The Malik Report

The Free Press’s Helene St. James filed here customary 6 AM-posted column today, discussing Red Wings prospect Simon Edvinsson’s attempts to earn a roster spot on Detroit’s NHL team:

The first thing that struck Steve Yzerman was how big Simon Edvinsson looked.

Edvinsson is expected to compete for a roster spot with the Detroit Red Wings come fall, and he made a brief but favorable impression Thursday after travel issues delayed his arrival by several days. The 2021 No. 6 overall pick took part in a prospect-heavy three-on-three tournament at Little Caesars Arena. 

“Seeing him here in development camp, he’s very tall, he’s very thick,” Yzerman said. “It’s actually the first time I’ve gotten to meet him in person since drafting him. He’s thicker than I expected in a good way. He looked very strong, his skating is excellent. We’re optimistic. We’ll give him an opportunity, and if he’s ready to play and play a regular role, that would be great for us. We’ll let the whole thing play itself out.”

Edvinsson’s credentials are sound: He’s 6 feet 6 and 205 pounds, a strong skater and comes to the Wings having posted 19 points in 44 games with Frölunda HC, the same Swedish Hockey League team that begat Lucas Raymond. Edvinsson worked hard to improve all facets of his performance.

“At the start of the season, it was defense,” Edvinsson said. “I had a great mentor in Sweden, Christian Folin, who is a former NHL defenseman, who helped me a lot with the defensive work, how to think in all situations and also build muscle to be able to compete against those guys,” Edvinsson said. “Then the longer the season went, it was more offensive plays, I started to do new stuff and develop my game after that. Everything was just working itself out. It was good.”

Continued

The Detroit News’s astute John Niyo offers a late-evening-posted column which discusses Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman’s comments regarding his aggressiveness in unrestricted free agency, and hazards a guess as to whether the big-money signings will pay off in the short term:

After Yzerman spent more than two-thirds of his hefty salary-cap space this offseason – including the roughly $20 million for 2022-23 the GM doled out in the first 12 hours of free agency Wednesday – there’s finally a surplus of NHL-ready talent on the roster.

As a result, [coach Derek] Lalonde figures to have some decisions to make before the start of the regular season. And for a welcome change, those decisions won’t end once the puck drops for the Oct. 14 home opener against Montreal, either.

Because while this revamped roster – and a lineup that will feature at least a half-dozen new faces – promises to be more competitive with the rest of the league, it also promises more competition. Right from the start of training camp in Traverse City in September, in fact.

“A lot of guys have something prove here now,” Yzerman said Thursday, following a frenzied start to free agency that saw a handful of deals involving Detroit. “There’s competition for ice time. There’s competition for jobs on the team. So I’m hoping with the change in the coaching staff and the additions of the new players, that all of our guys are coming in ready to go. It’s important that they make a good first impression.

“They’re gonna want that, because the coach is gonna have to make decisions on opening night on who’s in the lineup and who’s playing in all different situations.”

Again, that’s what passes for progress in a program that’s now six full years removed from its last postseason appearance. It’s also a genuine sign of hope for a team that finished 26 points out of the final Eastern Conference playoff berth this past spring.

Continued

Former Red Wings defenseman Chris Chelios is based in Chicago now, but the Traverse City Record-Eagle’s Brendan Quealy reports that Chelios is making an appearance in Northwestern Lower Michigan later this month:

The Traverse City Pit Spitters announced Thursday that NHL Hall of Famer Chris Chelios will appear at the Pit Spitters Hockey Night on Thursday, July 28.

Chelios played 26 seasons in the NHL, including 10 with the Detroit Red Wings. He also played with the Montreal Canadians, Chicago Blackhawks and Atlanta Thrashers in his storied career.

Chelios played in 1,651 NHL games, which is the fifth on that all-time list and the most for any NHL defenseman. During that time, he was a three-time Norris Trophy winner for best defenseman and an 11-time all-star and three-time Stanley Cup winner, including two with the Red Wings (2002, 2008). In the 2002 season, Chelios played in the Olympics and led the United States to a silver medal.

His amazing career culminated at his Hall of Fame induction in 2013.

On July 28, Chelios will be throwing a ceremonial first pitch and signing autographs for fans from 6-8 p.m.

The game starts at 7:05 p.m. and the gates will open at 6 p.m. The first 1,000 fans in the gate will receive a Pit Spitters hockey puck courtesy of Sip Shine.

The Detroit Red Wings’ prospects participating in Detroit’s 2022 summer development camp concluded their on-ice activities by doing “something completely different” from the skill development drills which they engaged in during Day One, Day Two, Day Three and Day Four of assistant director of player development Dan Cleary’s camp:

The participants, including a late-arriving Simon Edvinsson, took part in a set of 3-on-3 scrimmages, with the skaters and goaltenders separated into the following teams:

It’s #DRWDC 3v3 Day!

