Red Wings prospect goaltender Landon Miller was “mic’ed up” by the Red Wings’ social media team:

I had hoped to watch the Red Wings’ 4-on-4 game at the 2025 Summer Development Camp today, and then weigh in with some cursory observations, but the Wings had to cancel the game due to what assistant player development Dan Cleary said were about 5 players injured, so…

It’s going to be very hard to discuss the roster as it pertains to player growth without any data with which to go upon.

To our Red Wings fans who watched the stream, the 4 on 4 game was cancelled due to injuries to handful of prospects “low on numbers,” per Dan Cleary
Thanks for watching despite the game not being played.

— Ken Kal (@KenKalDRW) July 3, 2025

The Red Wings did a very good job of offering interviews with Dan Cleary, Kris Draper and Shawn Horcoff over the course of their hour-long stream, but…

Between free agency and the passing of Alex Delvecchio, there just wasn’t the usual amount of content this week, neither from the Red Wings nor the beat writers. There was no media availability on July 1st, which is the usual rule of engagement, and the summer development camp was also a day shorter than the usual 5-day camps…

So we’re all doing the best that we can with the data available, and that’s mostly through player interviews.

I’ve done my best to chronicle everything that’s taken place over the last week, and what’s not gone on in terms of the Red Wings’ free agency moves, but you can only do so much if you don’t see the prospects play.

Six and-a-half minutes:

DetroitRedWings.com’s Kara Wolfbauer spoke with Red Wings prospect Michael Brandsegg-Nygard regarding his development as a player and a person over the last year, as well as his new nickname, “Captain Knowledge.” This is just a 20-second clip from the longer interview…

Checking in with MBN 🤣🤭

"I feel like I am more grown like in my head" pic.twitter.com/DKoNW5IFjw

— Grand Rapids Griffins (@griffinshockey) July 3, 2025

Which is available here:

Red Wings assistant GM and director of amateur scouting Kris Draper and assistant GM Shawn Horcoff also speak with Ken Kal and Bob Kaser over the course of the 54-minute stream archive, and assistant director of player development Daniel Cleary has an interview as well.

Here we go, well, at 9:30 AM:

The Detroit Red Wings’ prospects are scheduled to take part in a 4-on-4 tournament this morning, and Red Wings broadcaster Ken Kal reports that the team will stream the game:

Hey Red Wings fans, join @bkaser1 and yours truly for a development camp live stream at 9:30am from Belfour practice facility. We will provide a link in about an hour.

— Ken Kal (@KenKalDRW) July 3, 2025

The Athletic’s Jesse Granger suggests that Red Wings prospect Sebastian Cossa is a “free agency loser” because the Red Wings chose to shore up their goaltending with John Gibson:

Sebastian Cossa

Detroit Red Wings general manager Steve Yzerman upgraded his starting goalie with the aforementioned trade to bring in Gibson. For a Detroit team fighting to break out of the rebuild stage and back into the playoffs, the potential of Gibson is enticing.

The acquisition also creates another hurdle for 2021 first-round pick Sebastian Cossa to break through with the NHL club. Taken with the No. 15 overall selection, Cossa is the third-highest drafted goalie in the last 15 years, but with Gibson and Cam Talbot in Detroit, it appears he’s destined for a fourth season in the minor leagues.

It’s not the end of the world for a 22-year-old goalie to get more seasoning, but Cossa has already played more games in the minors than every first-round pick since Jack Campbell in 2010.

In speaking with a few goalie coaches around the league, 100 games in the minors is considered a good amount for a young goalie prospect. Considering Cossa’s pedigree one would expect fewer for him, especially when you add in the fact that Detroit hasn’t exactly been settled in net.

Trey Augustine, whom Detroit drafted in the second round in 2023, has looked great at Michigan State and with Team USA at the World Junior Championship. He’ll soon be nipping at Cossa’s heels. The big, athletic Hamilton, Ont. native needs an impressive camp, and an even more impressive season with the Grand Rapids Griffins, to maintain his place as Detroit’s goalie of the future.

Continued (paywall)

Detroit Hockey Now’s Kevin Allen suggests that Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman needs to find a little “magic” in terms of his attempts to add to the team’s top six forward corps and top four on defense:

Yzerman did upgrade his goaltending by acquiring John Gibson, and whether fans want to believe it or not, James van Riemsdyk for $1 million is a plus-signing. He scored 16 goals last season, and it’s not unthinkable that he could score 16-18 this season. The man knows what to do in front of the net. But while Mason Appleton is a coach-pleasing, dependable player, he has not historically been a dangerous scorer.

The preliminary assessment is that the Red Wings, who now have a full roster of players, will again struggle to score enough goals this season and their defense still will put too much pressure on their goaltending.

That’s a fair review based on what we’ve seen thus far.  Perhaps younger players, particularly Marco Kasper and Simon Edvinsson, could provide more offense this season. That will help. Maybe Axel Sandin Pellikka makes the roster, or Michael Brandsegg-Nygard. But none of that feels like it will be enough help.

The only true hope for the Red Wings is that Yzerman can conjure up help in the trade market. He still has $12 million in cap space and there are players available who can score goals.  Yzerman really needs to pull off the show-stopping trick of making Detroit’s problems disappear.

Continued

Three Red Wings beat writers posted articles regarding new Red Wings forward James van Riemsdyk’s press conference from yesterday morning, and we’ll begin with MLive’s Ansar Khan:

Van Riemsdyk, 36, looks forward to being reunited in a way with Patrick Kane. They were the top two picks in the 2007 draft, Kane to Chicago and van Riemsdyk to Philadelphia.

“He’s one of my really good buddies and we’ve been kind of through this whole journey over the years together in a lot of ways through some different USA Hockey things and with training or bouncing ideas off each other,” van Riemsdyk said. “I think there was one game last year at Columbus where we had a couple of points … I think he said something to me on one of the faceoffs like, ‘We still got it.’ Just the love that he has for the game, it’s fun to kind of be around and be in kind of his orbit for some of that.”

Van Riemsdyk has multiple ties with the Red Wings. He was skating with Justin Holl Tuesday in Minnesota when he accepted their offer. He also knows Dylan Larkin, Alex DeBrincat and some others.

van Riemsdyk also confirmed to the Free Press’s Helene St. James that he’s almost found himself in Detroit multiple times over the past couple of years…

Asking players who were born after 2005 what constitutes as “old” is a painful endeavor for those of us from the 90’s, 80’s, 70’s and before: