Raising funds for survival’s sake

It’s been a time. Over the past two-and-a-half weeks, I’ve done my best to return to the blog after a depression-related hiatus.

I worked very hard to battle through that stupid depressive episode via therapy, psychiatry and a medication change, and I’m starting to feel like myself again.

So I chose to come back for what is, quite honestly, the busiest time of the year in terms of NHL news, the period between the NHL Draft and about the middle of July (where we’ve arrived today).

I hope that you’ve enjoyed the return to coverage, and now that things are slowing down a little bit (though the NHL’s 2025-2026 schedule will be released at 1 PM EDT tomorrow), I will try to dip back into the writing business.

All of that being said, not having the blog to raise a couple hundred bucks a month has been a real drain on our finances.

The blog is definitely a labor of love that goes alongside my caregiving job, and Aunt Annie is incredibly supportive of the endeavor, but we “break even” financially by making a couple hundred bucks a month from our small but generous audience, and we haven’t had that secondary funding source for a good three-and-a-half months now.

So I’m going to start fundraising again, not because I want to, but because I have to in order to survive financially. This month, I’m hoping to raise about $200 to just survive in terms of paying my bills, hockey expenses included; next month, the server bill from Bluehost and Jetpack come due, and I’ll try to raise twice the usual amount when I’m a little more reestablished. I don’t know whether that’s realistic, because I understand how small this blog really is, but I can hope.

Anyway, we’re a blog without advertisements or paywalls, so I have no choice but to ask for your support. Here’s my request/sales pitch:

Continue reading Raising funds for survival’s sake

Should the Wings bid on Dougie Hamilton, if he’s really available?

I generally don’t trust summertime rumors unless the trial balloons being floated as to whether a player might be on the market come from reputable sources.

It’s one thing if somebody proposes a trade on CapFriendly or PuckPedia and some outlet picks it up and treats it like Gospel truth (there are several websites that are milking clicks by doing this); it’s another if an actual NHL media person suggests that a player might be on the trade market.

In the case of 32-year-old defenseman Dougie Hamilton, the trade rumors regarding the big man (6’6,” 229 pounds) with the equally gigantic salary cap hit of $9 million for the next three years, the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

Several plain old fans have wondered aloud whether the Devils, who have a PuckPedia-estimated $6.9 million in cap space, will clear cap room to re-sign restricted free agent Luke Hughes via trading Hamilton, but several well-qualified media representatives from the New York and New Jersey areas think that the team might move Hamilton to re-sign Hughes, too.

The Devils had to pay a massive $10,550,000 bonus to Hamilton on July 1st, so he’s only going to make $1,000,000 in actual money this upcoming season, and that makes him that much more of an appealing trade candidate.

As such, Bleacher Report’s Adam Gretz suggests that 5 teams represent good “fits” for Hamilton, including the Detroit Red Wings:

Detroit Red Wings

The Detroit Red Wings playoff drought is approaching a full decade, and they are now six years into it under general manager Steve Yzerman. Pressure should be building. The incentive to win now should be there. If it is, they have a strange way of going about dealing with it because they have done very little this offseason outside of bringing in James van Riemsdyk and trading for John Gibson.

As good as some of their younger core players are, that’s not going to be enough to make up the difference in the Eastern Conference playoff race.

They need more help offensively and defensively, and Hamilton could help satisfy both needs. They also have more than $12 million in salary cap space remaining and could fit in Hamilton’s remaining contract without having to do much else or get too creative.

Yzerman talked about now getting a chance to sign any of the top free agents because a lot of them re-signed in their current spots, or went elsewhere before they could talk to any of them. He can’t give up on improving the team after that and needs to get aggressive in the trade market.

Hamilton would be a perfect player to go after if the Devils are seriously willing to listen or shop him.

Continued; according to PuckPedia, Hamilton has both a no-movement clause and a no-trade clause with a 10-team no-trade list this summer, so he’d have to sign off on any trade personally to waive his NMC, and Detroit might be on his no-trade list, so he might have to waive that as well…

But there’s a real fit here in terms of the Wings’ need for a big defenseman to take pressure off Moritz Seider and the Devils’ need to clear cap space for Luke Hughes, so this is a trade rumor that “has legs.”

Bultman’s mailbag: even the rising salary cap won’t automatically make the Red Wings a free agency destination

The Athletic’s Max Bultman filed a notebook feature this morning, and here’s one of his Q and A answers:

With the cap expected to positively explode over the next 2-plus years, is this year’s free agency a portent of things to come? The Haves resign their players and roll it back, while the Have Nots (our Wings) are only able to sign scraps? How does this affect Steve Yzerman’s plan of building through the draft? — Jeffrey W.

It sure looks that way to me.

Right now, there are 13 teams with at least $10 million in unused cap space, according to PuckPedia. And it’s not just rebuilders who are looking to stay cost-effective in their lean years. There are playoff teams and playoff hopefuls in that group — even the reigning Presidents’ Trophy winners, the Jets.

In other words, thanks to the rising cap, most teams will have the space to keep their stars when their current deals expire. That doesn’t mean some players won’t shake loose for other reasons (like Marner leaving Toronto), but even then, the most desirable markets now have the space to snap up those players, too. So I certainly wouldn’t count on getting a star in free agency.

That does make the Red Wings’ commitment to building through the draft more important. They look like they’ll be a deep team in the near future, though, and the rising cap should at least allow them to keep that depth together.

The issue, though, is that the Red Wings still need to find a way to add some star power, and free agency looks less and less like a viable avenue to doing so. That means they’ll likely either need the draft-and-develop approach to produce a star who outperforms expectations or use their prospect capital to trade for one.

The Red Wings’ farm system is good and should have enough to help make this a playoff team soon. To be a true contender, though, they’re going to need more than just time.

Continued at length (paywall); you would think that, as the salary cap’s upper limit crosses $100 million, Detroit would become one of the “haves,” but it doesn’t appear that way, at least not with the Wings being a middle-of-the-pack team.

As Bultman says later in his mailbag, the Red Wings aren’t an unattractive place to play in terms of their intangibles, which include the facilities at Little Caesars Arena, the history of the franchise, the Metro Detroit area and more, but people want to win, and Detroit hasn’t won in a bit now.

For better or worse

The Detroit Red Wings have yet to address their needs for a top-six forward and/or a top-four defenseman over the course of the last 15 days’ worth of free agency, and it’s assumed by Red Wings partisans that the Wings will at least make one trade this summer, if not two, to shore up their roster.

That being said, the Wings’ offseason has been a bit underwhelming, and it is no surprise that Bleacher Report’s Joe Yerdon suggests that the Wings’ 2025-2026 season will be worst than its 2024-2025 campaign:

Detroit Red Wings

Last season: 86 points (39-35-8)

Picking any teams outside of the top three or four in the Atlantic Division to say they’ll be better or worse is like playing with fire. So many things could break right or wrong for all of them and those occurrences will have a domino effect on everyone else in the race. But when you look at what the Detroit Red Wings have cooking for next year compared to last year, it’s a little uncomfortable.

Their biggest move was, ideally, shoring up their goaltending by adding John Gibson in a trade with Anaheim. Gibson’s ability is great, but if he’s unable to stay healthy, the Wings will be right back to where they’ve been before.

Detroit’s biggest additions up front were 36-year-old James van Riemsdyk and bottom six forward Mason Appleton. Re-signing Patrick Kane was virtually automatic all things considered. On defense they got depth help with Jacob Bernard-Docker and Ian Mitchell.

The Wings needed answers in a few areas and got their biggest one, goaltending, addressed…only with a player whose injury history will have everyone on pins and needles hoping he avoids any further issues.

If Gibson stays healthy and plays like we’ve seen in the past, we’ll look really dumb for saying the Red Wings will have a worse record than last season. But if he’s average and the depth issues that seem apparent for the rest of the team come true, we’ll probably be correct in our analysis even though we won’t be terribly happy about it.

Continued; I believe that the Red Wings’ youngsters will “take a step” forward this upcoming season, and that the veterans will play well, too…

But my bottom line is that the Wings really do need another goal-scoring top-six forward, and they need a top-four defenseman to alleviate some of the pressure on Moritz Seider to serve as both the Wings’ offensive catalyst and resident shut-down defender.

Those needs should be addressed via a trade or two, and I’m expecting at least one of those needs to be addressed by the season opener in October.

Where’s Raymond?

I’ve got no problems with NHL.com’s Mike G. Morreale. He’s capable, educated regarding the both the prospect development and NHL worlds, and he’s a gentleman as well. So this isn’t meant to start a beef with him. This is…

A bit of confusion. Because Morreale is the byline on NHL.com’s list of the Top 10 forwards under 25 in the NHL.

The list goes like this:

  1. Tim Stuetzle;
  2. Jack Hughes;
  3. Matt Boldy;
  4. Wyatt Johnson;
  5. Cole Caufield;
  6. Connor Bedard;
  7. Macklin Celebrini;
  8. Matthew Knies;
  9. Seth Jarvis;
  10. Matvei Michkov.

Again, I’m not pissed off here, but there’s a certain 23-year-old from Gothenburg, Sweden who’s posted 72-point and 80-point seasons over the past two years, and has posted 58 goals and 94 assists over that two-year campaign, cracking the 30-goal mark in 2023-2024 and the 50-assist mark in 2024-2025.

He didn’t even make the top 10, and I’m a little confused as to why any list of the Top 10 forwards under 25 doesn’t include Lucas Raymond.

Augustine, Cossa make Wheeler’s top 20 goaltending prospects’ list

Yesterday morning at this time, The Athletic’s Scott Wheeler posted a list of his top 100 NHL-drafted skaters, and four Detroit Red Wings prospects cracked Wheeler’s list.

This morning, Wheeler offers a list of his top 20 NHL-drafted goaltenders, and both Trey Augustine and Sebastian Cossa make Wheeler’s list. Augustine sits 3rd overall, and Cossa sits 8th.

Here’s Wheeler’s bottom line on Augustine, who’s entering his junior season at Michigan State University at 20 years of age…

While he’s not big for a goalie (he’s listed at 6-foot-1 and 190-something pounds, up 15 pounds from a year ago) and he can occasionally get frozen glove side or drop pucks into his glove, he’s a goalie I have a ton of confidence in projecting to have a good pro career. He doesn’t have obvious starter talent or size, but I could see him getting there (or at the very least becoming a solid, reliable tandem goalie). I’d trust him to play for my team and remain even-keeled any day. He and fellow Red Wings goalie prospect Sebastian Cossa are such different people and goalies as well, which will make for an interesting yin and yang dynamic, I think. But I’m a bigger believer in Augustine and believe has has already passed — or will pass — Cossa on their depth chart.

And here’s Wheeler’s bottom line on Cossa, who’s played the last two seasons in the AHL after starting his career with the ECHL’s Toledo Walleye:

There have been times over the years when I’ve seen him look leaky and really struggle to close his five-hole because of his size (this remains a bit of a recurring issue, though it has improved, and he does a really good job kicking pucks aimed for the lower corners). He’ll still occasionally lose himself in his net on scramble plays, as those strong pushes to get to tough lateral saves can pull him off his lines. He can get pulled out of his net over-committing on dekes. But he has worked to settle down in each of those areas (his habits still need to be more consistent), and his natural gifts give him undeniable upside. When he’s set and square to shots, he’s tough to beat. I’ve seen him look unflappable and make point-blank save after point-blank save when he’s dialed in. I’ve also seen him look rattled as shots sneak through holes they shouldn’t be finding. I still think he has upside due to his combination of size, dexterity, competitiveness and explosiveness in the net. But he’s still got work to do as well.

Wheeler continues (paywall); I do think that Augustine and Cossa are “neck-and-neck” as the Red Wings’ best goaltending prospects, but Cossa turns 23 in November, and Augustine’s only 20, so I’m expecting Cossa to at least get a couple of “looks” this upcoming season, before slotting in as the Wings’ back-up in 2026-2027.

Cossa has played 40 and then 41 games in the regular season with Grand Rapids, and the Wings will probably want him to play 50-55 games this upcoming season.

Regarding Axel Sandin Pellikka’s North American starting point

Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff discusses Red Wings prospect Axel Sandin Pellikka’s likely place of employment this upcoming season.

Duff suggests that the 5’11,” 185-pound defenseman will probably begin his 2025-2026 season with the AHL’s Grand Rapids Griffins. The comments made by both GM Steve Yzerman and assistant director of player development Dan Cleary support Duff’s assertion:

“Axe is going to have to get stronger,” Red Wings development coach Dan Cleary said. “He’s got to spend a lot of time in the gym, working on skating, learning.”

The jump from Europe to North America is a difficult step. It takes a very special player to do it in one leap. Lucas Raymond accomplished the feat in 2021, so it’s not out of the question that it can be done. However, with a defenseman, it’s a lot to ask. Even Moritz Seider was given time in the AHL before being asked to suit up for the big club.

Sandin Pellikka, chosen 17th overall in the 2023 NHL entry draft, managed to get into two regular-season AHL games and three Calder Cup playoff games for the Grand Rapids Griffins. He dished out one assist and was minus-two. Having witnessed two of those games, he wasn’t performing with a level of dominance that he’ll need to make it as an NHLer this fall.

“It was very valuable for him to see the pace and the gap control that he needs to have,” Cleary said. “With the smaller ice, it probably had a huge adjustment.”

Yzerman was seeing the same growing pains in Sandin Pellikka’s game last spring.

“I think it was enlightening for him,” Yzerman said. “Maybe eye-opening a little bit. It’s a little smaller ice, faster game. Albeit it’s only the American League, not the NHL, which is even faster in that it’s a different game than in Europe. And he’s got some work to do.”

Continued; as Duff suggests, Sandin Pellikka will probably play in the majority of the Red Wings’ 8 preseason games, affording him the chance to acclimate to the pace of North American hockey, but Yzerman suggested to the media that there’s nothing like a regular season NHL game in terms of quality competition, and he’s right, too.

So the question becomes a simple, “Where is Sandin Pellikka at?” in terms of his development. From everything I’ve seen of Sandin Pellikka’s play, he can skate, he can deal and dish pucks with fine passes and a slick shot selection…

But he is also prone to resetting and resetting some more on the 100-foot-wide international ice, and he’s got to get stronger in terms of his upper body and his ability to stand up and stop opponents.

He can skate like Simon Edvinsson and has the offensive game of the player for whom he was traded, one Filip Hronek, but it will take time for ASP to adjust to 85-foot-wide ice and playing against bigger, stronger and meaner North American competition.

You can never rule out anything happening, so there’s always a chance that he will make the team out of the exhibition season, but it’s just unlikely that ASP will jump over other players on the depth chart. He needs time to adjust to the North American pace of play and he needs time to get a little grittier. That’s why the Red Wings have an AHL affiliate.

Debating who should fill the 13th forward’s spot

If we are to assume that the Red Wings will carry 2 goaltenders, 8 defensemen and 13 forwards, the Red Wings currently have 12 signed forwards at the NHL level…

So Detroit Hockey Now’s Kevin Allen debated whether the Red Wings might utilize a top prospect like Nate Danielson or Michael Brandsegg-Nygard, a gritty forward like Carter Mazur or the speedy Amadeus Lombardi, the Wings organization’s resident enforcer, Austin Watson, or even free agent forward Eduards Tralmaks in that spot.

Here’s what Allen has to say about the “middle six” guys:

Amadeus Lombardi has the passion, drive, and determination to make his NHL debut as a fourth-line forechecker. The only issue is his lack of size. It will be interesting to see how much stronger he has gotten in the offseason. Lombardi is another player who could start on the fourth line and work himself into a scoring line position. He was a dependable, exciting offensive producer last season.

Meanwhile, Mazur has added bulk to his frame. That could help him stay in the lineup. He is a feisty competitor, likes to stick his nose into trouble, and he can score.

“I think we all know and love Maze,” said Detroit director of player development Dan Cleary. “He’s a great kid. He’s a good player. But he played a minute. Just his elbow and before that his collarbone. So he’s had some tough luck injuries here over the course of his pro life, which has been unfortunate.

“But like I tell him, I’m like, I know this sucks, but you gotta start over, you gotta dig in, you gotta rehab, you gotta keep going because he was in such a good place last year. Put in tremendous work. He’s put on good weight to his frame. He’s been able to keep it, and he’s gonna need it. But I think for him it’s just that he’s had some bad luck. And I’m hoping he can get past that bad luck, and I know he does, too, and I believe he will. ”

Continued; I’m not much of one for “thought experiments” at this time of the year, at least regarding the shape of the Wings’ roster, but Allen offers a thoughtful and thought-out exercise here. It’s worth your time.

‘In a tough spot’

Sportsnet’s Rory Boylen posted a list of “What’s Left to Do” for every one of the NHL’s 32 teams over the balance of the offseason, and he offers the following regarding the Red Wings’ remaining offseason needs:

DETROIT RED WINGS

Notable acquisitions: John Gibson, Mason Appleton, James van Riemsdyk, Jacob Bernard-Docker
Notable departures: Petr Mrazek, Craig Smith, Alex Lyon, Jeff Petry, Vladimir Tarasenko
Cap space remaining: $12.086 million

From the 32 Thoughts Podcast: “The thing about Yzerman is he believes in himself. Even if nobody else believes in what he’s doing he thinks he’s doing the right thing, and that is drafting and developing their guys. So unless he can hit a big home run, and this year would have been a guy like Ehlers, he’s not going to do that anymore with four- and five-year terms. Yzerman is betting his reputation on when all these kids we’ve drafted and developed are ready, they’re going to be players.”

What the GM has said: “We’ve got 12 (forwards) signed right now, our debate is do we sign another one to have that 13th forward, or do we leave that spot open and see if something comes up over the summer, or leave it open and let (a prospect) earn that spot?” – Steve Yzerman.

What to watch for this summer: It seems the Wings wanted to be in on a lot of the bigger players who were in line to hit the free-agent market, but those hopes were dashed when the vast majority re-signed with the teams they were with. The Wings wanted to make a pitch to Nikolaj Ehlers who did make it to market, but he didn’t entertain a move to Michigan. And so Yzerman’s team is in a tough spot after they fell back in the standings in 2024-25. The build-up isn’t so direct and they’re relying on recent drafts paying off some time in the near future. Every year now Yzerman’s plan is being put under the microscope and in some corners, doubt is seeping in that it will work out. Right now, Yzerman’s biggest move was to acquire another goalie — after his big trade deadline move was to acquire a netminder.

Continued; one way or another, the Red Wings need to add another top-six forward and/or a top-four defenseman, hopefully via trade. Whether they do so this summer is up for debate.