Tweet of predictive note: Sticking with the ‘Priority?’

The Red Wings posted a Tweet of Vladimir Tarasenko changing colors from Florida Panthers red, white, gold and blue to Detroit’s red and white, and I noticed a detail that (I hope) is worth mentioning: just as was the case for the Red Wings’ 2024 draft picks, the “PRIORITY” sponsorship remains on the right side of the chest/shoulder.

It appears that the Wings won’t ditch the waste company whose appearance on the Winged Wheels’ jersey coincided with Detroit’s late-season slide.

One way or another, we’re going to have to be like Oscar the Grouch, and learn to love jerseys/sweaters with a little bit of garbage on them.

Talking about Jakub Rychlovsky

The Athletic’s Max Bultman posted a fine Red Wings Summer Development Camp notebook yesterday, and this afternoon, the Hockey News’s Sam Stockton shares a similarly superb set of assessments of 8 of the Red Wings’ 40 participants in their Summer Development Camp:

Jakub Rychlovsky: After Detroit’s relatively quiet July 1, I wonder whether Rychlovsky (whom Detroit signed in June after a standout season with with BĂ­lĂ­ TygĹ™i Liberec in the Czech Extraliga) might be a player who could compete for an opening night NHL roster spot.  With Tyler Motte and Vladimir Tarasenko now rounding out the forward group, I no longer expect that to be the case, and it is probably for the best for a player who has yet to play a competitive game on North American ice.

“He’s been here for about a week, just getting to know everybody,” said Cleary of Rychlovsky. “I really like him…Quite, strong little guy. I was friends with someone who was coaching him in Czech [sic], so he kinda reached out…Watching him skate, handle the puck, move it, he’s a driven young kid, so we’ll see how it goes. Going from the Czech league to let’s just say Grand Rapids is a bit of an adjustment.”

He is a good skater with a frame built to protect the puck, and I thought he showed a real offensive maturity in the three-on-three sessions.  A tournament like that is bound to produce a lot of odd-man rushes, and I was impressed with the poise and patience Rychlovsky to manipulate those to his advantage.  I did notice him struggling a bit with picking up pucks along the wall during drills that required that, which he will need to sharpen to maximize his effectiveness at the NHL level, but that shouldn’t be a problem with time.

One point of curiosity for me is how often Rychlovsky seemed comfortable holding up play and looking to preserve possession rather than keep attacking.  Of course, that’s a tactic we see all the time in three-on-three in the NHL, but not so often at five-a-side. I’ll be curious to see whether that is an area that requires adjustment in adapting to North America or whether he’ll find a way to make it work.

Stockton continues; Rychlovsky is still used to the more soccer-like pace of play on European rinks, where the 100-foot-width allows players to loop back and re-set their rushes until they find a prime opportunity to penetrate their opponents’ defenses.

That’s something he’s going to have to learn to minimize as he adapts to the 85-foot-rink and the more north-south, attack-attack style of the North American pro game.

Right now, the 5’10,” 181-pound Rychlovsky probably isn’t going to make the Red Wings’ roster out of training camp, and he may very well need to be patient as he rides the bus over the course of a full AHL season.

What I’ve seen of him definitely indicates that he has NHL skill levels and really good puck-handling and deception, but as a small guy who’s used to having much more time and space to create offense, he’s going to have to simplify his game to thrive here. That’s a normal hurdle for European players trying to become North American pros–as is enduring those long bus rides and the number of back-to-back games that AHL teams play.

Hopefully, he’ll adapt.

Tweet of note: Fit and finish

WXYZ’s Brad Galli posted a comment from Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman’s press conference this past week which rings true: however you feel about the Red Wings’ free agency performance and/or the net loss of goals for, it does appear that the team’s going to have a better roster balance this upcoming season:

THN’s Eargood: Negating the need for dramatic comebacks and last-second wins may allow the Wings to overcome lost offense

The Hockey News’s Connor Eargood wrote an incredibly thorough article in which he discusses the Red Wings’ hopes for more goals from Lucas Raymond, Alex DeBrincat, and whoever plays with Patrick Kane in order to offset the offense lost through free agency.

