The Malik Report

MLive’s Ansar Khan reeexamines the comments made on Sunday by Red Wings GM Ken Holland, Thomas Vanek and Mike Green.

Both players expressed enthusiasm about playing with the Red Wings this upcoming season, and both players stated that they hope to mentor the next generation of Red Wings players:

“I loved it there. It was a good fit,” Vanek said. “I really liked the whole culture of the organization and the guys were great. We tried to make it work last year, it didn’t work out, so I’m happy it did this year.”

Vanek believes he can mentor young wingers like Anthony Mantha and Andreas Athanasiou and, if they make the team, Michael Rasmussen and Filip Zadina.

“I’ve done that the last 2-3 years, getting to know the young guys, and if they want some advice I’ll give it to them,” Vanek said. “In Detroit, I did that with AA, Mo, Larks (Dylan Larkin). They are great players. They just need a little bit of time. I’m there to help everyone, help myself. The good, young kids we have, Rasmussen, Zadina, I’ll be there to help them as well.”

…

“I love it in Detroit,” Green said. “I love the organization, I love the culture, I love the guys. I think it’s easy at times to go somewhere else, especially with the transition that’s going on in Detroit, but I feel I can be useful in the next couple of years to help the younger guys develop quicker and speed up that process.”

Continued

DetroitRedWings.com’s Dana Wakiji examines Wings prospect and University of Maine defenseman Patrick Holway’s 2017-18 season this morning. Wakiji spoke with Holway’s coach regarding the rangy defenseman’s progress made this past season:

Quotable: “Patrick was much improved over his freshman year, which is quite obvious. He’s a big body and physical when it’s warranted. Pat has outstanding offensive skill, great poise with the puck, a good shot from the point. He was a very good power play player for us from the back end. So, he has an awful lot of tools, he’s a big guy at 6-foot-4, 220 pounds. He has the body of a big NHL defenseman and he has the skill set to bloom. A very good two-way player.” — Dennis “Red” Gendron, University of Maine head coach

Continued

NHL.com’s Dan Rosen provides an outside perspective on the Red Wings’ free agent signings via his Over the Boards mailbag:

How do you grade the Detroit Red Wings pickups on Sunday? — @Mr_Wright19

I’ll say B-minus. They’re fine. Nothing crazy. They added forward Thomas Vanek on a one-year, $3 million contract and goalie Jonathan Bernier on a three-year, $9 million contract. They also re-signed Mike Green, who did become a UFA, to a two-year, $10.75 million contract. Vanek is a scorer, so he will help the Red Wings improve from last season, when they were 28th in the NHL with 2.59 goals per game. He’ll also provide healthy competition for some of the younger players trying to earn their minutes in Detroit. Bernier paired with Jimmy Howard gives the Red Wings the goaltending depth that should allow them to compete for 82 games. They know what they’re getting from Green, who is still a good player on the power play and a threat at 5-on-5.

The Red Wings left room for further growth of their younger players including forwards Dylan Larkin, Anthony Mantha, Andreas Athanasiou, Michael Rasmussen, Joe Veleno and Filip Zadina, and defenseman Dennis Cholowski.

 

Stan Fischler posted an article for NHL.com which discusses the career of former Red Wings great Marcel Pronovost. The venerable defenseman split his career between Detroit and Toronto, and, as Fischler suggests, Pronovost was “fearless”:

Continued

The Free Press’s Helene St. James has gotten to the bottom of a complicated situation:

The Detroit Red Wings and Filip Zadina were both under the impression he could play in the AHL in 2018-19, but have been told his junior team wants him back if he does not make the Wings.

During last week’s development camp, Zadina, the sixth overall pick in the 2018 draft, said he had been loaned by his Czech team to his junior team. That was also what the Wings believed. It’s a significant distinction because if Zadina were on loan, he could be sent to the AHL if he does not make the Wings. That would make it easy to call him back up.

Tuesday evening, Wings general manager Ken Holland told the Free Press he had been informed Halifax Mooseheads general manager Cam Russell wants Zadina back if he’s not in the NHL.

St. James continues, and if the CHL team puts up a fight, the CHL team usually wins it.

If you caught Fox 2’s SportsWorks round-table on Sunday, the Oakland Press’s Pat Caputo got particularly angry when discussing the Red Wings’ free agent moves…

 And Caputo has carried his dissent into a column discussing the Red Wings’ offseason, good and bad:

Given they already had little cap space to work with in a hard cap league, this could preclude the Red Wings making value-for-value trades for players other organizations desire to move because of cost, that would fit the Red Wings better in the long-range future. But then again, Holland NEVER makes player-for-player trades in the off season. He ALWAYS falls into the trap of overpaying veterans in free agency to set the roster before it needs to be. He is ALWAYS overvaluing his own players. Come on, why is this particular organization signing 33- and 34-year-old veteran free agent skaters like Green and Thomas Vanek as free agents? It’s about as nonsensical as it gets.

