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The Toledo Blade’s Mark Monroe spoke with new Toledo Walleye coach Pat Mikesch after his introductory press conference this morning, and Monroe reports that the Walleye’s new bench boss is emphasizing player development as he prepares to step behind the ECHL bench…

“I’m coming to a place where they want to have big-time hockey,” said Mikesch, who spent a total of 11 seasons with the Green Bay Gamblers of the United States Hockey League. “They want to have a show. It’s a great opportunity for me because good players want to play here. Those are the guys I need to work with because it’s all about development for me. The question is how do we mix that individual development with team development? How do we get this group to be the best group at the end of the year?”

The Walleye have made the playoffs in seven straight seasons and have made two appearances in the Kelly Cup Finals since 2019. But the franchise, which was founded in 2009, has not yet won an ECHL title.

“The expectations are there with a fan base like we have in Toledo here,” Mikesch said. “Every team that’s right on that pinnacle, there’s always that expectation. But the fans want to see players in front of them that really care about the organization. It’s great to be part of this great organization, the sports community, and I just can’t wait to move forward.”

Joe Napoli, the team’s president and CEO, said Walleye officials conducted an extensive six-week search and interview process that included some 25 candidates before selecting Mikesch.

“His preparation was off the charts,” Napoli said. “He worked extremely hard to be well-prepared. The first interview was a video interview. He nailed it. And then in person, he was outstanding. We covered everything from culture, coaching, teaching, managerial style, and then interacting [with Grand Rapids and Detroit]. I would describe him as cocky, confident, totally engaging.”

Monroe continues, and the Toledo Blade’s David Briggs asked a simple question: Who is this guy, anyway?

Continue reading Toledo Blade’s Monroe, Briggs weigh in on the Walleye’s hiring of coach Pat Mikesch

The Hockey News’s prospect guru, Tony Ferrari, asked THN’s 32 correspondents to weigh in with a single take from each and every one of the NHL’s 32 teams’ summer development camps, and Sam Stockton praised Red Wings prospect Carter Mazur:

Detroit Red Wings: At development camp in Detroit, Carter Mazur looked like the player most ready for the leap from development camp to the NHL. Whether in the 3-on-3 tournament or drills, Mazur was a force of nature. Whenever the puck came to his blade, the game slowed to whatever tempo Mazur chose. He showed a thunderous shot, he dominated the walls all camp long, and his knack for puck protection put him at another level from all of his peers. Put it all together, and you can see that Mazur has a nice collection of habits that will serve him at the NHL level already under his belt.

“I’m more of a hard worker, I would say, and when I stick to that, then my skill comes out,” Mazur said. In an interview dripping with charisma, he extolled the virtues of his mom’s cooking and the way chirping “makes hockey fun.” – Sam Stockton

Continued; I’m going to actually disagree with Sam and say that Marco Kasper looked subtly more NHL-ready to me, but Mazur is only behind “by a nose,” as they say. He’s still working on adding body mass and strength, so we’ll see what #43 can do this fall at the prospect tournament and training camp.

DetroitRedWings.com’s Jonathan Mills penned a write-up from today’s press conference introducing Pat Mikesch as the Toledo Walleye’s new head coach:

Walleye President & CEO Joe Napoli said Dan Watson, (former Walleye head coach) Nick Vitucci, (Griffins general manager) Shawn Horcoff and Lalonde each played a role in the comprehensive coaching search.

“We really feel that we went through a wonderful process to select Pat,” Napoli said.

According to Mikesch, the interview process helped him gain a better understanding of the Walleye.

“The process was great for me,” Mikesch said. “It was very detailed. I had to prepare myself. The three coaches were very involved in the process. I learned a lot about the organization through those three. So to be the fourth [head coach], it’s an amazing opportunity. I can’t wait to follow in Dan’s footsteps.”

Last season, Toledo finished with a 45-19-3 regular-season record before falling to the Idaho Steelheads in the Western Conference Finals of the 2023 Kelly Cup Playoffs.

“The expectations are there,” Mikesch said. “We talked a lot about that this entire process. With a fanbase like we have in Toledo, there’s an expectation we keep moving forward.”

