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Via Duff: Jakub Rychlovsky shares his lessons learned from a rough North American hockey debut

24-year-old Red Wings prospect Jakub Rychlovsky is a bit of a wild card.

The 5’10,” 181-pound winger led the Czech Extraliga in scoring with 26 goals and 46 points in 51 games in 2023-2024, but, this past season, he was only able to suit up for 38 games with the AHL’s Grand Rapids Griffins, posting 3 goals and 5 assists for 8 points.

Rychlovsky signed a 2-year contract with the Red Wings in the summer of 2024, so he’s bound to play in at least one more North American season, and it’s a safe assumption to suggest that he wants to improve upon his first campaign.

This evening, Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff found and has now shared an interview from Rychlovsky’s former Czech team, the “Bli Tygri Liberec,” whose Lukas Novotny and Jan Cermak discovered that Rychlovsky’s first North American season was a crash course in the tremendously difficult job that is being an AHL pro:

“Honestly, it was a tough encounter with reality when you get to know how the business works in America,” Rychlovsky said on the website of Czech club White Tigers Liberec. “It took me a while to get over it.”

His struggles with the adjustment were evident in both Rychlovsky’s health and productivity. Injuries would limit him to 38 AHL games for the Grand Rapids Griffins. His numbers were a pedestrian three goals and five assists.

“Maybe I was looking for faults in myself too much at first, rather than getting over it and not thinking about it that much,” Rychlovsky said. “After the New Year, I got injured, had to have surgery (for a lower-body injury), and that ended my season. So my impressions are kind of embarrassing. I know I didn’t play my best hockey.”

Duff notes that Rychlovsky, like so many European players, found the AHL’s punishing travel schedule to be a bit much as well…

The 24-year-old Czech forward admits he wasn’t at all prepared for the grind of the AHL. Three games in three nights, sometimes all on the road. Overnight bus trips. Broken sleep patterns. It all took a toll on his well-being.

“Traveling was extremely demanding,” Rychlovsky said. “Some matches ended at eleven in the evening, for example, and we then got on a bus and drove five hours to another city. There was also a time difference there, and we played the match from seven in the evening. My body was often confused and didn’t know if it was morning or evening.”

But the young man provides goal-scoring abilities, which the Red Wings need as much of as humanly possible, so they’re willing to forgive a difficult debut season…

And Rychlovsky told Novotny and Cermak that he’s not going to do anything less than focus on improving his own performance, and he will continue to relentlessly pursue his hopes of earning an NHL job:

Continue reading Via Duff: Jakub Rychlovsky shares his lessons learned from a rough North American hockey debut

Trey Augustine’s determined to improve over the course of his junior season at MSU

DetroitRedWings.com’s Jonathan Mills looks back to this past July’s Summer Development Camp while discussing the fall plans of one Trey Augustine, who is going into his junior season with Michigan State University:

Last season, as a sophomore, Augustine posted a 19-7-4 record with a 2.08 goals-against average, .924 save percentage and three shutouts in 30 games to help lead the Spartans to their second consecutive BIG Ten title.

“It was a good year,” Augustine said. “Obviously, ended on a negative note and there’s still something to prove there. I want to go back and win a national championship. There were a lot of good things that happened throughout the year. In the moment, it’s kind of hard to realize those good things but I got better as a hockey player and as a person. I’m looking to do that again next year.”

Augustine also racked up the accolades in 2024-25, being named Big Ten Goaltender of the Year and First Team All-Big Ten, selected to the Big Ten All-Tournament Team, recognized as a First Team AHCA All-American and was a finalist for the Richter Award as the top netminder in Division I men’s ice hockey as well as for the prestigious AAU Sullivan Award, given to the top amateur athlete in the United States.

Aside from his collegiate honors, the 20-year-old backstopped the United States to a gold medal at 2025 International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) World Junior Championship in Ottawa, Ont., becoming the winningest goalie in Team USA history at the IIHF World Junior Championships.

When asked how he views his development up to this point, Augustine said he believes his statistics don’t tell the whole story.

“I think it’s very hard to look at it from a numbers point of view,” Augustine said. “For me, it’s just more internal – how I feel with everything. Like, right away, I know if something went wrong. Just being able to realize that thing on the fly and grade myself from my own point of view.”

Continued; Augustine told Mills that he’s got more to learn in terms of responding to both negative and positive moments:

“It’s more focused on after a negative — how do you respond? But the same thing happens after a positive – you make a big save, but if they have another good chance you have to be focused again,” Augustine said. “Whether something goes wrong or right, for me, it doesn’t really matter. It’s the same approach. I have to be ready for the next shot and opportunity where I can have a positive impact on the game.”

Tweets of note: Some EDGE-y Red Wings stats

Of note from NHL.com’s “Edge” stats this evening:

Video: IIHF posts a ‘hype reel’ for Red Wings prospect Michal Pradel

The IIHF’s YouTube channel posted a short clip hyping Red Wings prospect goaltender Michal Pradel’s goalkeeping for Slovakia during this past season’s Under-18 World Championship:

The Red Wings drafted the 6’5,” 198-pound Pradel 75th overall this past June after a strong season split between the Slovak national team and the USHL’s Tri-City Storm.

This past summer it was pretty difficult to determine where Pradel would play as the WHL’s Regina Pats drafted him in the CHL Import Draft, but Detroit Hockey Now’s Kevin Allen reported that Pradel’s going to play for Tri-City as the 18-year-old eyes earning an NCAA Division 1 school scholarship this upcoming season.

A bit of praise for Amadeus Lombardi

The Hockey News’s Jake Tye discusses three Red Wings prospects who may play in their first NHL games this upcoming season in Amadeus Lombardi, Nate Danielson and Shai Buium. We haven’t talked all that much about “Ammo” Lombardi, so let’s give him a fair shrift:

EliteProspects has Lombardi listed at 5’10” and 165 pounds, but no one who’s watched him play in Grand Rapids or with the Red Wings’ prospects (be it through development camps or during the Prospect Games) doubts that Lombardi can make the NHL in a checking role. The 22-year-old is extraordinarily tenacious, and he posted 19 goals and 21 assists for 40 points over the course of 44 AHL games this past season…

And he’s just got the kind of wheels and the kinds of hands necessary to complement his tremendous competitive advantage.

Here’s Tye’s take:

Amadeus Lombardi, C

Detroit‘s fourth-round pick back in 2022 has found his game this past season with a near point-per-game average with the Grand Rapids Griffins. The 22-year-old Newmarket native recorded 40 points, tying for fourth on the team in points with winger Sheldon Dries. His 19 goals was also tied for third on the team with former NHLer Austin Watson. This is all with Lombardi having played just 44 games compared to the others around him that played closer to the full 72-game AHL season. If an opportunity becomes available with an injury that would require the team to call up a center for the fourth line, we can count on Lombardi getting a chance to make his debut.

Continued; Lombardi’s NHL ceiling may be as a checking forward, but he’s going to be a real pain in the ass for opponents to deal with. If he shows up to training camp with even 5 to 10 more pounds of muscle, opponents better look out.

Red Wings’ front office helped William Horcoff excel on the pickleball court

Red Wings assistant GM/Grand Rapids Griffins GM Shawn Horcoff’s son, Will, was drafted 24th overall by the Pittsburgh Penguins in the 2025 NHL Draft this past June, and the younger Horcoff reveals that he’s spent a considerable amount of his time playing pickleball against the Red Wings’ front office, as noted by Pickleball.com’s Matt Cudzinowski:

The 18-year-old forward grew up in the Detroit suburbs just steps away from a court courtesy of his father, former NHL player, Shawn Horcoff, who suited up for over 1,000 games between Edmonton, Dallas, and Anaheim.

“We’ve kind of played our whole lives. Our old house in Birmingham had a court in the backyard and so does our new house in Bloomfield Hills, so it’s one thing that I’ve played since I was very young. It’s something that my family has always played,” said Horcoff, a first-round NHL Draft selection (24th overall) this past June. “My friends would come over and play, too. We would just play all the time growing up.”

Horcoff, a sophomore at the University of Michigan, also has fond memories of watching his father and his work colleagues from the Detroit Red Wings front office go head-to-head on the 20×44 from time to time.

Guests included Stanley Cup champions, Kris Draper and Dan Cleary, whose genuine appreciation for America’s fastest-growing sport is well documented.

Shawn currently works as the assistant general manager of the Red Wings and general manager of the AHL’s Grand Rapids Griffins as well.

“I just love how competitive it was. They’d be best friends, but screaming at each other and going at it,” recalled Horcoff. “That’s what I loved about it, just guys getting super into it. Those were really fun games to watch. There were some pretty heated matches.”

Continued; Kris Draper is so good at pickleball that he rides a fine line between his amateur status and professional status. Here’s hoping that Draper’s recovering well from his hip replacement surgery in the spring as well.

Sixth out of eight–that’s Khan’s take on where the Red Wings belong in a stacked Atlantic Division

MLive’s Ansar Khan suggests that the Detroit Red Wings should be ranked 6th in the Atlantic Division going into the upcoming season, behind both the Ottawa Senators and Montreal Canadiens, and ahead of only the Buffalo Sabres and Boston Bruins:

6. Detroit

GM Steve Yzerman had ample cap space and still does ($12 million), but the free-agent market was thin, and he wasn’t able to swing a significant trade. The Red Wings return with mostly the same roster, adding depth forwards James van Riemsdyk and Mason Appleton and third-pair defensemen Travis Hamonic and Jacob Bernard-Docker. They fell five points short of the final playoff spot and hope an upgrade in goal to John Gibson and a full season under coach Todd McLellan, along with internal growth, can be the difference in ending the 100-year-old franchise’s longest playoff drought.

Continued (paywall); the Red Wings’ performance this upcoming season will have to surprise a lot of people, including the team’s own beat writers.

Prospect round-up: Nikita Tyurin blocks 2 shots as MHK Spartak wins 2-0 over MHK Dynamo

Of Red Wings prospect-related note today:

In the MHL, Nikita Tyurin finished at +1 with 2 blocked shots in MHK Spartak’s 2-0 win over MHK Dynamo.

Update: Per Red Wings Prospects on Twitter:

Dylan James and the long road to becoming a strong NCAA prospect

The Hockey News’s Jake Tye posted a profile of Red Wings prospect and University of North Dakota left wing Dylan James, and while I wouldn’t call the 6,’ 190-pound senior a “blue-chip prospect” going into his senior year at UND, the 40th overall pick in the 2022 NHL Draft is something of a “wild card” prospect.

As Tye suggests, James faces an incredibly important senior season as he vies for a contract offer from the Red Wings:

In his freshman season, James scored eight goals and dished eight assists for 16 points through 36 games. His sophomore season saw little improvement as he played four more games at 40 but only recorded three more points at 19 on the year. This past season as a Junior, he continued his subtle climb in production up another three points to a fairly decent 22 through 38 games. Entering his Senior year, we can predict based on his regular three-point increase every season that he likely record 25 points, which would be solid but will it be enough to get an entry level deal?

The Red Wings just finished letting go of the rights to an in-state standout this past off-season in former fourth-round pick Red Savage. The Michigan State captain had a stellar junior season with 27 points over 38 games (0.71 point-per-game average) before finishing off his collegiate career with an injury and being limited to 11 points through 20 games. Savage has, for the most part, produced at a higher clip than James on average and Savage still did not receiving an entry level deal. He would go on to sign with the Buffalo Sabres’ AHL affiliate in the Rochester Americans.

Hopefully, this isn’t the same path for James as the Red Wings would like to get the most out of their picks. What would James need to do to show the organization that he’s ready to take the leap to pro hockey? 

Tye continues, noting the comments made by Nate Danielson and Shai Buium regarding the adjustments necessary to thrive at the AHL level, but the one thing he leaves out is important:

The University of North Dakota is the type of school where you have to earn your shifts, beginning as a seldomly-used freshman and a slightly more-involved sophomore. It took James two years to establish himself at the NCAA level, and his junior and senior seasons are really going to tell the tale as to whether he’s worth an NHL or AHL deal.

There’s much at stake for James this season, obviously, but the Red Wings believe that his game and conditioning are top-notch. We’ll see where he goes.

The fantasy hockey-relevant Seider and DeBrincat ‘iron man’ streaks

DobberHockey’s Eli Fieldman offers a list of 10 fantasy hockey-relevant “iron men” for poolies to pay attention to this upcoming season, and in doing so, he reveals that one Red Wings player has played in more consecutive games than Moritz Seider:

3.   Moritz Seider (328 Games)

Without missing a single game in his NHL career thus far, Moritz Seider has emerged as Detroit’s defensive anchor and a top-notch fantasy asset. For a workhorse defenseman logging heavy minutes against top competition each night, Seider’s durability is extraordinary. While his elite category coverage (including hits, blocks, power play production) makes him one of the most valuable fantasy defensemen in fantasy hockey, his durability adds yet another layer of appeal.

2.   Alex DeBrincat (374 Games)

At just 5’8″, DeBrincat has faced questions about his ability to handle the rigors of the NHL throughout his career. Cat’s response, however, has been emphatic – to the tune of 374 consecutive games and counting. Along with his reliable goal scoring, DeBrincat offers power play punch in a top-six role. Cat’s combo of production and durability makes him a key part of Detroit’s rebuild and one of the most dependable wingers around.

Continued;