Eargood believes that two factors will play into the Red Wings’ success or failure in terms of overcoming their net offensive deficit:

How successful Detroit can be depends on a lot of factors — health, chemistry, even luck in DeBrincat’s case. But ultimately, the Red Wings’ roster construction leaves them sparse options but to lean extensively on Raymond, DeBrincat and Kane to give them more scoring oomph.

“If Lucas Raymond continues on the same trajectory that he finished the season on, he’s a legit impact player,” Yzerman said. “We’ll have Patrick Kane for an entire season. … We’re shaped a little bit differently, and hopefully we can build off the momentum — all of our guys — that they created throughout the season.”

There’s another way that Detroit can get better: team defense. The Red Wings can lower the number of goals they need to score to be competitive by shoring up defensively. As ole Benjamin Franklin once said, a penny saved is a penny earned, and for a guy whose face is plastered on the $100 bill that’s sage advice. By saving more goals, Detroit can lower the scoring cost to earn a win.

“We got some incredibly timely goals from players to win some of these games very dramatically,” Yzerman said. “Maybe it won’t be as dramatic next year, and maybe that’s not a bad thing. Maybe we’ll win some games with lower scoring and not have these wild comebacks, and we also might not have some of these wild losses where we were leading, too.”

Continued at length (it’s a good read); the necessity of dramatic comebacks and overcoming multi-goal deficits in the 2nd and 3rd periods made for entertaining hockey this past season, but it also gave both the Red Wings and their fans panic attacks and probably a couple of cardiac emergencies.

If the Red Wings are able to cut down on their goals against, be a little less leaky on the PK and generally play more consistent hockey from the start of games to their conclusions, a less dramatic Wings team may emerge, and that won’t just calm the fan base’s nerves–it will make winning with a slightly less potent offense much more likely.

Is a ‘C’ in free agency is a passing grade, even if it’s uninspiring

The Athletic has doled out free agency grades for every NHL team, and here’s what they have to say about the Red Wings’ moves, or the lack thereof:

Detroit Red Wings: C

The Red Wings’ free agency was perfectly average — largely geared toward replacing departing players like Shayne Gostisbehere, David Perron and Robby Fabbri, with a potential upgrade in goal in Cam Talbot. They did well to keep all of their free-agent contracts to two years or fewer, maintaining long-term flexibility, and while there’s no truly open spot in the lineup, there is at least a path to playing time for their top prospects at some point this season. The issue is they didn’t really get clearly better in any area except goaltending. Vladimir Tarasenko should be better than any one departing forward, but Detroit is losing a lot of offense up front and may score less this season. They’ll certainly hope to defend a bit better as a team, but as of now, it looks like much of that charge will fall on the shoulders of young defenseman Simon Edvinsson, who looked good at the end of last season but may still experience some ups and downs. Taken all together, Detroit looks similarly positioned to last season, with the hope that better goaltending can make up for lost scoring. — Max Bultman

Continued (paywall); meh. I respect the hell out of Max, and this upcoming season will definitely require some sort of upgrade on defense at some point…

But adding Tarasenko to the mix, Gustafsson on the back end, and, assuming he’s the starter, Talbot in goal, plus keeping Fischer and adding Motte as checking-line forwards, and, quite frankly, subtracting the penalties Perron took due to his rapidly-slowing gait and Gostisbehere’s terrifying defensive lapses = an ever-so-slightly better team, at least in my eyes.

We have yet to see whether the Red Wings make another summertime addition, but even going into camp as-is, I believe that the Wings did the best they could during a free agency period where, as Steve Yzerman said, the middle-ground free agents received remarkably high compensation and term in terms of their contracts.

Sometimes you don’t get everything you want. My hope is that, at least by next season’s trade deadline, the Wings get what they need.

Staying at ‘State’

Detroit Hockey Now’s Kevin Allen reports that Red Wings prospect Red Savage will be staying at Michigan State University for his senior year in no small part due to an analysis of the Wings’ depth chart, and a recommendation from the Wings themselves that the gritty center continue to develop at the NCAA Division 1 level before turning pro:

“It’s really not all sunshine and roses when it comes to professional hockey,” Savage said. “I want to set myself up to be the best hockey player that I can be and the best person on and off the ice. I think a college degree is a really good thing to have in my back pocket. They agreed that one more year of college would be beneficial for both for me and the Wings.”