Continued

Per the Detroit Red Wings:

UPDATE: The #RedWings today signed defenseman Wyatt Newpower to a one-year two-way contract extension. pic.twitter.com/N8Gc852XpI

— Detroit Red Wings (@DetroitRedWings) July 14, 2023

RED WINGS RE-SIGN DEFENSEMAN WYATT NEWPOWER TO ONE-YEAR CONTRACT

  … Blueliner Has Spent Last Two Seasons With AHL’s Grand Rapids Griffins …

DETROIT – The Detroit Red Wings today re-signed defenseman Wyatt Newpower to a one-year, two-way contract.

Newpower, 25, played the entire 2022-23 season with the American Hockey League’s Grand Rapids Griffins, recording seven points (2-5-7) and 68 penalty minutes in 59 games. The 6-foot-3, 207-pound defenseman also spent the 2021-22 campaign with the Griffins, tallying 10 points (3-7-10) and 54 penalty minutes in 55 contests. He skated in 24 games as a first-year pro with the AHL’s Cleveland Monsters in 2020-21, producing 10 points (3-7-10), a team-high plus-10 rating and 14 penalty minutes. In total, Newpower has compiled 27 points (8-19-27), a plus-six rating and 136 penalty minutes in 138 AHL games between the Monsters and Griffins.

Continue reading Press release: Red Wings re-sign D Wyatt Newpower to 1-year contract

The Hockey News’s Sam Stockton discusses three questions concerning the shape of the Red Wings’ opening-night lineup this afternoon. Among them:

At this point, amongst under-23 players, there are two locks, one probable, and four hopefuls for the Red Wings’ line-up on the first night of the season.

Mortiz Seider, 22, and Lucas Raymond, 21, have long since established themselves not just as NHL regulars but as featured players in Detroit.  The only possible impediment to their places on Derek Lalonde’s line-up card is *knock on wood* health.

The probable is 22-year-old winger Jonatan Berggren.  Berggren played 67 NHL games a year ago, scoring 15 goals and giving 13 assists.  He plays a mature offensive game and had commendable two-way impacts as a first-year NHLer.  With the new off-season acquisitions, Berggren (not unlike Joe Veleno, who at 23 is just too old to qualify for this discussion) needs to establish his role within a re-shuffled and re-vamped forward group, but he should be on track to have comfortably done so by October 12th.

That leaves Elmer Soderblom (22), Simon Edvinsson (20), Carter Mazur (21), and Marco Kasper (19) as the hopefuls.  Within that context, it might be a bit harsh to Soderblom to only refer to him as a hopeful, considering his 20 NHL games played are twice as many as anyone else in that cohort.  (Edvisonsson has played nine, Kasper one, and Mazur none).

Still, the path for all four to play opening night looks difficult because of the arrival of Daniel Sprong, Klim Kostin, and Christian Fischer to fill bottom six roles, J.T. Compher slotting into the center depth chart, and Shayne Gostisbehere and Justin Holl joining the D corps.

This summer, Steve Yzerman has been explicit in his desire to remain patient with all four of these prospects, almost preferring there to be traffic between them and the NHL to ensure that the youngsters will have to earn NHL roster spots, rather than be handed them.

Continued; as Sam says later in his article, there’s ample reason for those who want “the kids to play” to be frustrated with Yzerman’s approach, but there are always injuries over the course of an 82-game season, and there are always prospects who “steal jobs” as a result.

Daily Faceoff’s Steven Ellis posted a list of the ten best goaltending prospects in the NHL as of this summer, and, going into the 2023-2024 season, he believes that Sebastian Cossa sits right in the middle of the rankings:

5. Sebastian Cossa, 20 (Detroit Red Wings): Cossa’s first pro season saw the 6-foot-6 keeper thrive with the ECHL’s Toledo Walleye. Playing 46 games as a 20-year-old is no small feat, and he even got into some AHL competition in the first half with Grand Rapids. He had some interesting outings, to say the least, but he’s athletic, competitive and uses his size to his advantage. He’s still a work in progress, but with the right coaching, the upside is incredible.

Continued

Via Paul Kukla of Abel to Yzerman, The Athletic’s Eric Duhatschek answered reader questions in a mailbag article today, and he suggests that Alex DeBrincat is not the kind of player that can will Detroit into the playoffs:

Does Alex DeBrincat push the Wings over the Playoff Plateau? — Eric P.