Games start at 8:00am.

STREAM: https://t.co/HdQB06nrjy pic.twitter.com/pj5qGpT3WY— Detroit Red Wings (@DetroitRedWings) July 14, 2022

Team Draper won 3-2 over Team Watson; one Amadeus Lombardi, a 5’10,” 165-pound 2022 draft pick, scored a hat trick and added an assist in Team Watson’s first game, however, and the mere presence of Team Cleary’s Edvinsson definitely had an impact upon the stream audience, the social media crowd which got up at 8 AM to watch the games (you can thank comedian Kevin Hart’s “Reality Check Tour” for requiring the facility be prepared for tonight’s show for that 8 AM start), and the packed executive suite.

Continue reading Impressions from the fifth day of the Red Wings’ 2022 summer development camp

Montreal Canadiens defenseman Jeff Petry is 34 years of age, and the 6’3,” 201-pound defenseman (who is under contract at $6.25 million for three more seasons), has made it pretty clear that he doesn’t want to continue playing for the Montreal Canadiens.

Canadiens GM Kent Hughes spoke with the media today, explaining that he’s not going to take on salary to “dump” Petry on another team, and that he will expect commensurate assets in return for a defenseman who’s posted over 40 points 4 times over the course of the last 5 seasons.

As such, The Athletic’s Arpon Basu has written an article attempting to discern the best “fits” for both Petry and the Canadiens. Given that Petry wants to play for an American team for family reasons, and given that he is from Ann Arbor, one of the potential destinations that Basu examines are Petry’s hometown team. Not a fit?

We are down to six [possible fits]: the Bruins, Red Wings, Stars, Kings, Blue Jackets and Predators.

Of those, the Bruins don’t seem like a great fit. They have a little less than $5 million in cap space left, and that’s not counting the expected contracts for Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci. They don’t really need Petry, either, unless they consider him to be a significant enough upgrade on the right side to Brandon Carlo to go through all the gymnastics it would take to make this deal happen. I’m taking them out.

Same goes for the Red Wings, who have tons of cap space even after going on a free agent spending spree, but also have Moritz Seider and Filip Hronek on the right side in their top four, two young defencemen Steve Yzerman would probably rather have playing significant minutes. This would obviously be an ideal destination for Petry, a Michigan native whose whole goal here is to be closer to his family, but I don’t think the Red Wings would be willing to meet Hughes’ demands to make a trade they don’t really need to make.

Continued (paywall); long story long, Petry ain’t coming here unless something changes.

Fox 2 Detroit’s Woody Woodriffe narrates a video report which summarizes the takes of both the Red Wings’ first-day-of-free-agency additions (David Perron, Andrew Copp and Ben Chiarot) with today’s comments from Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman, all in an easily-digestible minute-and-a-half clip:

The Red Wings signed Olli Maatta to a one-year, $2.25 million contract this morning, and DetroitRedWings.com’s Jonathan Mills found that Maatta is particularly excited about joining his new team:

“I think it’s an exciting time, especially when you look at their team,” said Maatta, who had one goal and seven assists in 66 games last season with the Los Angeles Kings. “They’re young, but I think when you see the players they already had before free agency started, now adding a bunch of big pieces, I think that’s a great place and it’s an exciting time. Everybody knows; you can definitely see it.”

Maatta plans on being a mainstay on Detroit’s backline, but also hopes to contribute offensively.

“I’m known as a defensive guy,” Maatta said. “But I think I got more offense in my game than my stats show the last couple of years. That’s definitely something I’ve been working on.”

Maatta also brings valuable postseason experience to a young Red Wings roster, winning back-to-back Stanley Cup championships with the Pittsburgh Penguins in 2016 and 2017.

The 27-year-old Maatta said he’s looking forward to seeing Moritz Seider‘s development up close.

“He’s an awesome player to watch,” Maatta said. “He’s already a great player and he’s gonna be a stud, so it’s just exciting to see that.”

Continued

The Associated Press’s Stephen Whyno posted a fairly lengthy article in which he examines what big-market teams like the Philadelphia Flyers, Vegas Golden Knights, Montreal Canadiens and a certain Detroit Red Wings team could or could not do over the course of the first two days of free agency, all due to salary cap space–or the lack thereof.

Whyno’s main focus is on the Flyers, who weren’t able to woo now Columbus Blue Jackets forward Johnny Gaudreau due to their inability to clear space, and he talks about Vegas’ salary-dumping trades with Carolina before setting up Blue Jackets GM Jarmo Kekalainen’s successful pursuit of Gaudreau, but there’s a bit about the Red Wings in Whyno’s story, and it’s worth noting:

More expensive in the long term might be a half-empty arena in a sports-crazy town that has become apathetic about its hockey team. The climb back to relevance is just beginning for the Red Wings, who shelled out contracts worth more than $60 million on Wednesday alone.

