Of MSM-related note from over the course of Sunday evening:

1. MLive’s Ansar Khan found out where the phrase on the backs of every Red Wings player came from, and Khan folded it into his recap of the Red vs. White Game:

Detroit Red Wings coach Jeff Blashill wants his team to be harder to play against, play with an edge, compete from the opening faceoff to the final horn.

He wants to see “Sixty Minutes of Hell” during the regular season.

That’s the motto Blashill has adopted during training camp, one that’s emblazoned on T-shirts players are wearing while working out.

It’s borrowed from former Arkansas basketball coach Nolan Richardson, who preached a “40 minutes of hell” playing style that pressured opponents all over the court and resulted in much success for the Razorbacks in the early 1990s.

Blashill has seen a higher compete level during the first three days of camp at Centre I.C.E., including Sunday’s Red and White intrasquad scrimmage.

“As competitive as a Red/White game as I’ve seen,” Blashill said. “Not much space. It was closer to a real game than just a scrimmage.”

Khan continues at length, and (2) the Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan picks it up from there, discussing Filip Zadina’s performance in the scrimmage. Zadina played on a line with Andreas Athanasiou and Thomas Vanek:

Continue reading MSM takes on the Red vs. White Game at the Red Wings’ training camp ’18 →

Team Red won the Red vs. White game 4-2, rallying from a 2-goal, Darren Helm-engineered deficit on goals by Evgeny Svechnikov, Christoffer Ehn, Andreas Athanasiou and Filip Zadina.

The game was fast-paced, about as physical a scrimmage as I’ve seen and intense as players jockeyed for roster positions and playing time, so the two 25-minute periods (which included 3-on-3 play for the final 5 minutes of each period, and penalty shots awarded for rule infractions) flew by, and afterward, Helm, Svechnikov, Zadina and coach Jeff Blashill, who watched his assistant coaches man the benches, spoke with the media.

In terms of player assessments for the day, on a team-by-team and line-by-line basis:

Continue reading Impressions from the Red vs. White game at the Red Wings’ training camp ’18 →

From the Detroit Red Wings:

Red Wings reduce training camp roster by 10

Sixty-one players remain in Traverse City for final two days of camp

Continue reading Red Wings reassign 10 players →

The Detroit Red Wings appear to be leaning toward bringing in a skilled defenseman in either Filip Hronek or Dennis Cholowski to fill their #6 spot, but if the Wings were to choose a more physical player as their #6/7 defenseman, physical defender Joe Hicketts might fit the bill. Hockeybuzz’s Bob Duff spoke with Hicketts regarding his attempt to land a job on the Wings’ roster:

“This year there is that chance,” said Hicketts, 22, who had three assists and a plus-five rating in a five-game NHL audition last season. “Last year, you want to make an impression, but realistically, I was prepared with the contract situation and everything else going on that it was probably be another year in (AHL) Grand Rapids.

“But this year they’ve got spots open, they’re talking about getting young with guys earning jobs and I’m here with that in mind. It’s to earn a job and prove I can play a full 82-game schedule in the National Hockey League.”

Someone who’s always been reluctant to commit to a youth movement, even Detroit GM Ken Holland appears to be acknowledging that’s the direction this team must now take.

“Training camp, from my perspective, we’re going to give lots of kids an opportunity,” Holland said. “On the back end, there’s an opportunity for sure for one young defenseman to make our team. If a second one can make it then we’ll assess what we’ll do with our roster.”

Continued

Red Wings prospect Pavel Gogolev isn’t going to make the team out of training camp, but the 6,’ 168-pound Peterborough Petes forward is learning on the fly as a prospect tournament and main training camp try-out.

The Athletic’s Max Bultman spoke with Gogolev, his coach, Rob Wilson, and his agent, Randy Robitaille, about Gogolev not being drafted and his opportunity to increase his stead among teams that may be able to pick Gogolev in next year’s draft:

Working with Detroit’s development staff, including former NHLers Shawn Horcoff and Dan Cleary, he has a chance to not only get noticed, but to get better.

“They played in the NHL, so I’m trying to take everything that they tell me and try to take every good note from it,” Gogolev said at the prospect tournament. “There’s a lot of good players here — first-round picks from last year, from two years ago. I’m just trying to learn from them a little bit and take the step forward.”

Still, it would be naïve to think the evaluation side wasn’t in play here too.

Gogolev could, in theory, be selected in the draft next season, particularly if some improvement gets him over the hump. He already jumped from 11 points in his first OHL season to 47 last year.

Or, he could impress enough in Traverse City to earn a contract with Detroit. That’s still a wide open question, but Gogolev has at least made an impression on the Red Wings’ development staff.

“(He’s) a kid with a really good skill set,” Horcoff, the team’s director of player development, told The Athletic. “I’ve seen him play some really good games during the year. I just think like any other young kid it’s going to be consistency with him and trying to figure out that you don’t have to make a play every single time you have the puck. But I love his personality. He comes to the rink, he’s a happy kid, he wants to learn. We had him at development camp and he was great.”

Bultman continues…

Fox Sports Detroit’s Trevor Thompson spoke with Dylan Larkin regarding the possibility that he could be the next captain of the Red Wings, and Larkin isn’t averse to the idea, but it doesn’t sound like he’s ready to immediately assume the mantle:

Team Red defeated Team White at the Red vs. White Game by a 4-2 tally, with Andreas Athanasiou registering a goal and an assist for the red team, Filip Zadina finishing a fine pass from “AA” for a beautiful goal, and Darren Helm scoring 2 goals for the white team.

After the game, Helm discussed his goals and his overall comfort level as he played on a line with Gustav Nyquist and Frans Nielsen, as well as the presence of young players pushing for jobs…

Evgeny Svechnikov discussed his play during the game, his increasing level of self confidence and his decreasing level of self-criticism:

Filip Zadina discussed his performance in the game, being able to play alongside Andreas Athanasiou and Thomas Vanek, and whether he feels that he can give more by playing “his game”:

Finally, coach Jeff Blashill addressed a myriad of topics over the course of an 8-minute interview, mostly discussing who impressed him during the Red vs. White game in terms of rookies, veterans and young stars, he discussed the team’s decision to award penalty shots for penalties called as the team hasn’t worked on its PP or PK yet, and the coach was queried regarding the pecking order of the young players on defense:

The Free Press’s Mitch Albom spoke with Henrik Zetterberg on Saturday, and the two discussed the end of Zetterberg’s career as an NHL player:

Do you know how Zetterberg spent the first morning of his retirement? He watched practice. He hung by the ice and saw the younger players zipping past. He watched the scrimmage drills. It wasn’t torture. It was what he wanted to do.

“I spent some time with the trainers here, and with the guys, and seeing the people in Traverse City that have been taking care of us and me for 15 years. This is an unbelievable spot for us.

“It was a bit different today,” he admitted. “Because of everyone that reached out yesterday. It’s been amazing. You never knew that you had that many former teammates and coaches and fans. It’s been very emotional, but still, it’s been good. It was good to be here today, to watch the guys scrimmage.”

And that is that. No press conference. No video package. No parading out the family or the friends. We forget how lucky we have been in Detroit to have three straight Red Wings captains who are the embodiment of low-key, no-ego, hardworking and grateful men. By the time Zetterberg was effacing those traits, we’d grown so totally used to them, thanks to Yzerman and Lidstrom, we expected them.

But that only speaks to how special Zetterberg was. To start a humble trend is to get noticed. To continue it is to live up to a legacy that, by definition, leaves you out of the biggest spotlights.

Continued

Fox Sports Detroit’s “The 313” spoke with Red Wings equipment manager Paul Boyer regarding the team’s use of a semi trailer to provide enough equipment for the Red Wings’ prospect tournament and main training camp:

Of Red Wings-related note this evening:

1. The Toronto Sun’s Steve Simmons lauded Henrik Zetterberg:

Statistics can’t measure what Henrik Zetterberg did for the Detroit Red Wings. They are only part of the package. A player like Zetterberg, getting 18 minutes a night, was 16 minutes of a clinic on how to play without the puck. There have been few players smarter than him in his time in the NHL. He’s in my Hall of Fame, every single day.

2. The Traverse City Record-Eagle’s James Cook noted that there’s a chicken-vs-egg sort of thing going on between Andreas Athanasiou, who believes that ice time merits successful scoring, and coach Jeff Blashill, who believes that successful scoring merits ice time:

“I think any player would argue more minutes will equal more production,” Red Wings head coach Jeff Blashill said. “I don’t know that’s necessarily always true. I’d also argue there’s lots of players in the league that have found ways to be very, very good without lots of minutes, and then what generally happens then is more minutes follow.”

Athanasiou could be in line for more ice time anyway, with Friday’s retirement announcement by Henrik Zetterberg at training camp.

Athanasiou has been working on a line with Thomas Vanek, who Detroit re-signed this off-season after dealing the forward to Florida at the 2017 trade deadline.

“I think playing with a player that’s so highly skilled like him, it makes the game so much easier,” Athanasiou said. “When the puck is on his stick, I don’t have to worry too much, I know it’s going to be in the right spot — as long as I put myself in the right position, I have a good feeling it’s going to be right on my tape. He’s so good with the puck, and I think my speed opens up a lot of ice for him. I think we both have that mindset where we know how to use each other and have those give-and-gos and find that open ice and create the offense.”

Continued

3. DetroitRedWings.com’s Dana Wakiji and Arthur J. Regner noted that Filip Zadina has taken the disappointment of the prospect tournament and put it behind him as training camp serves as a hard re-set:

Continue reading Three things: Praise for Z’s smarts, the chicken or the egg (that is AA’s ice time), and Zadina’s re-set →