Tweets of note: it’s Pavel Datsyuk’s birthday!

The Red Wings have wished Pavel Datsyuk a happy birthday, and they’ve shared a highlight clip of Datsyuk goals as well:

Czarnik heads to Switzerland

Unrestricted free agent center Austin Czarnik, who’s played for the Red Wings and Grand Rapids Griffins for the past two seasons, is heading to Switzerland. He’s going to play for SC Bern of the National Liga.

The 31-year-old was a reliable call-up and scorer in Grand Rapids despite his 5’9,” 170-pound size, but the 31-year-old’s probably going to make more money in Switzerland than he would have in the AHL.

Red Wings Alums to play in South Bend, Indiana tonight

South Bend, Indiana TV station ABC 57’s Tim Mosier reports that the Red Wings’ Alumni will be playing in South Bend tonight:

As part of the annual charity hockey tournament put on by Pucks for Autism, former Detroit Red Wings players will be playing a game at Notre Dame’s Compton Family Ice Arena Saturday night, with proceeds from the event going to the local Camp Millhouse.

The puck is set to drop on Saturday, July 20 at 6:30 p.m. with doors opening at 5:30 p.m.

Tickets are $10 online and can also be purchased at the door.

Coach Lalonde’s facing a ticking clock

Detroit Hockey Now’s Kevin Allen weighs in on the “State of the Red Wings” in terms of who faces the most pressure to perform over the course of the 2024-2025 season, and the buck stops with the coach:

General manager Steve Yzerman has said everyone has to work harder to improve the team’s overall defensive coverage, and made it clear that included the coaching staff. Lalonde guided the Red Wings to an 11-point improvement. They fell one point short of the playoffs.

However, they were as sloppy defensively as they were in his first season with Detroit. The Red Wings gave up just two fewer goals. They ranked 25th in goals-against and 26th in surrendering shots on goals.

It doesn’t seem as if Lalonde will be judged solely on whether the Red Wings end their playoff drought.  However, Yzerman made it clear he is looking for a higher level of proficiency in defensive work. Lalonde will be accountable for that objective.

This is exactly what Yzerman said: “It’s incumbent upon our coaching staff to instill or improve, continue to work on, whether it’s a different system or getting better in how we play and improving our players in the system.”

He wants to see the Red Wings play a stingier caliber of hockey. There was no “or else.” But when you are an NHL coach, “or else” is always implied. Eleven NHL coaches were fired this past season.

Continued; Allen suggests that Alex DeBrincat, Vladimir Tarasenko and the Red Wings’ quartet of goaltenders all must perform up to or beyond expectations this upcoming campaign.

As for Lalonde, there’s no doubt that a coach of a non-playoff team who’s working on an expiring contract = a replaceable entity. And he, Bob Boughner and Stephane Julien definitely need to both sort out the team’s defensive issues and get the special teams performing better. It’s going to be about results this upcoming season.

Red Wings sign Joe Veleno to 2-year, $4.55 million contract

Per Elliotte Friedman…

And PuckPedia:

Per The Score‘s Kyle Cushman:

The Detroit Red Wings signed forward Joe Veleno to a two-year contract with a $2.275-million cap hit to avoid arbitration, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reports.

Veleno, 24, tallied a career-high 12 goals and 28 points in 80 games last season. He was a restricted free agent and had filed for salary arbitration July 5.

The Red Wings drafted Veleno 30th overall in 2018. He’s accumulated 30 goals and 64 points in 232 career contests with Detroit.

The Red Wings have $17.6 million of cap space after the signing, according to PuckPedia.

The Wings still have to re-sign Lucas Raymond, Moritz Seider and Jonatan Berggren as their other RFAs.

Meet the Johanssons

Just an interesting fact for those of you who are a little bored on a mid-July afternoon:

I can’t quite get behind the paywall of this article by Falu-Kuriren’s Ronnie Carlsson, but it focuses on Red Wings prospect Anton Johansson’s family ties.

20-year-old Anton, who’s a 6’4,” 196-pound, right-shooting defender, plays for Leskands IF of the SHL, where his father, Tjomme, is the GM, and both of Anton’s brothers have been drafted by NHL teams:

Older brother Simon, 25, plays defense for the AHL’s Iowa Wild, and he was picked by Minnesota in 2018; and the youngest brother, Victor, 18, is a defenseman for Leksands IF’s J20 team. He was picked 120th overall by Toronto in this past June’s NHL Draft.

Anton has a very long reach as he continues to grow into that 6’4″ frame, and he’s sort of a stay-at-home foil to Axel Sandin Pellikka’s deke-and-dangle game.

So there’s your little descriptor of the Johansson family, and the three siblings who hope to make an NHL impact.

Tweet of mid-July note: a reflexive pronoun

We’ve talked about NHL.com’s Dave Hogg’s Red Wings season preview, but the NHL’s Twitter/X account is just catching up with their offseason articles:

Apparently, the NHLPA’s decided to not share salary arbitration hearing dates

The Hockey News’s David Alter explains why the NHLPA hasn’t released the dates of players’ salary arbitration hearings this week:

The National Hockey League Players’ Association (NHLPA) is set to begin arbitration cases as soon as Saturday. But as for when those cases will occur, that will be up to agents, teams, and of course, hockey insider leaks as cases are either settled or awarded.

The NHLPA, which runs the process, has previously released an entire schedule of cases by day for each player approximately a week before the cases were set to begin. This year, however, they have elected not to do so. 

“There’s been a change in approach,” a source told The Hockey News on Thursday.

That means you likely won’t hear about hearings or awards until after they were settled either in arbitration or before the cases are seen before an arbitrator. The NHLPA will hold arbitration cases between July 20 and Aug. 4.

Continued; I know that the idea here is to give the players some anonymity and some peace of mind here, but this doesn’t make any sense to me.

Praising Sawchuk, digging Osgood

Yardbarker’s Chris Morgan posted a list of each and every NHL team’s best “greatest all-time goalie,” and while there’s no doubt that Terry Sawchuk was the franchise-defining netminder for Detroit, the author’s dig at Chris Osgood stirred me up a bit:

Detroit Red Wings: Terry Sawchuk

Chris Osgood has something of a cult following in Detroit, but “Ozzie” has no case to surpass Sawchuk here. The Hall of Famer won three Cups and three Vezinas with the Red Wings. His number hangs in the rafters in Detroit, and that says “franchise icon.”

Chris Osgood’s cult following involves the fact that he won 401 NHL games, 3 Stanley Cups, and, during his two stints with Detroit, he was one of the Red Wings’ most consistent performers, playing over 500 games in goal, and he’s been one modern franchise’s best personalities. He’s beloved for a reason…

But Terry Sawchuk, the “King of Pain,” was no doubt an all-time All-Star among goaltenders for every franchise, and the well-traveled Sawchuk helped define the position. We can’t quite say that for “Ozzie.”