Per the Detroit Red Wings:

RED WINGS RELEASE 2026 NHL PROSPECT TOURNAMENT ROSTER AND SCHEDULE

  … First-Round Pair of Nate Danielson and Carter Bear Headline 24-Man Roster; Detroit to Face Prospect Teams from Columbus, Dallas and Pittsburgh at BELFOR Training Center …

… Fans Across Michigan Can Watch Red Wings Prospect Tournament Games

for Free on DetroitRedWings.com …  

DETROIT – The Detroit Red Wings today released their 2026 NHL Prospect Tournament roster and a complete tournament schedule for the event, held from Saturday, Sept. 12 to Tuesday, Sept.15 at BELFOR Training Center inside Little Caesars Arena. The team consists of 24 recent draft picks, free agent signees and tryouts who will battle against prospect teams from the Columbus Blue Jackets, Dallas Stars and Pittsburgh Penguins.

TSN’s Frank Corrado and Martin Biron discussed the respective situations of Dylan Larkin and Connor Hellebuyck on “TSN Overdrive” yesterday.

Biron leads off the segment by telling host Jim Tatti that the Red Wings are “fumbling” their GM search, and that he’s not certain what Larkin will do as he’s not going to get traded before training camp, and the question for Biron involves whether Larkin comes to training camp or stays home…

But most of the segment focuses on hypothetical trades and “fits” for Hellebuyck.

The Athletic has posted its annual “player tiers” list, and Moritz Seider, Lucas Raymond, Dylan Larkin, Alex DeBrincat and Simon Edvinsson all make the numerous authors’ list of ranked players:

Moritz Seider

Why he’s here

Early on in Seider’s career there were some pointed questions regarding whether he had what it takes to be a true franchise-caliber defensemen. The tools were there, the results weren’t. He was getting buried in difficult minutes, but his inability to rise above created some concern about his ultimate ceiling.

After his ridiculous Norris-worthy showing last season, any questions and concern are nonexistent. Seider is a franchise defenseman. The Red Wings looked like a juggernaut with Seider on the ice last year … and completely inept otherwise.

What remains is a terrifyingly unique specimen who’s able to take over games at both ends of the ice with a level of nastiness that’s become rare for players of his caliber. It’s that mix that puts Seider squarely in 2B with the potential to land higher as one of the five best defensemen in the world — specifically because of his monstrous defensive game.

“He’s already good, but I think he’s about to take another step,” a scout said. “Not offensively. I think he’s going to be an bigger f—ing problem defensively.”

There’s no one like Seider.

Continued (paywall)

In a 9:45, non-embeddable video clip posted on NHL.com, the NHL Network’s Mike Rupp and Ken Daneyko discuss both the situations of Detroit Red Wings forward Dylan Larkin and Winnipeg Jets goaltender Connor Hellebuyck.

Rupp and Daneyko suggest that the Winnipeg Jets will probably be able to trade Hellebuyck because Hellebuyck’s supposedly willing to move to more than a handful of teams.

At the 5:04 mark, Rupp suggests that the Red Wings must move Larkin before the start of the regular season because he does not want to be a Red Wing; Daneyko suggests that the Red Wings face a “dicey situation” once the next GM is hired, because he feels that Larkin needs a change as well.

Rupp wonders aloud whether Larkin will stay at home to wait for a trade, and Daneyko says that Larkin’s a great player, but that the situation is one where Larkin will have to “open up his trade list a little bit” to afford Detroit options for a trade.

The segment concludes with Rupp suggesting that Larkin cannot come to training camp as the Wings’ captain or part of the Wings’ leadership group.

NHL.com’s Tracey Myers posted a profile of Red Wings prospect and 21-year-old goaltender Trey Augustine this morning.

Myers discusses Augustine’s likely season-starting job as battling for the Grand Rapids Griffins’ starting goaltender’s job, and she cites Griffins coach Dan Watson and Michigan State University coach Adam Nightingale’s remarks regarding Augustine’s attributes as a goaltender and human being:

Augustine got a taste of pro hockey last season when he played two games with Grand Rapids following his junior season at Michigan State. He was 0-2-0 with a 3.39 goals-against average and .878 save percentage during his AHL stint.

“It was awesome being there being around the guys, being at the rink, just getting familiar with the city,” he said. “It can only help me going into the next year. If I end up there, it’s just having a sense of, ‘Oh, I know where stuff is, I know what to do.’ It was a huge month and a half where I was able to learn and it was super nice.”

Grand Rapids coach Dan Watson liked what he saw in Augustine, who will be competing with Michal Postava and Carter Gylander this season.

Meinbezirk.at’s Michael Kurz spoke with Red Wings forward Marco Kasper regarding the lessons learned over the course of Kasper’s sophomore NHL season, his offseason training and his goals going forward. Here’s a rough translation of the German-language article:

Marco Kasper on his summer training and the upcoming season

MeinBezirk.at met with Marco Kasper in Klagenfurt [Austria], where Carinthia’s ice hockey export in the National Hockey League resides. The forward with Detroit willingly gave information about his summer in Klagenfurt, his off-season training, his time in the NHL so far and his upcoming third season in North America.

Marco, what did you focus on this summer in offseason training?

Marco Kasper: At the beginning of the summer, there was still a lot of rehab for my knee, because of which I also missed the World Championship. Basically, however, you always try to get faster and stronger. Summer training is always a development process. Whether that’s with a strength workout in the summer or a game in December, I always try to give my best.

You also took the title in the Sunshine Hockey League with the Lendhafen Seelowen. What does that mean to you?

Marco Kasper: First and foremost, it was fun that we players came together in the summer. In addition, many fans always come to Ferlach and also the finale in Klagenfurt–that’s great. Of course you want to win, but it’s a great opportunity for all of us, especially for the younger players. This year, for example, J.J. Peterka, Damian Clara and Phillip Sinn were all active, with Michael Grabner and some former players from the NHL, which was really casual.

Situational awareness is essential when you’re talking about the context surrounding any topic. It offers you the ability to generate sympathy for an opinion or to support an argument based upon what you know about the wider scope of what you’re trying to discuss.

As much as I like the Hockey News’s Ryan Lambert, I believe that his situational awareness is lacking a bit in suggesting that the Red Wings’ next general manager and/or president of hockey operations must trade Alex DeBrincat as soon as he or she takes the reins of Detroit’s hockey franchise:

3. Trade Alex DeBrincat

If you’re accepting that you have to trade Larkin, then why on earth would you keep DeBrincat, a pending UFA who scores boatloads of goals and can only veto a trade to half the league?

The odds that he wants to return to Detroit at the end of this contract have to be extremely low, so you might as well face facts and move on. This doesn’t have to be a training-camp deal, by any means, but if he’s still on the team around the holiday roster freeze, that seems like a bit of mismanagement.

He’s a very good player who can help just about any team, but look at where the Red Wings have gotten with his help for his entire tenure, despite the fact that he has 107 goals over the last three seasons.

And unlike Larkin, the lack of complete control over his destination leave you open to let teams either consider him a pure rental, or find a landing spot that he’s amenable to beyond this season. It doesn’t hurt to put some lines in the water.

But his stuff is here. His wife, his kids, his parents, his home town, the franchise he wanted to play for. As Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff suggested earlier this summer, it’s hard to believe that DeBrincat will simply “want out” when this is the team that he asked to be traded to because he wanted to “go home.”

Don’t get me wrong, DeBrincat could always want to move on to the next big thing, but there’s been no indication of discomfort with the team as of yet, and until we learn otherwise, “he seems happy here” is the prevailing theory.

Lambert continues, suggesting that the next GM and/or president of hockey operations needs to both re-sign Simon Edvinsson (yep!) and simply “cut bait” on Dylan Larkin and trade him for whatever return is out there (not necessarily!) …

Frank Seravalli appeared on Sportsnet’s The Fan 590’s The Fan Morning Show today, and Sportsnet posted some nuggets of speculative wisdom from Seravalli’s appearance this afternoon:

Larkin staying in Detroit?

Way back near the beginning of June, it was known that Dylan Larkin had requested a trade away from the Detroit Red Wings.