It’s something GM Steve Yzerman — who built up the Lightning before leaving to go back to Detroit — was able to do because he managed the cap so well. Three years ago, he decided not to spend a lot of money and picked his spot.

“We have roster spots, we have cap space — there were players there that we felt would help us and not really deviate from what we’re trying to do, but also not necessarily give maximum term and maximum dollar to players,” Yzerman said. “With the cap situation the last couple of years, it has had an effect on what some teams can do and some teams want to do.”

Continued; what’s noteworthy about this? It’s the “national press’s” view of the Red Wings, as a team that has “tanked” (to use The Athletic’s Sean Shapiro has suggested) and is irrelevant right now.

We may disagree with this take regarding the team you and I feel strongly about, but fans, partisans and friends of the Red Wings don’t necessarily represent the representative take on the home team.

Has the shine come off the “Yzerplan?” Not according to the free agents who signed with Detroit. But the rest of the country seems to think that Yzerman is nursing a lame horse, and that’s…annoying.

Red Wings prospect Sam Stange has been spending his past week in Detroit, taking part in the Red Wings’ summer development camp, but the University of Wisconsin junior has spent the past two seasons in Madison, skating under the tutelage of coach Tony Granato.

Stange is both an NCAA Division 1 hockey player and a student, and, this evening, the University of Wisconsin’s athletic department released a list of their 115 “Big Ten Distinguished Scholars“:

Honored for their work in the classroom, 115 student-athletes from the University of Wisconsin have earned 129 Big Ten Distinguished Scholar Award honors (including multi-sport honorees), the conference office announced. The list includes students from all 23 UW sports who earned a minimum grade-point average (GPA) of 3.7 or higher for the previous academic year.

The Badgers’ 2021-22 class of Distinguished Scholar Award recipients includes 33 students who maintained a perfect 4.0 GPA during the previous academic term (bolded below).

Big Ten Faculty Representatives established the Distinguished Scholar Award in 2008 to supplement the Academic All-Big Ten program. Distinguished Scholar Award recipients must have earned Academic All-Big Ten recognition in the previous academic year, must have been enrolled full time at the institution for the entire previous academic year (two semesters) and earned a minimum GPA of 3.70 or better during the previous academic year, excluding any summer grades. The Academic All-Big Ten threshold is a cumulative GPA of 3.0 or higher for a student-athlete’s academic career.

Learn more about the Fall, Winter, Spring and At-Large Academic All-Big Ten honorees.

Stange, a 6’1,” 208-pound right wing who’s 21 years of age, is the only member of the men’s hockey team to have made the list.

What’s his major, you might ask?

Neurobiology.

Not bad, Sam, not bad.

MLive’s Ansar Khan wraps up the day’s worth of beat writer reflections upon Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman’s post-free agency presser with a column which focuses on the concept that the GM’s job may be over in terms of team building–for the present moment, at least:

“We have a lot of improving to do,” Yzerman said. “With the young players coming in and a small nucleus of remaining players, I think we are trending in the right direction. But we will see how this season plays out to gauge where we are. It’s another step in the process.”

The Red Wings finished 25th overall at 32-40-10 following a late-season slide that prompted Yzerman to dismiss coach Jeff Blashill immediately after the season and hire Derek Lalonde two weeks ago. Lalonde will be coaching a better team.

“It’s up to the coaching staff to try to maximize the talent they have and try to find a way to be most efficient in all areas with the players we have,” Yzerman said. “For our coaching staff to try to improve in these areas we need better play from our team, whether that’s our returning players maturing, getting one year more experience, and bringing in some new faces who are maybe more adept in those roles.”

Yzerman said he didn’t need to sell any players on coming to a rebuilding team because they are aware of the talent in place and the opportunity before them.

“You have Dylan Larkin, Tyler Bertuzzi and then Lucas Raymond, Moritz Seider coming to create a little excitement,” Yzerman said. “Add to our team Joe Veleno, Filip Zadina. There’s a core of young players that potentially has a chance to be a pretty good team one day. Players recognize it. I think that was attractive to some of the players.”

Yzerman does not to expect any more free-agent signings, at least nothing big, but he will continue exploring trade possibilities.

“I want to see how things play out with our group,” Yzerman said. “I’m content right now to go into training camp with the group we have. But I wouldn’t be doing my job if I wasn’t exploring, if there’s any other opportunities out there, by trade. I’m always looking at ways to try to get better.”

Continued