The Athletic’s Sean McIndoe suggests that 10 teams need to start very well this upcoming season, lest things go south, and McIndoe includes the Detroit Red Wings on his list:

Detroit Red Wings

The starting point: After missing the playoffs for a tenth straight year, the Red Wings embarked on the league’s most bizarre offseason. Dylan Larkin demanded a trade, Steve Yzerman held his ground, and then Yzerman was fired and replaced by … look, they’re working on it. But with Simon Edvinsson still unsigned and Alex DeBrincat needing an extension, the Wings front office looks like a ship without a rudder. And fans around the league are gleefully lining up to kick the team while it’s down.

If they start poorly: Blow it up. Blow it all up. This team is hopeless, and the GM should trade everyone over the age of 25. You know, after they get around to finding an actual GM. But yeah, definitely get Larkin out of here for whatever you can, because that’s a better option than putting him in the lineup to get torn to shreds by the home crowd.

If they start well: We all remember that this is a young team that had 92 points last year. And we start wondering what kind of Larkin boost they might be about to get — either from a trade, or from the former captain himself returning to the lineup with the mother of all chips on his shoulder.

Early schedule: Not bad. None of their first four opponents won a postseason game last year, and they make it all the way to November before they face playoff teams in back-to-back games. They’re also at home for seven of the first eight, which should be good for everything other than Larkin’s ego.

Continued (paywall)

MLive’s Ansar Khan discusses the shape of the Red Wings’ top line this morning, with Lucas Raymond and Alex DeBrincat to skate on the same line regardless of whether their center is Andrew Copp or Dylan Larkin…

“We have plans,” McLellan said. “You know how that goes. It changes instantly. And just deal with what we have right now and what’s in front of us.”

DeBrincat and Raymond gives the Red Wings two high-volume shooters on the same line. The DeBrincat-Copp-Kane line was the team’s most effective the second half of the season.

“(DeBrincat) lost his comfort with Kaner not being there,” McLellan said. “So, that’s the first thing we’re going to look at is how’s the new chemistry with different linemates? I think Kaner and Razor play the game differently. We were looking to try to keep a pair together — Copper and DeBrincat — and what would complement it? We looked at Razor. They’re arguably our best scorers, and they’re going to be on the ice a lot, so let’s see what they can do together first.”

Red Wings assistant director of player development Dan Cleary spoke with the Grand Rapids Griffins’ media corps about his new role as the Griffins’ GM yesterday…

And Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff took note of Cleary’s remarks:

“New role for sure,” Cleary said in an interview on the Griffins YouTube page.

New duties? Somewhat, but not really. In recent seasons, you couldn’t go to Grand Rapids and not run into Cleary. Van Andel Arena was his second home. He could often be found donning his skates and helping out as the team practiced.

“I’m very familiar with the surroundings and the people who do business around here,” Cleary said. “And certainly all the players and the coaches.”

The difference is, now he’s the man in charge. Cleary is filling the role left by Horcoff when he was promoted to take charge of the big club’s hockey operations.

“It’s a great opportunity,” Cleary said. “I’m super excited.”

…

If anyone has a question, or is questioning where they fit within the organization, Cleary promises that he’ll be the answer man.

“I’m a very black and white guy,” Cleary said. “I don’t really live in the gray area. So if you need to know where you stand or what you can do to help you get better, I’m certainly the guy to come and ask.  I want these guys to be able to speak to me freely. I told them, I’m here to help you guys achieve your goals.”

According to Expressen’s Adam Johansson and Mattias Persson, Red Wings restricted free agent defenseman Simon Edvinsson’s back in Sweden, practicing with his “parent team”:

Simon Edvinsson trains with Frölunda – agent’s response

Simon Edvinsson’s contract negotiations with Detroit have been stalled.

Now the 23-year-old has turned home to Gothenburg – to train with Frölunda.

“It takes as long as it needs to take,” said Peter Werner.

Simon Edvinsson, who finished his third NHL season and thusly his first contract this past spring, is back home in Sweden. On Wednesday morning, Sportbladet reported that he had started training with his former team, Frölunda, again.

Details confirmed by Edvinsson’s agent Peter Werner.