So far, there’s been nothing doing on that front, leading Seravalli to wonder if a trade might be happening at all, particularly with Steve Yzerman out of the picture.

“Look, he’s a Michigan kid,” Seravalli said of Larkin. “Has absolutely loved playing for the Detroit Red Wings and did not have a good relationship with Steve Yzerman, who was, essentially, dismissed. Like let’s call it for what it is. …

“Because of that relationship (between the Red Wings and Yzerman) and the way that it soured, if I’m Dylan Larkin there’s a chance to save face here and say, ‘Look, I’m going to give it another shot under this next manager to see if he can turn this around in relatively short order because this is the place I’ve always want to be. I’ve wanted to win here.'”

Continued; I don’t know what’s going to happen with Larkin and the Red Wings–a commenter asked why good reporters don’t just call the guy and ask, and to that, my answer is that Larkin doesn’t give out his phone number, nor did the members of the Yzerman edition of the front office, so communication is definitely a problem there…

But we’re at a point that, should Larkin change his mind, he’s going to have to do a shit-ton of damage control and public relations of the communicative variety to emphasize that there were/are no hard feelings.

Otherwise, he’s going to have to wait his turn.

Daily Faceoff’s Scott Maxwell posted a Red Wings season preview today, and he has the same questions that we do:

BURNING QUESTIONS

1. When are the Red Wings hiring their new general manager? The timing was certainly weird on Yzerman’s “promotion.” Detroit gave him free rein to operate at the draft and free agency to set the team up for the season, and only then did they decide to move on from him. It’s an awkward situation for the incoming GM to come into, overseeing a team they didn’t have any say in creating, but it also gives them a year free of blame. But with two other big looming decisions entering the season, Detroit needs a GM in place to get everything done. It’s been a month and a half since Yzerman stepped down from the role, so why hasn’t a new GM been named yet?

2. What will happen with Dylan Larkin? One of the biggest stories of the summer was Larkin’s trade request. It sounds like he wants to move on from his boyhood team in hopes of winning a Stanley Cup, and it’s hard to blame him with the Red Wings’ lack of success during most of his tenure. But he also isn’t making it easy for Detroit to make a move, as he initially only gave them three teams he’d accept a trade to before adding one more to the list – and none of them is bustling with trade assets and cap space to pull off a deal. Does Larkin hold strong on the few teams he’d accept a trade to, or does he budge and open up his options even more if a deal doesn’t get done soon enough? Or does he rescind the trade request and give the new GM a chance to build a contending team?

3. When does Simon Edvinsson sign? The obvious answer is “when the new GM is hired,” but there is more to this decision than that. Cap space isn’t the problem for Detroit, as they have almost $20 million available to sign the defenseman, according to PuckPedia. That doesn’t mean the Red Wings should use all of it, but it doesn’t mean Edvinsson will bend to whatever Detroit wants either, and they don’t have the defensive depth to play without him. Was the new deal far along when Yzerman stepped down, and how much longer will it take to come to an agreement?

Continued at length (it’s a very good preview, as much as any preview uncertain about Dylan Larkin’s future can be); we’re in the “everything’s an open-ended question” period right now, and until the new GM is hired, the organization has never been very good at communicating (see, most recently, the fact that the team can’t even share its new players’ numbers)…

So we wait. And we shall see, hopefully sooner than later.

The Athletic’s Corey Pronman, Scott Wheeler and Harman Dayal have compiled a list of their top 20 Calder Trophy candidates, and one Red Wings player made their list:

18. Michael Brandsegg-Nygård — RW, 20, Detroit Red Wings

Brandsegg-Nygård had a big season in the AHL, showcasing his maturity and strength against men. He plays a highly projectable, pro-style game. He’s a tenacious competitor who wins a ton of puck battles and boasts a heavy, accurate shot. He’s not the flashiest offensive player but he has enough speed and skill to project to be able to tilt the ice at the next level. He’s expected to push for a full-time spot in Detroit this season. — Pronman

Continued (paywall); my gut feeling is that Brandsegg-Nygard is going to have a more Emmitt Finnie-like rookie campaign, but if he breaks out offensively, all bets are off.