Tweet of note: Red Wings invite F Austin Watson to camp on Pro Try-Out

Updated at 11:58 PM: Via TSN:

Quoting TSN:

The 32-year-old American spent last season with the Tampa Bay Lightning, scoring two goals and two assists over 33 games. 

Watson has scored 60 goals and 58 assists over 515 career games with the Nashville Predators, Ottawa Senators and Lightning. He has 10 goals and nine assists over 45 career playoffs games, all with Nashville. 

The left winger was originally selected 18th overall by Preds in 2010 and spent a decade with the franchise before joining the Sens in 2020. 

Watson is coming off a one-year, $776,665 contract. 

Watson stands at 6’4″ and 205 pounds, and in his last full season with Ottawa, he posted 123 penalty minutes in 75 games.

He’s being brought in as a deterrent, most likely.

Update: The Detroit News posted something of a profile of Watson…

Continue reading Tweet of note: Red Wings invite F Austin Watson to camp on Pro Try-Out

‘Getting the crankies out’ regarding Raymond and Seider

I’m writing this in the darkness of a power-less condominium in South Lyon, so I’m getting my “crankies” out here.

I’m getting tired of the late-summer narratives suggesting that either the Red Wings’ GM should be fired and/or that the “rebuild is off the rails” because it is August 28th, and the Red Wings have yet to reach contract agreements with Lucas Raymond or Moritz Seider.

Contract negotiations aren’t built upon what makes the fan base comfortable. If that were true, the Red Wings would have been able to hammer out extensions with their two marquee restricted free agents as soon as they were able to be signed to extensions last January.

It’s late summer. The whole fan base is getting jittery about seeing their Red Wings back on the ice in late September, and the hope is of course that Raymond and Seider will be among the players who hit the ice in Traverse City. If they don’t, it’s something of a failure for management for sure.

Continue reading ‘Getting the crankies out’ regarding Raymond and Seider

Power’s out at Blog Central

My apologies for the lack of content over the last 17 hours. Our power went out in South Lyon yesterday afternoon, and it remains out this morning.

DTE hasn’t updated us with an estimate for restoration of service yet, which suggests that we may be without power for some time to come.

I will try to catch up once we have the WiFi back up. 

Until then, take care and please relax a bit about the Raymond and Seider contact extensions. They’ll get done when they get done, and regrettably, we have no sway in influencing the timeline.

Press release via THN: Red Savage named captain of Michigan State University’s hockey team

As noted by the Hockey News’s Sam Stockton, the Michigan State University Spartans’ hockey team has named Red Wings prospect forward Red Savage team captain for the 2024-2025 season:

East Lansing, Mich. –  Michigan State head coach Adam Nightingale has announced the team captains for the 2024-25 season.  Senior Red Savage (Scottsdale, Ariz) will be the 79th Spartan to wear the C, while juniors Matt Basgall (Lake Forest, Ill.), Karsen Dorwart (Sherwood, Ore.), and Tiernan Shoudy (Marysville, Mich.) will serve as alternate captains.  The captains are determined by a vote of team members. 

These four embody what it means to be a Spartan,” noted Nightingale.  They will do a great job in leading our program.”

Savage is coming off a junior campaign in which he established new career highs in all offensive categories.  He had 10 goals and 17 assists for 27 points (+9), and his assist total matched his combined career total from his first two collegiate seasons.  A fourth-round draft pick of the Detroit Red Wings, Savage came to MSU in the summer of 2023 after two seasons at Miami (Ohio). 

Both Basgall and Dorwart were alternate captains for the 2023-24 season and carry that over into their junior campaigns as well.   Basgall posted a career-best 15 assists as a sophomore, and was MSU’s least-penalized player while leading the team in blocked shots (61, eighth in the Big Ten).  Dorwart established new career bests in goals (15), assists (19) and points (34), and tied for second in the Big Ten and 11th nationally in shorthanded goals.  Shoudy is in his first season wearing a letter, and last year surpassed his freshman year totals in both assists (12) and points (16), and finished a +3 with 25 blocked shots.  He also owned the team’s best faceoff win percentage (253-218, .537)

All four captains have been active in community outreach programs like Adaptive Trick-or-Treating, the Student-Athlete Food Drive, and visits to the pediatric playroom at Sparrow Hospital.  The three alternate captains are Academic All-Big Ten selections, and Basgall and Shoudy are not only the two hockey representatives on the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee but were 2024 College Sports Communicators (CSC) Academic All-District Selections and AHCA All-American Scholars as well.

Daily Faceoff ranks Wings’ prospect pool as NHL’s 5th-best

Daily Faceoff’s Steven Ellis ranks the Red Wings’ prospect pool as the 5th-best in the NHL;

5. Detroit Red Wings (2023: 7th)

Notable prospects: Simon Edvinsson, Axel Sandin-Pellikka, Michael Brandsegg-Nygard

When the Detroit Red Wings stopped being a playoff team more than half a decade ago, they had a rough pipeline, to say the least. Now? They boast one of the most impressive pipelines in all of hockey, with some serious depth at every position. For starters, Simon Edvinsson and Axel Sandin-Pellikka are two of the best defensive prospects in hockey right now. Then you throw in recent first-rounders Michael Brandsegg-Nygard and Marco Kasper up front, and two of the best goaltending prospects in the game in Sebastian Cossa and Trey Augustine, and you’ve got a group that’s primed for a bright future. Of course, it’s all fine and dandy, on paper, but they need these guys to produce. And I do think they need another impact playdriver, too. But it truly feels like the Red Wings aren’t too far away from being playoff-bound again.

Continued; I do agree that the Red Wings might want to draft another player who generates energy on the ice, but otherwise, the prospect pool is very, very good right now. It’s come a long way from the later days of the Ken Holland regime.

Tweet of note: Denik Sport’s Barta reports that Filip Zadina will sign a PTO with Buffalo

Updated at 9:59 AM: Via the Hockey News’s Jacob Titus, Denik Sport’s Pavel Barta reports that former Red Wings prospect Filip Zadina will join the Buffalo Sabres on a try-out contract this September:

Translated by Google:

Filip Zadina will go to the camp for a test [contract with the] @BuffaloSabres. He last played in the NHL for San Jose, in 2018 Detroit drafted him in the first round as the sixth pick. In the Red Wings, he met with Jakub Vrána, who is waiting for a tryout [with the] @Capitals.

Update: Via TSN, make that a “no“:

Duff discusses 2024-2025 milestone possibilities for Red Wings’ skaters and goaltenders

Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff discusses milestone markers which the Red Wings’ players might hit this upcoming season, tying Patrick Kane’s numerous looming milestones in with the Red Wings’ promotional schedule:

Kane bobblehead night is set for January 7 agains the Ottawa Senators. By then, he should’ve already become the third American NHL player to reach 1300 career points. Kane needs 16 points to hit that milestone. He’d be joining two other former Red Wings, Brett Hull (1391) and Mike Modano (1374).

Kane is also going into the season needing 29 goals to reach 500 as an NHLer. He’d be the sixth US player to join the NHL’s 500-goal club. A longer range project for Kane is 900 assists. He must dish out 86 helpers to get there. However, 81 assists will tie him with Phil Housley for the most-ever by an American NHLer

Speaking of American-born Red Wings, captain Dylan Larkin requires six assists to reach 300. A 60-point season would give Alex DeBrincat 500 NHL points.

And defenseman Jeff Petry will join the NHL’s 1000 games played club if he suits up 63 times this season. Petry is also five goals away from 100 and 23 points from 400.

Continued;

Tweet of note: Pagnotta reports that Raymond and the Wings are ‘not close’ on a new contract

Per the Fourth Period’s David Pagnotta:

Lalonde bullish on the Red Wings’ young trio of Danielson, Kasper and Mazur

Red Wings coach Derek Lalonde gave an interview to 97.1 the Ticket’s “Costa and Jansen” on Monday morning, and he had this to say about Nate Danielson, Marco Kasper and Carter Mazur, per 97.1 the Ticket’s Kyle Beery:

As last year’s youngsters have some much-needed experience under their belts, Lalonde says there’s a new crop of young players ready to make “big jumps.”

“I gotta be careful because I gotta let this play out. But I’m a very huge fan of those three players knocking on the door,” Lalonde said. “Three guys that’s knocking on the door are Nate Danielson, Carter Mazur and Marco Kasper. And I just love a lot of the two-way game they have. I know as a coach, it was a great team, a fun team to coach last year, but we outscored a lot of our defensive deficiencies.”

“But some of their DNA is to lean, score offense. It’s who they are. All three of those guys, I think they have that two-way, hard-to-play-against DNA. I just get really excited about watching them,” Lalonde said.

As free agency began on July 1, Lalonde said he and GM Steve Yzerman knew they needed and wanted more of that “two way type of guy.” But he said it was very hard for Yzerman to “go out and overpay and do these extra terms,” Lalonde said, noting one unnamed free agent who fit that bill was driving a very hard bargain.

“It was just out of control that day. And in my mind we may have that, that DNA in those three guys coming up, it’s just a matter of when they’ll be ready.”

Continued