The Malik Report

I apologize for posting a single Wing on The Athletic’s Corey Pronman’s prospect list. Here’s a modified post noting that five Wings make the Top 100 cut:

6. Filip Zadina, RW, Detroit

Skating: 55
Puck Skills: 65
Physical Game: 55
Hockey sense: 55
Shot Grade: 60

Zadina skates well, with a powerful stride that eats up ice efficiently. He has near elite-grade hands, which allow him to be quite elusive. He can create as a playmaker and tends to make good decisions moving the puck, but he’s known as a trigger man with one of the better wrist shots in the draft class. What I love about Zadina is how multi-dimensional he is. He can attack defenses by dangling through guys, he can protect pucks and drive around guys, and he can power his way past defenders or utilize an inch of space to score from long distance. He is a highly competitive player who gets high marks for his character and competes his butt off to win puck battles on the ice.

Continue reading Take two: 5 Wings prospects on The Athletic’s Pronman’s Top 100 list

Red Wings TV headed to Longueuil, Quebec to visit Anthony Mantha in his home town this past August, and a 9-minute video is the result:

Of Red Wings-related note this afternoon:

1. The Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan spoke with Wings GM Ken Holland regarding the top story lines for the team as training camp begins on Friday…

“This is going to be a competitive camp for a variety of reasons,” general manager Ken Holland said. “We want the young kids to push for a spot on the team. I’m holding a spot on the back end and I’m holding a spot or two, maybe three, up front.

“But they have to earn it. I just can’t throw out a Kiddie Corps out there. I’m hoping some of these kids we have to send back, that they’re ready, and they’re going to be up here as the year wears on.”

Holland also sees plenty of competition among returning veterans.

“There’s internal competition,” Holland said. “We’re in rebuild mode and there’s going to be more opportunity. I’m hoping for young people (to claim some jobs) but if they don’t, the veterans who are here will have to.

“Some of these veterans maybe haven’t been doing these jobs (special teams, scoring lines) and maybe they pick up the responsibility because the kids haven’t grabbed it. We’ll see.”

Kulfan continues…

2. And the Oakland Press’s Pat Caputo weighed in regarding what he believes is an inevitability in Steve Yzerman returning to the Red Wings to work as their general manager:

The Lightning were floundering when he took over as GM. He did inherit Steven Stamkos and Victor Hedman, first and second overall NHL Draft picks, but made the most of it, finding gems such as free agent Tyler Johnson, and landing one of the league’s great players, Nikita Kucherov, in the second round.

Yzerman has been gutsy, letting a solid goalie, Ben Bishop, depart, while being one of the rare GMs in recent years to lead an organization in identifying a first-round goalie with actual different-making talent in Andrei Vasilevskiy.

My favorite Yzerman move was taking advantage of the Canadiens need for splash moves by trading former third overall pick Jonathan Drouin, who has mostly underachieved, for a potential first-pairing defenseman, who contributed immediately at age 19, Mikhail Sergachev.

Honestly, I didn’t think Yzerman would come back. The Red Wings are in a difficult situation when you compare expectations to reality, while the Lightning are set up to contend for The Cup for a decade. But Yzerman, interestingly, really took over the celebration after the final game at Joe Louis Arena in 2017. It was as if he was “The Captain” again. He spoke so eloquently and from the heart, I told people at the time it looked like he wanted to come back.

Maybe he will. Certainly it’s more of a possibility than it had been.

My best and educated guess is he will.

Of Red Wings-related note this afternoon:

1. MLive’s Ansar Khan wrote a list of 10 things to watch during the Red Wings’ training camp, which begins on Friday at Centre ICE Arena:

Rasmussen, Zadina try to make jump from juniors

Khan continues…

2. DetroitRedWings.com’s Dana Wakiji posted a “by the numbers” examination of Dennis Cholowski’s 2017-18 season and the early 2018-19 campaign as well:

Continue reading Three things: a list of training camp stories to watch; on Cholowski and some prized seats

The Red Wings have announced that they’re unveiling a marketing slogan called “The New Fabric of Hockeytown” today:

Welcome to The New Fabric of Hockeytown

New perks and benefits announced for 2018-19 season, including Little Caesars Arena open houses, reduced ticket pricing packages, food and beverage discounts, road game promotions, special pre-game entertainment and much more

DETROIT – The Detroit Red Wings today introduced several new initiatives for the 2018-19 season that celebrate the incredible fans and unmatched passion of Hockeytown. The organization also unveiled a refreshed Hockeytown logo in a design inspired by the iconic Red Wings’ jersey that has united fans for generations.