And please, spare us the line about “veteran presence to help the youngsters.” The Red Wings already have a whole bunch of that because of bad-value deals Holland handed out in the past.

Caputo continues, and I know that some of you feel similarly…

The Free Press’s Helene St. James posted a profile of David Pope this afternoon:

Pope, who turns 24 in September, was among the older prospects at development camp, having spent the last four years playing wing at Nebraska-Omaha. Originally drafted 109th overall in 2013, Pope signed with the Wings in May with the understanding he’ll get some opportunities in the exhibition season as he vies for a role in Detroit.

“I have a shot to make the NHL and I just have to have a good summer, work on a few things,” Pope said during last week’s camp at Little Caesars Arena. “For me it’s more about skating – not necessarily technique or anything, but about stamina. I’ve been working with a skating coach in Detroit and should be good in the fall.”

Pope, 6 feet 3 and 198 pounds, has good offensive instincts and soft hands, and knows how to get open away from play. He recorded career highs in his senior year and led the Mavericks with 20 goals (12 on the power play) and 21 assists in 35 games. He’s a power play half-wall guy with a shoot-first mentality that should be welcome on the Wings, who ranked 25th with a 30.2 shots-per-game average in 2017-18.

“David is a scorer,” director of player development Shawn Horcoff said. “You can tell he is a shooter – he’s not a guy that’s going to lug the puck through the neutral zone or be creative – he is going to get it, give it to skill, and get open. And when he does get it, he’s going to shoot. He is going to get a lot of pucks to the net. He’s got a great shot.  I know he’s looking to come to camp and vie for a spot.”

Continued

According to The Athletic’s Craig Custance, the Red Wings are not part of the Erik Karlsson sweepstakes, but their abundance of cap space during the 2019 offseason means that the Wings will be bidding for top free agents next year at this time:

According to an NHL source, the Red Wings are not currently involved in Karlsson trade talks. They’re just now getting to the point in the rebuild where they’re assembling the kind of young talent necessary to successfully turn things around. They don’t have the desire to give up a huge package of those players for a crack at Karlsson.

The preferred plan is to stockpile picks and prospects and when the cap space is created, try and lure a high-end player without tapping into that collective talent pool.

As we’re seeing, that might be the hardest part of the plan. When a player of that caliber reaches free agency, the competition to land him is off the charts. Just look at the John Tavares sweepstakes. And that’s in the rare case a player like him becomes available.

But a look at the Red Wings’ cap situation as it stands now reveals that they should be well-positioned to make some noise in free agency on July 1, 2019.

Custance continues (paywall)…

Of Red Wings-related note this morning:

1. USA Hockey’s Jayson Hron penned an article regarding Red Wings draft pick Ryan O’Reilly:

Dallas native Ryan O’Reilly considers Detroit a home away from home. He played a portion of his youth hockey with Little Caesars, so it was only fitting that he was on the ice at Little Caesars Arena last week, skating at the Detroit Red Wings 2018 Development Camp.

For O’Reilly, it was a case of familiar surroundings in more ways than one.

Detroit’s fourth-round pick in the 2018 NHL Entry Draft, O’Reilly attended USA Hockey’s National Player Development Camps in 2015, 2016 and 2017, so being back at an elite-level summer camp was nothing new.

“Growing up doing all those USA Hockey camps, especially the three years I did them in Buffalo, it gets you pretty familiar with these situations,” said O’Reilly, who scored 21 goals with Madison in the USHL last season. “You don’t know anyone and you don’t have any chemistry yet, so you’ve got to find a way to showcase yourself and your skills.”

Continued

2. On Twitter, this cannot possibly be a surprise:

Based on current roster projections, the five oldest teams are:

1. Detroit
2. Los Angeles
3. NY Islanders
4. Minnesota
5. Chicago

— Roster Resource NHL (@NHLRosters) July 3, 2018

3. Of Grand Rapids Griffins-related note, from yesterday:

A couple of Griffins alumni notes:

Today, Dan Renouf signed with CAR;
Matt Lorito signed with NYI;
Jared Coreau and Ben Street signed with ANH.

— George Malik (@georgemalik) July 2, 2018

 

The Detroit News has posted a 25-minute audio-and-or-video “Red Wings Report” in which Ted Kulfan, Gregg Krupa and John Niyo discuss the Red Wings’ development camp and free agency moves: