As mentioned yesterday evening, Daily Faceoff’s Anthony Di Marco reported that Red Wings assistant director of player development Dan Cleary would be taking over the GM’s duties for the AHL’s Grand Rapids Griffins.

Late last night, WZZM “13 On Your Side” confirmed through the Griffins that Cleary has been named the interim GM of the AHL team:

I don’t enjoy being sick, contrary to some folks’ opinions…It isn’t fun being sniffly and sweaty and hot and cold and tired all the G-D time, all the symptoms of a flu bug I probably picked up from the visiting nurse or the visiting OT or PT specialists we’ve entertained while Aunt Annie recovers from a double hospitalization and one hell of a UTI.

“Outside bugs” got in, and after busting my ass during training camp, I’m sorry, but I got dinged.

I’m still sniffly and sweaty tonight, but I am also not going to be absent of the blog for more than three days, so let’s dig into a Red Wings catch-up post which at least summarizes some of the stuff we’ve both missed over the last day.

The preseason moves fast, so there are tons of articles out today, and I don’t want to get us bogged down, so:

We’ll look back briefly ahead of the second half of the exhibition season (I did watch both streamed games, so there’s that), in which the Red Wings will host the banged-up Buffalo Sabres on Thursday (7 PM EDT on Detroit SportsNet/WWJ 950) and the Columbus Blue Jackets on Saturday (7 PM EDT on Detroit SportsNet/WWJ 950).

Detroit will be looking to improve upon its 1-0-and-1 exhibition record, with the Wings having lost a 1-0 decision to Columbus on Monday, and they took a 7-4 win the Pittsburgh Penguins on Tuesday.

Hey everybody. I caught my aunt’s flu bug and am resting because I feel quite sick. I hope to get back to work by tomorrow morning. My apologies for the pause in service.

Updated 2x at 11:43 AM: The Detroit Red Wings and Columbus Blue Jackets hit the ice in their respective cities ahead of tonight’s exhibition season opener (7 PM EDT start streamed on DetroitRedWings.com, radio on WWJ 950 AM).

Columbus, which has already released its roster for tonight’s game, hit the ice at Nationwide Arena at 10:20 AM…

#CBJ getting ready for tonight’s preseason opener against Detroit.

Conor Garland, Mathieu Olivier, Dante Fabbro, Denton Mateychuk, Ivan Provorov, and Jet Greaves are the NHL regulars expected to play. pic.twitter.com/colbgEL2dh

— Dylan Tyrer (@DylanTyrer) September 21, 2026

#CBJ lines/pairs for the preseason opener against Detroit.

Pyyhtia-Williams-Garland
Pinelli-Keskinen-Olivier
Malatesta-O. Sillinger-Eernisse
McCue-Tuch-Griffin

Provorov-Mateychuk
Buckberger-Fabbro
White-Richard

Greaves
Copley

— Dylan Tyrer (@DylanTyrer) September 21, 2026

The Red Wings’ official Twitter account said, “Hello!” at 10:26 AM…

The Red Wings posted a 1:08 video of new forward Keegan Kolesar “mic’ed up” during training camp:

Koley cam🎥 pic.twitter.com/pg7kZTD8cn

— Detroit Red Wings (@DetroitRedWings) September 21, 2026

The Athletic’s Max Bultman offers a set of training camp observations this morning, and Bultman suggests that the Red Wings may be in for “sticker shock” when it comes to locking up defenseman Simon Edvinsson:

The deadline to sign an eight-year deal has passed, as the new CBA kicked in Sept. 16. But there’s still plenty of incentive for the Red Wings to sign Edvinsson, a top-pair defenseman, to a long-term deal. Like all young defensemen, he could be a bit more consistent. But he’s already proven capable of taking on a monster workload against tough matchups, and he’s only getting better at age 23.

“I feel like I’ve grown into my body a lot more, I’m a little bit heavier, and I feel like I’ve got more control now over the movements,” Edvinsson said during camp. “I feel like that can make me a better threat on the offensive blue line, and I feel like that can make me a better threat to come out of (my) own zone as well.”

The Red Wings would likely be looking at $10 million per year or more on a long-term deal. It would be hard to argue against that number after Zeev Buium — who has even more to prove than Edvinsson — signed an eight-year deal worth $9.38 million annually.

The Athletic’s Dom Luszczyszyn, Harman Dayal and Shayna Goldman offer an in-depth Red Wings season preview this morning, suggesting per Luszczyszyn’s predictive “model” that the Wings will finish 27th or 28th in the league, with 85-87 points:

The best case: 103 points

Everything gets settled with Larkin. Raymond, Emmitt Finnie, Edvinsson and Sandin-Pellikka all take the next steps, and this team makes it through the month of March without crashing out. Detroit finally returns to the playoffs.

The worst case: 73 points

The Larkin situation lingers and drags this team down. Raymond struggles to hit the next level. Seider gets crushed by his workload and has no support on the back end. It’s another wasted, glum season in Detroit.

The bottom line

With a core of Seider, Raymond, DeBrincat, Edvinsson and solid goaltending, the Red Wings will be icing a competitive team regardless of how the Larkin situation unfolds. However, the club’s depth looks like a potentially insurmountable bottleneck again, and it’s stuck in the ridiculously stacked Atlantic Division, which means there’s a good chance that the NHL’s longest playoff drought continues for another year.

Continued (paywall)

The Red Wings and the rest of the NHL have to adjust to playing in 4 exhibition games over the course of 1 week instead of 6-8 exhibition games played over the course of 2 weeks this season, thanks to tweaks in the NHL-NHLPA collective bargaining agreement.

Forward Andrew Copp told Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff that a 4-game exhibition season is ideal…

“Yeah, I mean, eight [preseason games] was egregious, to be honest,” Red Wings center Andrew Copp said. “I think four is kind of a sweet spot. You come in, you get to work right away. There’s no dilly-dallying around. There’s no extra stuff going on. We got to get right to the point.”

Detroit will play Tuesday at Pittsburgh. Then the Red Wings come home to face the Buffalo Sabres on Thursday and Columbus again on Saturday. Six days later, the regular season opens at Little Caesars Arena against the New York Rangers.

“Obviously, these preseason games will be huge to kind of get your feet under you and get your timing down and then get right into it,” Copp said. “You just got to take advantage of the chances you get to bump and grind a little bit, find your timing. Preseason games, like I said, will be huge to kind of get the timing off the bench, the changes, your shift cadence a little bit, and then it’s go time.”

Coach Todd McLellan isn’t so certain:

MLive’s Ansar Khan breaks down the Red Wings’ preseason lineup this morning, discussing prospective forward lines and defensive pairings with coach Todd McLellan:

For now, [the Red Wings] have a top-six of Andrew Copp centering Alex DeBrincat and Lucas Raymond while Marco Kasper centers Viktor Arvidsson and Emmitt Finnie.

“Copp and Cat played together; Razor is obviously one of our higher-end players that can produce,” McLellan said. “We have a line right now with (Nate Danielson, Carter Mazur and Michael Brandsegg-Nygard) that is a bit of a kid line that hopefully can provide a lot of energy. And then we have what we hope will be a heavier, harder line to play against with (Mason) Appleton, (Keegan) Kolesar, (J.T.) Compher, (Michael) Rasmussen).

“Our lines, without Larks, we’re trying to get some cohesion with pairs of players at least. And if not pairs, then at least there are three. That’s why you haven’t seen a lot of shuffling around with lines throughout camp. But we only skated for four days. We need to play some games. We need to get up and running and then we can make more decisions on that.”

On defense, coach McLellan has swapped out Albert Johansson and Ben Chiarot, who are now playing with Justin Faulk and Jacob Bernard-Docker, respectively, and there’s a method to the coach’s strategy there:

Red Wings free agent signing Theo Rochette, a 24-year-old center who played for Lausanne HC of the Swiss NLA last season, has impressed Red Wings coach Todd McLellan over the course of training camp, as Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff noted:

“A very good skater,” Red Wings coach Todd McLellan said. “Great pace, gets up to full speed fast. Transfers the puck, transports the puck at that high pace. He doesn’t slow down when he gets it. A lot of players slow down, so he does that well.”

Rochette signed as a European free agent with the Red Wings this summer. The Swiss international has spent the past four seasons playing in that country. But he is a transplanted Canadian who won a Memorial Cup with the QMJHL Quebec Remparts.

After helping Switzerland to a silver medal at last spring’s IIHF World Championship, when the Red Wings came calling, Rochette felt the timing was ideal to again pursue his NHL dream.

“I think it was a good opportunity for me,” Rochette said. “That’s what I’ve always wanted, and I had some good talks with them. At the end of the day, my dream is to play in the NHL, so I don’t want to have any regret not trying.”

Coach McLellan offered this take on Rochette’s “upside“:

“I think he’s got a chance,” McLellan said. “And if it’s not initially, hopefully he gets off to a good start in GR and forces us to use him. But I’ve liked what I’ve seen from him.”