In a word, no. DeBrincat alone wouldn’t do it. DeBrincat and the additions the Red Wings made in free agency make them better, but probably not good enough to, in 2023-24, crack the top eight teams in the Eastern Conference. I still see the top four in the Atlantic as playoff teams — so that’s Toronto, Boston, Tampa Bay and Florida. Three make it automatically. One gets in as a wild card. The top three in the Metro also qualify for the playoffs which leaves nine remaining teams chasing the second wild-card spot in the East.

Detroit, in effect, is competing with two other rebuilding squads — Buffalo and Ottawa — to see which can make the greatest strides this season along with whatever aging Metropolitan squad doesn’t crack the top three (put Pittsburgh and Washington in this group, and maybe the Islanders as well).

It looks like, top to bottom, the Eastern Conference is getting closer, which means while the Red Wings should be a much-improved team in 2023-24, it may not be enough to get them over the playoff threshold this year. In a fairly short period of time, however, those long-in-the-teeth Eastern teams will start to sink in the standings, and that’s probably the time Detroit ascends to a playoff spot. But in the next calendar year? I predict no, not yet.

Continued (paywall); as per usual, the team that hasn’t received any draft lottery luck earns the “Least Likely to Succeed” grade, and it’s going to be up to the players to prove the experts wrong–and, perhaps, the GM to add another goal-scorer and/or depth defenseman sometime this summer or fall.

39 minutes and 4 seconds’ worth of goals, goals, goals, mostly from players who are no longer Red Wings:

Newly-acquired Red Wings forward Alex DeBrincat appeared on 97.1 the Ticket’s Inside Hockeytown with Ken Kal and Daniella Bruce yesterday night, and while the interview wasn’t posted online, Will Burchfield took note of the important points thereof:

In the deep Atlantic, a rivalry is brewing between Detroit and Ottawa. Between Alex DeBrincat’s new team and his old one. He felt it from the other side when the Senators hosted the Red Wings on back-to-back nights last season and sent them packing in a pair of playoff-like games. Aggregate score: Ottawa 12-Detroit 3.

“For us as the Senators, we were a couple points behind the Wings at that point and those were probably our two biggest games of the season. Going into that, everyone was fired up and obviously playing at home, the crowd was there, so we just had that energy and that jump and I think we took them out of the game early,” DeBrincat said Thursday on 97.1 The Ticket’s Inside Hockeytown. “Hopefully we’ll have a better experience on the Wings this year than they did last year.”

DeBrincat’s move from Detroit to Ottawa adds another log to a growing fire. The Red Wings and Senators are on parallel paths in the Atlantic Division, both trying to beat the other back to the playoffs. Ottawa’s drought is going on seven years, Detroit’s on eight. Both are franchise worsts. Along with the Sabres, who have the NHL’s longest active playoff drought at 12 years, the Wings and Sens figure to be fighting for one of the final postseason berths in the East next season.

Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman has acknowledged himself that Detroit isn’t so much competing with Tampa, Boston, Toronto and Florida in the Atlantic, the powers that be, but Ottawa, Buffalo and Montreal. And he didn’t mince words last season when he said in regard to the Senators and Sabres, “I look at their nucleuses of young players and what they have coming, they’re just ahead of us.” Of course, that was before Yzerman brought DeBrincat to Detroit.

Now the Red Wings have a two-time 40-goal scorer at the top of their lineup, and the Senators don’t. DeBrincat joins a young core in Detroit led by captain Dylan Larkin, his likely center to start next season, and bolstered by Moritz Seider, Lucas Raymond, Jake Walman and top prospects Simon Edvinsson and Marco Kasper. Goalie Sebastian Cossa is on his way. Not that the Sens are lacking. They boast two of the best young wingers in the game in Brady Tkachuk and Tim Stutzle and a star-studded blueline featuring Tomas Chabot, Jacob Chychrun and Jake Sanderson, all of them 26 or younger.

The stage is set for a heavyweight fight over the next several years. It may not be long before the two teams aren’t scratching to get into the playoffs, but trading blows to win the division.

“100 percent,” said DeBrincat. “I think a lot of guys feel that. We’re pretty much at the same stage as them in the rebuild and hopefully we can pass them in that, but I think it’s two teams that have really successful futures. Obviously the Senators have a lot of great young players, just like the Wings, so I think it’s definitely going to be a rivalry in the future. It’s already starting to be one, so I’m excited for that.”

Continued

You can watch the press conference here: