Red Wings sign Dylan Larkin to a 5-year, $30.5 million contract (plus conference call Tweets)

Updated with conference call Tweets: It’s finally happened:

Details are pending. Check back for updates.

 

Here’s the Wings’ press release:

Continue reading Red Wings sign Dylan Larkin to a 5-year, $30.5 million contract (plus conference call Tweets)

Joe Hicketts wants to crack the Wings’ roster this season

Joe Hicketts has been training for the upcoming season in his hometown of Kamloops, British Columbia. Hicketts spoke with Kamloops This Week’s Marty Hastings regarding his goal of making the Wings’ roster this season:

“I was only up for a day and a half or two days, but you’re flying to New Jersey, you’re not on the bus,” Hicketts said. “That was kind of the first taste that, you know what, I don’t really want to get sent back down.

“At the end of the season, I was up for another couple games and that was kind of the last little push that said, ‘I’m going to do everything in my power this off-season to work toward being there full-time.’”

Off-season training has been intense and included a trip to Montreal to work on skills and power skating.

Hicketts will be working out in Kamloops before heading to practise later this month with the Victoria Royals, with whom he starred in a four-season WHL career.

There were mistakes, but the 5-foot-8, 180-pound rearguard did not look out of place on an NHL blue line, with his first point coming in a 5-2 victory over Sidney Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins in Detroit on March 27. He will head to the Motor City in September with no plans to leave.

“Last year, with salary cap and other contract restrictions, it was easy to send me down while they had their 23-man roster,” Hicketts said. “This year, it’s my chance to get in, I think.”

Continued

Pro Stock Hockey guest article: the Red Wings’ equipment choices

Pro Stock Hockey’s A.J. Lee wrote an article about the Red Wings’ equipment choices, and I hope you enjoy this guest post from A.J.:

Red Wings Equipment Choices

The Detroit Red Wings didn’t have a 2017-18 for the record books. Unless you count missing the playoffs in consecutive seasons for the first time since 1983 as some kind of record.

OK, they also scored their fewest points (73) ever in an 82-game season, so that is actually a record. And they did it with the oldest team, by average age, in the league, which is nothing if not a signal for a rebuild.

Still, there aren’t many hockey fans more serious about their team than Red Wings fans. And, as Michigan produces more NHL players than any state other than Minnesota, even the state’s amateur players are serious about their gear, as well.

For anyone looking to get their hands on the gear used by the Red Wings, here’s a rundown.

Continue reading Pro Stock Hockey guest article: the Red Wings’ equipment choices

Tidbits from a roughly translated interview with Patrik Rybar

Red Wings prospect Patrik Rybar gave an interview to Pravda.sk’s Pavol Komar, and the interview is hard to translate, so I’ll offer some of the highlights thereof:

  • Patrik is the son of Pavol Rybar, a goaltender who played for Slovakia in the 1998 and 2002 Olympics. Pavol played for HC Slovan Bratislava for most of his career;
  • Patrik says that he’s been told that he’ll battle with Harri Sateri for the starter’s spot in Grand Rapids–per the Red Wings’ coaching staff–and he expects to take some English lessons;
  • Rybar was unable to play at the summer development camp because he had surgery on an ankle injury. His ankle has apparently been bothering him since the 2016-17 season, his first of two played for HC Hradec Kralove, and Rybar’s been rehabbing his injury this summer, yielding little to no summer vacation as a result.
  • Rybar says that he talked to Tomas Jurco about playing for the Red Wings organization, and Rybar says that he will rely on himself, work with the Wings’ goalie coaches in Detroit and Grand Rapids at the end of August…
  • And Rybar says that he’s going to have to adjust to the smaller goalie pants and new NHL-regulated chest protectors required by the league. If you’ve seen pictures of Rybar playing for Slovakia or Hradec Kralove, he wore a very large chest protector, so there may be some significant adjusting involved;
  • It sounds like Rybar will try to make the NHL this year and next year, and if he doesn’t make it, he’ll head back to Europe.

Khan examines Martin Frk’s 2018-19 possibilities

MLive’s Ansar Khan examines Martin Frk’s 2018-19 season outlook this morning:

2018-19 outlook: Frk boasts one of the hardest shots in the league and he’s right-handed, which is in short supply on this team (Thomas Vanek, Luke Glendening and Luke Witkowski are the only other righty forwards). His one-timer is weapon, particularly on the power play. Problem is, where does he fit in at even-strength?

There is no room on the top three lines for Frk, especially if rookies Filip Zadina and Michael Rasmussen make the team. Frk is strictly an offensive player who doesn’t fit the fourth-line mold, but that might be the only place he can play. And even then, it might require an injury or two to get him in the lineup.

He could be the 13th/14th forward. If cap space becomes tight, Frk could be waived and, if he clears, sent to the Grand Rapids Griffins, where his entire salary would be buried.

With so much competition up front, it will be an uphill battle for Frk to crack the lineup.

Quotable: “(Coach Jeff Blashill) is really strict and he wants the players to work on both sides of the ice. It’s definitely a little bit different for me. I’m trying to be as good offensively and (on the) defensive side. Especially on that fourth line you don’t want the line to score against you.” — Frk

Continued

Zadina’s AHL-or-CHL-playing status not cut and dry just yet

The Detroit Red Wings hired a group of attorneys to read through the minutae of HC Dynamo Pardubice’s loan of Filip Zadina to the CHL’s Halifax Mooseheads after the Wings drafted Zadina as they hope to be able to assign the Czech sniper to the AHL if he doesn’t make the team out of training camp…

But the Halifax Chronicle-Herald’s Wily Pavlov reports that the QMHL’s Halifax Mooseheads, who own Zadina’s Canadian Hockey League rights, aren’t quite ready to give up on their quest to have Zadina play for a Memorial Cup-hosting team if he can’t make the Wings:

I took a preliminary dive into the uncertainty around Filip Zadina’s status for the 2018-19 season this past week and can report back that I cleared up exactly nothing.

For those who missed it, the Detroit Red Wings, Zadina’s agent and the Mooseheads all have differing opinions about where he would be eligible to play next season. Traditionally, players drafted out of the Canadian Hockey League who are still teenagers can play in the NHL or be sent back to junior. They cannot play minor pro while their CHL team’s season or playoff is still going.

But Zadina’s camp made the case he could circumvent that eligibility rule and play in the American Hockey League in 2018-19 — if that’s what the Wings want for him — because of a loophole related to his status from his pro season in the Czech Republic back in 2016-17. It’s far too convoluted to explain in any detail here and it is also very much unresolved, but the bottom line is it probably won’t matter anyway.

Everyone connected to Zadina seems to agree it is extremely unlikely he is playing anywhere but Detroit this season. The Wings are desperate for goals and are quite thin on the wings so there likely won’t be any need to cross that eligibility bridge in the long run.

Pavlov continues, and I expect Zadina and Michael Rasmussen to battle their way onto the Wings’ roster come October, but if he’s not playing in the NHL, the Red Wings are going to fight very hard to keep Zadina under their control as an AHL player…

But I can’t blame the Halifax Mooseheads for trying to continue to battle for Zadina’s should-he-not-make-the-team services. Having Filip on their roster when they host the Memorial Cup would be quite the bonus for one of the CHL’s best-run teams.

Galli: ‘Play With Purpose’ game to take place on Saturday in Plymouth

As WXYZ’s Brad Galli notes, several former and current NHL’ers and USA Hockey alums will be taking part in Saturday’s “Play With Purpose” charity game at Plymouth’s USA Hockey Arena:

 

Michigan Hockey sends its ‘junior reporter’ to the Eastside Elite All-Star Classic

Michigan Hockey brought out a pint-sized prodigy named Alex for the Eastside Elite All-Star Classic in Mount Clemens, and the “junior reporter” spent 5 minutes interviewing the majority of the participants in the game:

 

Khan examines Trevor Daley’s 2018-19 possibilities

MLive’s Ansar Khan posted an article about Red Wings defenseman Trevor Daley this morning, discussing Daley’s 2018-19 “outlook”:

2018-19 outlook: Daley is an important part of a defense that often struggles to get the puck out of its zone and commits too many turnovers. He is a terrific skater who moves the puck well, getting it quickly to the forwards.

The left shooter is more comfortable playing on the right side and his ability to transport the puck takes pressure off his defense partner. Daley was slated to be paired with Danny DeKeyser last season, before DeKeyser missed five weeks with an early season ankle injury. Daley spent much of the season paired with Jonathan Ericsson.

The Red Wings signed Daley last summer at a reasonable cap hit, valuing his mobility and experience over younger players such as Joe Hicketts, Robbie Russo and Dylan McIlrath of the Grand Rapids Griffins.

If the Red Wings are out of the playoff picture in late February, they might opt to move Daley, whose no-trade clause expires 10 days before the deadline. He wouldn’t be a rental, having one more year remaining on his deal, so a playoff-caliber club would have him for two postseasons, increasing his value.

Quotable: “Last summer we went out and signed Trevor Daley, thought that if we could get our back end a little bit deeper that we could be more competitive and be in the hunt for a playoff spot. I think Trevor played really well for us. I think he did everything we could have hoped.” – general manager Ken Holland.

Khan continues…