“Since the season has started, he can’t train in Detroit now, and the best place to be best prepared when it kicks off for Simon with games again is to be home in Gothenburg.

Has Edvinsson contacted Frölunda and Fredrik Sjöström himself?

“We are the ones who have contacted Frölunda.

“Simon needs somewhere to prepare for the season, and Frölunda has been helpful and friendly to let him for be involved for the moment and train.”

From the Grand Rapids Griffins:

GRIFFINS RECALL TAG BERTUZZI, NOLAN MOYLE FROM TOLEDO

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. – The Grand Rapids Griffins on Wednesday recalled forwards Tag Bertuzzi and Nolan Moyle from the ECHL’s Toledo Walleye.

The Griffins will begin the AHL’s regular season this Friday when they travel to Rocket Arena to face the Cleveland Monsters.

Of multimedia-related Red Wings note this morning:

1. On TSN’s Insider Trading video (link goes to video + transcript) for Tuesday evening, TSN/The Athletic’s Chris Johnston offered this regarding both Dylan Larkin and Simon Edvinsson’s respective situations:

JOHNSTON: Another player waiting for his fresh start is Dylan Larkin of the Detroit Red Wings.

What’s different about his situation – he has been in training camp, albeit recovering from an injury. But at this point in time, I’m told there’s been no tangible progress made towards making a deal for Larkin.

It appears as though the Red Wings are going to enter this year having to try to support him, try to have him involved in what they’re doing and eventually move towards a trade. Larkin has recently expanded his list to a wider range of teams that he’d consider a deal to. But at this point in time, it has not sparked any more conversation.

The Red Wings have been playing catch up really all summer after removing Steve Yzerman in mid-July. Interim GM Shawn Horcoff is also currently negotiating with Simon Edvinsson, a top-pairing defenceman for them last year. He’s left the Red Wings after being in camp on a PTO, but because he didn’t get a new contract done with the season starting, he’s away. Well, that negotiation continues. I think they’d like a long-term deal on the Edvinsson side of things.

We’ll see where this ends up falling, but the Red Wings have tons of cap space to make a signing, but so far they’ve been reluctant to use it.

2. Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman appeared on the NHL Network’s the NHL Tonight on Tuesday evening, discussing many topics over the course of a 13:10 clip:

At the 6:40 mark of the video, Friedman is asked about Dylan Larkin and Simon Edvinsson:

Friedman says that he hasn’t checked in on Edvinsson today, and the worst thing is to make an error and be completely wrong, so he’ll say that as of the weekend, Detroit was thinking “bridge deal,” and Edvinsson wanted more than that; for Larkin, it stands that Larkin has widened his list to 8 or 9 U.S.-based contending teams, and right now, Larkin is hurt, and needs to be able to play, and Shawn Horcoff said in his presser that the Red Wings do not want to rebuild, and Friedman feels that it’s going to be hard to achieve that kind of deal as the team that trades for Larkin will want to win the Cup, and not subtract from that kind of core.

3. Finally, Friedman gives a 30-minute interview to John Keating and Chris Osgood on the latest “Ozzy and Keats” podcast, discussing Larkin, Edvinsson and the Red Wings’ front office overhaul as it transpired over the course of the summer and into this fall. Doing the homework for this one falls upon you:

Toronto Maple Leafs correspondent David Alter has a “side job” of sorts as a critic of the NHL’s 32 teams’ media meals and press box offerings.

Awful Announcing asked Alter to rank all 32 teams’ food offerings, and Alter suggests that the media meal at Little Caesars Arena is the NHL’s best by a far margin:

1. Detroit Red Wings

If the Los Angeles Kings are No. 2, they are a distant No. 2, because nobody in the NHL comes close to delivering what the Detroit Red Wings’ hospitality staff serves to media and support staff at Little Caesars Arena. The fact that I have to pay $13 and still have this ranked at the absolute top speaks volumes about the quality and quantity of this meal.

You walk into the dining area, pay, and pick up your plate before quickly realizing you’re going to need a second one. You start with a salad bar featuring every option you could ask for. Then, you move to the soup of the day; I especially loved that they had a tomato bisque with grilled cheese as an option. From there, you hit the hot food station, where you can choose pork loin or meatloaf with gravy, alongside pesto penne pasta. That would suffice as a complete meal at most arenas.

But you keep going, and then they hit you with a live carving station. I indulged in the herb-crusted hanger steak. Are we done? Absolutely not. You can grab a Coney Island hot dog, or you can keep moving to where they have several different varieties of Little Caesars pizza toppings available (I counted six different options, including Detroit-style). Little Caesars chicken wings are available in copious amounts alongside French fries. It’s insanely good and insanely large.

Speaking of “outside noise,” I’ve tried to filter through some of the Dylan Larkin trade rumors and only give you the substantiated stuff this summer and early fall.

There was some hubbub in the Montreal media that Dylan Larkin should come to his senses and choose to join the Canadiens (not that the Canadiens should pitch for Larkin), there was some lamentful stuff from Philly about Larkin not including the Flyers on his trade list, and a lot of talk from Minnesota (a team that Larkin DOES have on his original trade list) that was just fluffy…

And I read that stuff so you don’t have to read it. This blog is about posting the newsworthy stuff and giving you a peek behind the paywall curtains, not posting every damn thing that’s said about the Red Wings (especially during the summer).

Talk for talk’s sake is just stuff, and I don’t like to post for the sake of page views or metrics or whatever–I post stuff that I genuinely find interesting, and hope that you find genuinely interesting.

Today, however, Daily Faceoff’s Anthony Di Marco wonders aloud whether the Philadelphia Flyers, who were very interested in now-Toronto Maple Leaf Kirill Marchenko, should pivot and see if Larkin is available, and we’re going to examine what Di Marco has to say:

FloHockey’s Chris Peters examines AHL graduates who should make a strong impact upon the NHL, and Peters includes Red Wings rookie (yes, he’s still technically a rookie) Michael Brandsegg-Nygard on his list:

Michael Brandsegg-Nygård, RW, Detroit Red Wings

You knew it probably wouldn’t take MBN long to acclimate to North America. While his early NHL stint wasn’t productive, his performance in the AHL was exemplary. He had 44 points in 60 games including 20 goals and showed the strong, physical two-way game that got him drafted in the first round.

It looks like he’ll stick with the Red Wings long-term, filling a need in the middle six where he can play an energetic style with some good secondary scoring.

Continued, with some praise for ex-Red Wing Sebastian Cossa as well…

And Daily Faceoff’s Steven Ellis suggests that Brandsegg-Nygard might have what it takes to at least earn an outside shot at winning the Calder Trophy as the NHL’s best rookie player:

This morning, The Athletic’s Max Bultman discussed the Red Wings players and coaching staff’s attempts to minimize “outside noise” regarding the uncertainty surrounding Dylan Larkin, Simon Edvinsson, interim GM Shawn Horcoff and the team as a whole…

And, this afternoon, the Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan revealed that the Red Wings might be listening to some of that “outside noise” in order to remain on the same page:

Questions about those developments met the Wings daily. As the regular season begins Friday, Oct. 2, against the New York Rangers, coach Todd McLellan feels the Wings have dealt with the issues as well as could be expected.

“So far, so good,” McLellan said. “We have some hurdles in front of us that we’re going to have to continue to cross and to deal with, but it’s probably appropriate that we’re (holding a daily media briefing) inside the locker room because the group in here has come to play hockey. They’ve focused on the things that they need to do to get themselves ready. The outside noise through the summer and everything else that’s gone on, they’ve done a good job focusing on what they can control, and that’s the hockey part of it.”

Moritz Seider offered this take on the Wings’ situation, potential distractions included…

“We have a real good team,” Seider said. “There were a lot of question marks going into the year but at the time, we didn’t have a (general) manager (but) he’s not going out there scoring goals or defending or winning games. We have everything in place to have a good team. Now with Shawn, we have the leader we need for the moment and there should be no excuses.”

And Seider suggested that the contractual dispute between Edvinsson’s camp and the Red Wings’ management is “just business” at work:

“It just takes time,” Seider said. “Everybody needs to be happy on his side of the contract. We all have Simon’s back, but we also know it’s a hard situation for everybody involved. It’ll be done eventually. We have big hopes.”