The Athletic’s Max Bultman weighs in with an article discussing the Red Wings prospects’ struggles against the Columbus Blue Jackets last night:

Detroit made the championship by going 2-1 in pool play, with many of their top young players contributing heavily. Dennis Cholowski looked strong logging a ton of minutes and playing both power play and penalty kill. Michael Rasmussen was his usual self, battling and producing at the net front. Joe Veleno notched a two-goal game Monday. And [Filip] Zadina continued to show flashes of what makes him such a coveted prospect, scoring in the team’s first game and collecting assists and scoring chances in the rest.

Those are Detroit’s first-round picks for the last three years (they had two this year), so that’s exactly who you want to see leading the way.

More interesting than all of that, though, was how hard Zadina took Tuesday’s loss, especially when it came to his personal performance. In the immediate aftermath of the game, after he’d been asked about his visit to the locker room, he had this to say:

“I probably should (have stayed) in the room because I didn’t help the team. It was a horrible game.”

And then later: “I probably could play better and help the team to win the championship. I haven’t scored three games in a row. It’s probably a little bit my fault.”

Continued (paywall)…

During last night’s prospect tournament championship game, Red Wings announcer Ken Kal interviewed Wings director of amateur scouting Tyler Wright…

NHL.com’s Adam Kimelman penned a lengthy column discussing the ways in which the 8 Eastern Conference teams that didn’t make the playoffs can do so this time around. Here’s what Kimelman has to say about the Red Wings:

Why they could get in: A rich crop of prospects, led by [Filip] Zadina and 6-foot-6, 221-pound center Michael Rasmussen, has the Red Wings feeling good about the future. But their present looks good as well, even if Zetterberg isn’t available. Forward Dylan Larkin is an elite playmaker, and forward Anthony Mantha scored a Red Wings-high 24 goals last season at age 23. Forward Gustav Nyquist is a three-time 20-goal scorer and Andreas Athanasiou, who could slide to center in Zetterberg’s absence, is among the fastest skaters in the NHL. Jimmy Howard was solid in goal and the addition of Jonathan Bernier further strengthens the position. The Red Wings play a smart style, can score, and could push for one of the wild card spots in the conference.

Continued

The Hockey News’s Ryan Kennedy penned a “prospect need to know” article highlighting the best prospects of the teams that participated in the Red Wings’ prospect tournament:

Filip Zadina: High-end puck touches and off-the-charts creativity/offensive IQ. The sixth overall pick in 2018 showed off a lot of elite skill and played the point on the power play. Showed off nice chemistry with Michael Rasmussen. He’ll get a chance to jump straight to the NHL this fall.

Vili Saarijarvi: The Finnish defenseman can really turn on the jets when he’s rushing the puck up the ice. Has an active stick on ‘D’, but still loses battles due to his size. Spent some time in the ECHL last year, but look for him to play a bigger role in AHL Grand Rapids this season.

Joe Veleno: Does everything at a high pace and will take a hit in order to make a play. The 2018 first-rounder was promoted to the top line for Game 2, joining Zadina and Michael Rasmussen and pushing the pace. He’ll go back to a strong Drummondville squad in the QMJHL.

Michael Rasmussen: Has a quick shot and looked faster than before. Played on the top line with Zadina and was very effective. The Red Wings also experimented with putting Rasmussen on the wing in Game 2 and there’s the possibility that the big two-way center starts his NHL career there, just like Dylan Larkin did in Detroit.

Continued

The Detroit Red Wings’ prospects had a difficult game in their championship match-up vs. the Columbus Blue Jackets. The prospects really came apart in a 3rd period they led 3-2, surrendering 5 goals en route to a 7-3 loss.

It was a disappointing finish to a solid prospect tournament, a tournament in which the Wings went 2-and-2, rebounding from a tough loss to Minnesota with strong performances against Dallas and New York.

As someone who has partisan feelings for the team I cover, this one was really hard to cover, and this is going to be a hard couple of hours trying to evaluate the Wings prospects’ performances.

The ugly plus-minuses of Dennis Cholowski, Michael Rasmussen and Joe Veleno don’t reflect their prospect tournament performances–they reflect one really horrific period–and I’m not about to consign Filip Zadina (who is fine after getting smoked in the head cutting across the blueline, yielding little more than a slight wrist sprain) to the scrap-heap because he found himself in over his head trying to play Major Junior hockey against professional competition, nor am I going to bash Kaden Fulcher for one shitty game–but they had hiccups in a championship game.

Here’s MLive’s Ansar Khan’s concise recap of the game…

Continue reading Impressions from the Red Wings’ 7-3 loss to Columbus at the prospect tournament ’18