Category: Uncategorized

Grayden Robertson-Palmer making the adjustment from high school hockey to the QMJHL

Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff profiles Red Wings 2025 draft pick Grayden Robertson-Palmer this morning, discussing the uphill battle which the 204th overall pick in the 2025 NHL Draft faces:

Robertson-Palmer has been turning heads in Moncton [Wildcats’] training camp. He tallied a highlight-reel goal during a scrimmage. He scored a goal in the Wildcats’ most recent QMJHL preseason game.

Stepping into the major junior ranks from high-school hockey, Roberson-Palmer is expecting the transition to be challenging.

“I think having to learn how to like read off plays, move my body different ways, cut back in different ways and keep my head up all the time so I don’t sustain any big injuries,” he assesses as his main challenges. “I think that’s going to be the biggest difference for me.”

Those who know him best, his teammates at Phillips Andover, praise the leadership qualities that Robertson-Palmer exhibits.

Whether it was organizing a team dinner or a Secret Santa, or providing a teammate with a non-judgmental sounding board, his teammates talk about how they could always count on Robertson-Palmer to be at the forefront of the team’s leadership group.

“I feel like he’s the kind of guy who’s always there for you if you need something or just want to talk,” teammate Edouard Lord told The Phillipian. “He’s good at making sure everyone’s in a good mental state.”

Continued; Robertson-Palmer won’t be playing alongside Guimond as the goaltender committed to Yale University, but the 5’11,” 196-pound center suggests that his 16 goals and 23 assists in only 30 games played for Phillips Andover Academy (while wearing the captain’s “C”) emphasize his strength as a playmaking forward.

Tweets of note via Duff: Red Savage officially signs 2-year contract with the AHL’s Rochester Americans

Yesterday, the Hockey News’s Ken Campbell reported that former Red Wings prospect Red Savage signed a 2-year contract with the AHL’s Rochester Americans, and, as noted by Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff, that contract was made official today:

Audio link: Ken Daniels and Mickey Redmond appear on ‘100% Hockey with Millard and Shannon’

Follow the links to listen on your preferred podcast platform…

It’s an hour-and-five-minute long podcast in which Darren Millard and John Shannon speak with Ken Daniels and Mickey Redmond…And here’s a 10-minute highlight clip of Ken and Mick being Ken and Mick:

Tweet of note: NHL Network’s Mike Rupp praises Pavel Datsyuk

Here’s the NHL Network’s Mike Rupp raving about Pavel Datsyuk’s skill set as one of the most underrated superstars of all time:

On Thursdays, we fundraise

As noted two days ago, we’ve met our server fundraising goal, which is awesome…

But Aunt Annie and I still have plain old bills to pay and $200 in which to survive until the 12th of September, when the State of Michigan sends me a paper check for being her caregiver (yes, they really still send paper checks in 2025), so, a fundraising we will go.

At this point, it’s just survival, but some months I’m able to raise a couple hundred bucks for the bills, and some months, I work for free, so let’s see what happens.

Any denomination of donation will help us, and it’s all greatly appreciated. As I always say at the end of these appeals, thank you for reading. This is a small blog, but we’ve got extraordinarily dedicated and generous readers, and you’re what makes this thing work.

Continue reading On Thursdays, we fundraise

John Gibson, likely to ‘fall off a cliff?’

Daily Faceoff’s Anthony Di Marco answered reader questions for a mailbag feature today, and he’s not a John Gibson fan, that’s for sure:

Fall off a cliff: John Gibson is my pick here, though he hasn’t exactly been in top form in recent years, albeit last year was a strong bounce-back. Detroit Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman was finally the one to pull Gibson out of Anaheim, but I just can’t foresee this particular move working out. The Wings have their fair share of problems defending as is and we just saw several years of a sample size watching Gibson play behind a team with similar flaws. Given his age, injury history and team in front of him, I can fully see Gibson’s game cratering this season. 

The 32-year-old Gibson is definitely a risk as he’s struggled alongside his Anaheim Ducks until Lukas Dostal gave him some relief this past season…But the Red Wings are betting on Gibson’s ability to bounce back behind at least a semblance of a decent defense, and one way or another, his renaissance needs to occur starting this October.

Some old points of emphasis, some new points of emphasis

Pro Hockey Rumors’ Josh Cybulski takes a “deep dive” into the Red Wings’ player personnel this morning, wondering aloud whether the 2025-2026 Red Wings team can make the playoffs as it’s currently constructed:

The Red Wings haven’t made the playoffs since the 2015-16 season and are hoping to break their nine-year drought this year. They came close to snapping the streak in 2023-24, finishing fifth in the Atlantic Division with 91 points, but took a step back last season, falling to sixth in the division and 86 points. This summer, they identified goaltending as an area of concern and quickly traded for veteran netminder John Gibson from the Anaheim Ducks.

Detroit also made a series of depth signings that they hope will close the gap between missing the postseason and making it. It’s hard to say whether general manager Steve Yzerman did enough to get the Red Wings over the hump, but it’s fair to say he was conservative in his approach, opting to steer clear of the heavy bidding in free agency for top-end talent. Whether that was by design or a case of circumstance is unknown, but Yzerman wasn’t able to land any big names, despite a great deal of cap space available.

…

In terms of roster losses, aside from Tarasenko, the Red Wings didn’t lose much, as Alex Lyon, Jeff Petry, Craig Smith, and Tyler Motte left town. The team can easily replace these departing veterans with plenty of young talent and new faces ready to take over the roles those players held. While this summer can hardly be called a failure, it wasn’t exactly a home run either. Detroit improved its goaltending, but Gibson isn’t a guarantee, and the defense in front of him isn’t much better than last year’s. Yzerman is counting on significant growth from young players this season, but that might not be enough to push Detroit to the next level.

Red Wings fans were probably disappointed by the lack of a high-profile signing this summer, but Detroit still has nearly $12MM in cap space (as per PuckPedia) and can make a move if it chooses to. All that to say, Yzerman not managing to lure one of the top free agents to Detroit will be seen as a failure if the team misses the playoffs again, and it might even cost him his job if necessary steps aren’t taken in the right direction.

Continued (at length); again, I do not believe that there is any real heat under Steve Yzerman’s seat as long as Marian Ilitch and Christopher Ilitch own the team. He’s the GM for life, or at least until he decides that he’s had enough…

And the Red Wings definitely need to try to add a top-six forward and top-four defenseman to improve their roster as compared to last year, but as I’ve been saying, with trade prices sky-high this summer, the Wings may not be able to do so until the regular season begins, if not closer to the 2026 trade deadline.

That’s not an exciting answer for fans expecting more from a team that raised its ticket prices, but for now, it’s all about getting more out of the players who are already on the roster via a full year’s worth of coach Todd McLellan’s guidance.

Daily Faceoff ranks the Red Wings’ prospect pool 11th-best in the NHL

Daily Faceoff’s Steven Ellis wrote a superb analysis of the Red Wings’ prospect pool way back on July 18th, and today, he ranks the NHL’s prospect pools from 1 to 32.

The Red Wings earn the 11th overall spot in his rankings, mostly because Marco Kasper and Simon Edvinsson graduated to full-time NHL’er status:

11. Detroit Red Wings (2024: 5th)

Key Prospects: Axel Sandin-Pellikka, Trey Augustine, Sebastian Cossa

While the Yzerplan hasn’t panned out into any tangible NHL success, you can’t argue with the talent waiting in the wings. The most exciting element is the arrival of top prospect Axel Sandin-Pellikka in North America. He looked good in his two-game AHL stint after putting up excellent numbers in the SHL and with Sweden at the World Juniors. The Red Wings have always shown a willingness to play the patient game with their star blueliners, and it has worked out quite well for Edvinsson and Moritz Seider so far. I’m excited to see what’s next with ASP. They also have two of the best goaltending prospects in the NHL in Trey Augustine and Sebastian Cossa, and I feel highly about Carter Bear and Michael Brandsegg-Nygård. It’s a good pool, even if it’s not as deep as it was maybe a year ago.

Continued; while the Red Wings’ prospect pool is reloading after the graduations of Kasper and Edvinsson, I’m bullish on 2025 draft picks like Bear and Eddie Genborg, and I do believe that the Red Wings’ prospect pool is finally competitive after almost a decade’s worth of stocking it after so many misses during the late Ken Holland regime.