The Malik Report

As the Plymouth Observer’s Tim Smith notes, USA Hockey Arena in Plymouth is hosting the Under-18 Five Nations Cup  from February 13th to 17th, and the event is one of the premier tournaments for draft-eligible players:

The building (14900 Beck Road) will be jammed with National Hockey League officials and scouts who will be filling notebooks with musings about dozens of players considered the cream of the crop in the 2018 NHL Entry Draft.

In addition to the U.S., the round-robin tournament will include Russia, Sweden, Finland and the Czech Republic.

“The ones who have been here for any international event know they’re fun, the games are great,” said Scott Monaghan, senior director of operations for USA Hockey’s National Team Development Program, which is based in Plymouth. “(During) the women’s world championship, the USA-Canada games just rocked.

“We hosted a Five Nations in February two years ago, that was the younger age group, U-17s. We had a fantastic final game with USA-Russia. The building was packed and it was rocking.

“This is a bigger event, because it is the last event before the U-18 World Championship, the next-to-last time the NHL teams and scouts can see all these kids. And there’s probably going to be upwards of 60 kids that are ranked in the draft from these five countries.”

Continued, and USA Hockey posted a hype video for the tournament:

From WZZM 13, quoting a Grand Rapids Griffins press release:

The Griffins lost a beloved member of our family yesterday with the passing of Jake Engel.

Jake was in his second season as a corporate sales account manager after starting with the Griffins as an intern in 2015, and he also spent time with the staffs of the West Michigan Whitecaps and Muskegon Lumberjacks. His infectious smile and positive attitude were a joy to everyone around him, and he truly treated everyone as a friend.

We ask for your prayers and thoughts for his wife Rose, their unborn daughter, and his countless number of family, friends and co-workers who were blessed to have known Jake.

A friend of Jake’s set up a GoFundMe page since Monday: https://www.gofundme.com/engelstrong

The Detroit News has posted a special report regarding toxic vapors in the air near polluted sites across Michigan, and Little Caesars Arena’s construction almost made the list for a simple reason:

When you excavate tons and tons of soil to put the rink below ground level in Detroit, you’re dealing with thousands of tons of contaminated soil. Thankfully, the Detroit News’s Michael Gerstein reports that the Wings’ new rink was built in a manner that properly disposed of the polluted soil:

An environmental assessment submitted to the state in 2014 showed that several “polynuclear aromatics, metals and petroleum-related volatile organic compounds” were found at levels higher than they should be in soil samples, said Michigan Department of Environmental Quality spokeswoman Tiffany Brown.

The company removed the polluted soil, which is common at large construction projects in cities, said Brett McWethy, a spokesman for Olympia Entertainment Inc.

“As is common with such large-scale, urban projects, construction included the comprehensive removal of existing fill from the property,” McWethy said. “This process was fully documented in previous filings with the Department of Environmental Quality, and the successful removal and remediation was certified by thorough lab testing, which was also submitted and verified by DEQ.”

The state DEQ took the arena project off of its list after the contaminated soil was removed.

Continued

I was a little busy communing with Black Rebel Motorcycle Club on Wednesday night…

So I knew this day would come, and I’m not upset about it. While I was out, Paul Kukla of Kukla’s Korner snagged quite the scoop, and I’m citing KK as the source of the following story/video:

Quoth NBC Sports:

NHL on NBC

Wings won’t bring back both Howard and Mrazek

In the AHL, the Grand Rapids Griffins welcomed Evgeny Svechnikov back into their lineup, and he contributed in a big way, registering a goal and 2 assists in the Griffins’ 4-2 win over the Manitoba Moose.

Filip Hronek, Robbie Russo and Matt Lorito also scored for Grand Rapids, and Jared Coreau stopped 25 of 27 shots. The Griffins’ website posted a recap:

Continue reading Prospect round-up: Svechnikov’s return powers Griffins over Moose; Cholowski posts 2 assists for Portland; Sambrook fitting in with Sault

Of Red Wings-related note this evening:

1. The Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan filed an off-day notebook which discusses the team’s frustrating inconsistency as the Wings’ playoff hopes fade. Kulfan focuses on the comments that the Wings made after their 3-2 loss to the Bruins:

The Red Wings didn’t give the Bruins any pushback until the third period, and by then, it was too late.

“There are no moral victories,” forward Henrik Zetterberg said. “We have to be better from the start if we want to win games. We weren’t good enough.”

Continue reading Three Things: On ‘figuring it out,’ a review of Little Caesars Arena and a Red and White podcast

The Detroit News’s Gregg Krupa spoke with several Olympic hockey participants as part of an article mostly discussing the Michigan natives taking part in men’s and women’s hockey in PyeongChang, and it’s worth noting that Krupa snagged a couple of quotes from Pavel Datsyuk:

The Olympics will elevate Datsyuk’s august position in Russian hockey history. Only the former Red Wings defenseman Viacheslav Fetisov and Boris Mikhailov have been two-time captains of Russian or Soviet Olympic squads.

He is also, at 39, still the top player on the Russian team.

“It is a huge honor to play for your country in the Olympics,” Datsyuk said. “I am extremely honored. Life is complicated, and we cannot always control events or do everything we want to do. I always remember Detroit. It has a special place in my heart.

“I have left Detroit,” Datsyuk said. “But I never said good-bye.”

Continued

The Grand Rapids Griffins host the Manitoba Moose at 7:00 PM EST this evening, and ahead of tonight’s match-up, the Griffins posted a thorough game preview video:

The gents from Red Wings Brasil are some of the most passionate hockey fans out there, regardless of the the time, distance and language differences between Brazilian hockey fans and the league they follow.

Red Wings Brasil’s Flavio de Moura reached out to me asking me to post the following, as well as a superb PDF which summarizes why so many Brazilian sports fans love hockey:

Hockey is a niche sport in North America and TV ratings are low, That said, you can imagine how hard it is for us here. We got only ESPN broadcasting games with awful play-by-play and color commentaries (this part you can leave behind) So, we got together and created the hashtag #BrasilTemNHL (Brasil Has NHL) and we’re pounding it everyday. We wish to be noticed by the League somehow. Just to set a flag on our way to have proper transmission on TV/Web, by people who love the sport.

BrasilTemNHL-Release

No surprise here. MLive’s Scott DeCamp got the latest Vegas odds of the Wings making noise in the playoffs from Bovada.lv, and said odds are slim to none:

According to Bovada, the Red Wings’ already slim odds of accomplishing big things this season are slipping further away.

As of Jan. 2, the Red Wings’ chances of winning the Stanley Cup were at 150-to-1. As of Feb. 2, those odds were down to 200-to-1, per Bovada.

In that same, one-month time span, the Red Wings’ odds of winning the Eastern Conference have fallen from 66-to-1 to 75-to-1.

After their 3-2 home loss to the Boston Bruins Tuesday night, the Red Wings (21-23-8; 50 points) were sitting eight points behind Columbus and the New York Islanders and nine points behind Philadelphia in the Eastern Conference wild-card race. Detroit is tied with Montreal, and it’s chasing Florida, the New York Rangers and Carolina as well.

Well who knew that Friday’s game against the Islanders would be a “four-point affair?”