Savage, 21, is not an “A” level prospect. Drafted 114th overall in 2021, he has played three years of college hockey, starting with two years at Miami before entering the transfer portal to jump to Michigan State. He put up 10 goals and had 27 points this past season.

The scouting analysis on Savage is that he’s a smart, two-way center, who can forecheck effectively, kill penalties and make the right play at the right time. He can be a bottom six forward that coaches will trust when the game is on the line. He’s also a natural leader, one of the key reasons why the Spartans wanted him.

“I had that option to go play professional but both me and the Wings decided that it would be a better opportunity for me to go back to school and hopefully play for a really good team again this year and make more strides toward becoming a professional hockey player,” Savage said.

Continued (subscriber-only)

HSJ in the morning: Why they call Michael Brandsegg-Nygard ‘Taxi’

The Free Press’s Helene St. James discusses the Red Wings’ 2024 Summer Development Camp as a whole this morning, and she reveals an interesting fact about 2024 1st round draft pick Michael Brandsegg-Nygard:

“I learned his nickname is Taxi,” [Red Wings assistant director of player development Dan] Cleary said. “I thought that was a unique story.”

From what Cleary was told, Brandsegg-NygĂĄrd’s father’s family ran a taxi company back in Norway and his dad, Kjell Richard NygĂĄrd — who played in Norway’s top league and on the national team — would be dropped off at practices so often in a taxi that his teammates started calling him just that.

“When they saw his son, they said, ‘Little City Cab, Little Taxi,” Cleary said. “So I asked him, ‘Can I call you Taxi?’ He said, ‘Sure.’ So that’s going to be his nickname.”

Brandsegg-NygĂĄrd isn’t an economy-size taxi, though: At 18 years old, he’s already 6 foot 1 and 207 pounds.

“He’s going from Allsvenskan to the SHL, that’s a jump for sure,” Cleary said. “But with his size and his weight, he’ll be able to handle himself and protect himself in the corners, hang on to the puck a little better. I think the transition will be easier with him having a frame to him.”

Continued (paywall); Brandsegg-Nygard looked pretty big and strong during development camp, but he’s probably got another 5-10 pounds of muscle to add to his frame.

As St. James notes, MBN will need to acclimate to playing at the SHL level with Skelleftea AIK (Axel Sandin Pellikka’s team) as well, but it’s hard to imagine that he’s going to do anything less than excel.

What ‘probably could have been’ during free agency

Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff engages in a little speculation this morning, suggesting that the Red Wings’ elusive free agent target who went unsigned must have been the one and only Steven Stamkos:

“We had some interest in one that we thought might be a fit,” Yzerman admitted. “You know these things got to happen really quickly. And we decided very quickly that it’s going to be really some major surgery here to try and get it done and and we didn’t want to waste everybody’s time in really getting there.”

Naturally, Yzerman wasn’t about to go all in and put all his cards on the table. He wasn’t going to reveal the name of the player the made a bid to sign as a UFA.

However, doing the math, and knowing that it was one of the players who signed quickly, a very likely educated guess would be that it was Tampa Bay Lightning forward Steven Stamkos.

Look at the players who were moving to new teams the earliest. Among that Stamkos is the one who would make the most sense to be of interest to the Red Wings. He would’ve fit into their need for a top-six forward who could provide scoring. He would also be a presence on the power play.

Duff continues, and…In free agency, even if you pursue a grade-A player, there might not be a fit for the player himself, so I understand why the Red Wings “pivoted” away from Stamkos, who was rumored to be headed to Nashville a couple of days before free agency began.

This year’s free agency period was nuts–and a good example of the fact that there’s some collusion going on between GM’s, agents and players prior to noon on July 1st–with over a billion dollars spent and 100+ players signed for the first time.

The Red Wings seemed to get who they could while they could, and, ultimately, the wait for Vladimir Tarasenko paid off (we think).

Videos: Female coaches at the summer development camp, and the Griffins’ view, too

Of Red Wings video-related note this evening:

  1. CBS Detroit’s Rachel Hopmayer discusses the Red Wings’ decision to include three female coaches at the team’s Summer Development Camp:

2. And Grand Rapids’ WZZM 13 filed a Griffins-centric wrap-up of today’s 3-on-3 tournament at the Summer Development Camp, interview with Griffins coach Dan Watson included: