larkin was injured and the team sputtered amidst a fight for their playoff lives. The team needed a hero and like Superman ripping open his shirt to reveal the ‘S’, Lucas Raymond burst into the spotlight and put this team on his back. Whether he was scoring late tying goals to push the game to overtime, a clutch hat trick, or dramatic game-winning goals, Raymond was consistently at the forefront of their success.

While the team came up just short of the playoffs, Raymond announced his arrival to the rest of the NHL. His 31 goals were second on the team and the 72 points led the Wings in scoring. Now that he’s secured the big contract that will keep him in Motown long-term, Raymond is poised to take the next step. Challenging 40 goals and 90 points isn’t out of the question for the cerebral Swedish star.

Continued; I don’t see Raymond achieving those heights points-wise, mostly because I believe that he’s going to be asked to be a good two-way player, but I think that he’s going to be a star player for a very long time. There is more for him to give–and the same is true for Moritz Seider.

Sportsnet’s Justin Bourne has posted an article in which he writes two sentences describing the expectations for every NHL team, and here’s what he has to say about the Red Wings:

Detroit Red Wings: It’s actually strange to look back at last season and remember the Red Wings only missed the playoffs by a tiebreaker with Washington, as most of the time they seemed unthreatening and mostly just “OK” (which checks out when it comes to the final playoff spot in the East last year). Their off-season was defined by absolutely treading water with their in/out list, and retaining their good players, so they seem primed for…91 points again, maybe?

Continued; the Red Wings and their fan base believe that the team can improve. Everybody else believes they’re going to tread water at best, if not decline behind the respective rises of the Senators and Sabres.

It’s the Red Wings Vs. the World this season.

Detroit Hockey Now’s Kevin Allen discusses the performance of Ville Husso, who may or may not have won the Wings’ “open competition” for the #1 goaltender’s job over the course of the Red Wings’ preseason:

You can bet Husso feels like he won after posting a 2.28 goals-against average and .931 save percentage in three preseason games. Coming into training camp, Husso hadn’ t played a full NHL game since December.  Injuries undermined his season.

“It was a good summer doing stuff and I feel good to go,” Husso said earlier this week. “I’m confident.”

Over the past week, Husson turned in an impressive 43-save performance to post a 2-1 road win at Pittsburgh aond made 31 stops Saturday in a 3-2 loss at Toronto.

Cam Talbot, signed this summer as an unrestricted free agent, had a better GAA (2.05). However, his .911 save percentage couldn’t match Husso’s work. Alex Lyon, meanwhile, boasted a 2.57 and .903.  All three Detroit goalies showed well in the preaseason. Presumably, coaches will also be factor who each faced and how they looked in practice in determining their status. The season starts on Thursday.

The Red Wings are talking as if they are definitely keeping three goalies, as they did last season.  Regardless of who is designated as the early starter, it seems likely Lalonde will go with the hot goalie as the season progresses.  That’s what happened last season.

Continued; as Allen notes, the Red Wings also need to find a mentor for Sebastian Cossa, who currently has no veteran back-up in Grand Rapids. The Wings may sign a veteran goaltender as a result of Jack Campbell entering the NHL/NHLPA Player Assistance Program.

The Athletic’s Max Bultman suggests that both Red Wings prospect Marco Kasper and pro try-out Austin Watson have earned spots on this year’s Red Wings team, and this morning, he ponders how the Wings might make room on their roster for one or both players.

Bultman starts with Kasper’s case for making the team:

Marco Kasper deserves a spot on this team.

He was noticeable in training camp. He was impactful to begin the preseason. And he closed out his exhibition season with his best game yet Friday night, a two-goal showing against the Ottawa Senators in which Kasper very nearly recorded a hat trick in the first period.

“(He’s) been excellent,” head coach Derek Lalonde said Friday. “Energy. Some finish there. He’s had a really good camp.”

Lalonde went back to a point he made early in camp about the differences he’s seen between Kasper now versus at this time last year, when the coach felt the young forward looked like a “deer in a headlight.”

This time around? Kasper was the story of the preseason for Detroit. He played an up-tempo game, looked confident with the puck and created chances even when short-handed. And he did that all within what looked like a very sustainable framework, not cheating for offense. Getting the two goals Friday was the final piece of the puzzle, adding some production to a lot of good processes.

Of course, he’s still a rookie, and on Thursday, Lalonde noted that Kasper “probably had his fingerprints” on a goal against, being out of position on the penalty kill. But the mistakes were few and far between, and by the end, Kasper didn’t just look like a good prospect. He looked like one of the Red Wings’ 12 best forwards.

Continued (paywall); I’m honestly a bit flummoxed as to what’s going to happen here.

The Red Wings definitely witnessed a revelatory performance from Kasper, but at present, there’s no room for him on the roster without making some decisions–as in waiving Justin Holl, sitting someone like Jonatan Berggren or Joe Veleno, or waiving a goaltender (and Bultman and I are in agreement that Ville Husso looked superb in the preseason).

Just as importantly, Bultman argues that Austin Watson was literally and figuratively impactful enough that he should earn a contract with the Red Wings. That’s doubly complicated because, even assuming that the Wings make room for Kasper on the roster, there’s no room for Watson on the opening-night roster if the Wings are to a) keep three goaltenders or b) keep 8 defensemen with c) Kasper on the roster.

Continue reading The Kasper conundrum

Of Red Wings prospect-related note in North America on Saturday night:

In the USHL, Austin Baker finished at -1 in the Sioux Falls Stampede’s 3-2 loss to the Lincoln Stars;

Rudy Guimond stopped 21 of 24 shots in the Cedar Rapids Roughriders’ 3-2 loss to the Youngstown Phantoms;

In NCAA Hockey, Larry Keenan had an assist, finishing at +2 with 3 shots in the UMass Minutemen’s 5-4 win over Bentley;

Kienan Draper finished even, going 4-for-9 on faceoffs as the University of Michigan Wolverines won 4-1 over Minnesota State;

Trey Augustine stopped 24 of 25 shots, Red Savage had an assist, finishing even with an 11-and-10 faceoff record, and the Michigan State University Spartans won 5-1 over Lake Superior State;

And Max Plante had 2 assists, finishing even with 2 shots in the Minnesota-Duluth Bulldogs’ 4-3 loss to Bemidji State.

The Detroit Red Wings concluded their preseason with a 3-3-and-2 record thanks to a 3-2 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs’ “A Team” on Saturday night. The undermanned “B Team” gave the Leafs a good effort, especially thanks to two goals from the Copp line (one from Fischer and one from Copp himself), and Ville Husso was excellent in stopping 30 of 33 shots…

But the Wings could not withstand the Maple Leafs’ All-Star power play, which went 2-for-4, or All-Star lineup, which plain old out-lasted a Red Wings team that looked physically and mentally tired as it wrapped up a bafflingly tight schedule of 8 games played in 11 nights–including 6 games this week alone (split-squad games against Pittsburgh and Buffalo on Tuesday included).

I never understand why the Red Wings choose to play 8 exhibition games–I think that 6 games in 2 weeks is a real maximum for the team to realistically contribute–and it’s a small miracle that Shai Buium and Tim Gettinger end the exhibition season on the IR, with Ondrej Becher already injured before the Prospect Games began.

The game’s narrative will be told in sparing fashion as the vast majority of the Red Wings’ press corps did not fly to Toronto to take in the game, which wasn’t aired on Metro Detroit TV stations, either.

The Free Press’s Helene St. James relates the game’s details quite well…

Continue reading Red Wings-Maple Leafs wrap-up: Wings can’t withstand Leafs’ ‘A Game,’ but roster decisions loom large

The Detroit Red Wings concluded their 8-games-in-11-nights preseason schedule by traveling to Toronto with their “B Team” to play the Maple Leafs’ “A Team” on Saturday night.

To some extent, the “how’s” of the Red Wings players’ performances would matter much more than the result of the game, because the Leafs’ constellation of stars tends to overwhelm visiting teams’ best lineups; going into the game, the Red Wings possessed a 3-3-and-1 record over the course of 7 exhibition games played, so mastering the details of the game and systems play–and getting Ville Husso some “reps”–were what counted on Saturday night.

Still, Toronto’s “B Team” took a 2-0 decision from the Red Wings on Thursday night, and these teams are always rivals, so the Red Wings wouldn’t mind taking a chunk out of the Leafs on Saturday evening.

Ultimately, the Maple Leafs out-lasted the Red Wings, and out-shot the shit out of them, with Toronto taking a 33-20 shot advantage–and a 15-1 shot advantage in the 2nd period–en route to a 3-2 win over the Red Wings.

Christian Fischer tipped a shot from Andrew Copp past Joseph Woll only 3:33 into the 1st, and after Stephen Lorentz tied the game, Copp scored a goal of his own from William Wallinder and Joe Snively on the PP at 16:58…

But from there on out, it was all Toronto, and Ville Husso is the reason that the score didn’t get out of hand…

Well, Husso, and players like Copp, Fischer, Rasmussen, Veleno, Berggren, Mazur, Johansson, Wallinder and the rest of a very young Wings team, which received tons of ice time and lots of good lessons learned against an All-Star Maple Leafs team.

Detroit wraps up its preseason going 3-3-and-2 while playing 8 times in 11 nights; the players have tomorrow off from practice, but the team will have to make its cut-down from 41 to 23 players by Monday at 5 PM.

Most likely, the Wings will make their cuts on Sunday, deciding the fates of 18 players, including Michael Brandsegg-Nygard, who may stay in North America after all.

In terms of the game’s narrative…

Continue reading Red Wings-Maple Leafs quick take, rematch version: undermanned Wings, Husso keep things respectable in a 3-2 loss to Toronto

Detroit Hockey Now’s Kevin Allen wonders aloud whether the Red Wings are considering retaining Marco Kasper on the team’s initial 23-man roster, or whether Justin Holl might be waived in order to keep Kasper around:

Detroit Red Wings coach Derek Lalonde says he has never undestood the drama surrounding who makes the roster coming out of training camp.

“Grand Rapids is two hours away,” Lalonde said. “We’ll have played 33 players by Christmas… Maybe it’s a little old school, maybe that’s where it was 20, 25 years ago. You made the team on Day 1. I think in reality, we’re probably going to have 15 forwards, 10 D that are going to play for us and make our team. So it’ll be very interesting how it plays out in the next couple days.”

It’s hard to know who needs that message more. The media? Fan base? Or is it, Marco Kasper?  The Austrian center seems like he has made a serious bid to make the opening day roster.  He plays hard, brings considerable energy and his two-goal game Friday showed his scoring may be coming around.

The argument for finding room for him is that he could put a youthful charge into the team. The Detroit Tigers have used that strategy effectively. With Simon Edvinsson and Albert Johansson also joining Moritz Seider and Lucas Raymond, adding Kasper would make it seem like we are turning the corner on the rebuild. Nate Danielson and Carter Mazur aren’t far behind Kasper.

Allen continues…

Per the Detroit Red Wings:

RED WINGS REDUCE PRESEASON ROSTER TO 41

  … Detroit Concludes Preseason Schedule with Road Game Against Toronto Maple Leafs at 7:00 p.m. at Scotiabank Arena; Game to be Streamed on DetroitRedWings.com  …

DETROIT – The Detroit Red Wings today released forward Isaac Ratcliffe from his professional tryout, assigned forwards Alexandre Doucet, Amadeus Lombardi and Jakub Rychlovský to the American Hockey League’s Grand Rapids Griffins, and assigned goaltender Gage Alexander to the ECHL’s Toledo Walleye. Additionally, the Red Wings have designated forward Tim Gettinger and defenseman Shai Buium as injured non-roster, while forward Ondřej Becher will continue his rehab in Grand Rapids.

The Red Wings have released forwards Hunter Johannes and Dominik Shine, and defenseman Josiah Didier from their professional tryouts, returning them to Grand Rapids. The Griffins have also assigned forwards Carson Bantle and Gabriel Seger, defenseman Chaz Reddekopp, and goaltender Jan Bednar to Toledo.

The Red Wings currently have 41 players on their training camp roster: 21 forwards, 14 defensemen and six goaltenders. Currently at 3-2-2 through seven preseason games, Detroit concludes its preseason schedule with a road game against the Toronto Maple Leafs tonight (Saturday, Oct. 5) at 7:00 p.m. at Scotiabank Arena. The game will be streamed on DetroitRedWings.com.