The Malik Report

Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff suggests that the Red Wings should recall Chase Pearson from the Grand Rapids Griffins after Pearson’s strong start in the AHL:

When you get right down to it, the guy who is making the most sense to be the recall is Chase Pearson. Prior to acquiring [Mitchell] Stephens from the Tampa Bay Lightning, Pearson was the guy the Wings were penciling in as the team’s No. 4 center. It’s the role the team is projecting him to fill as an NHLer.

Certainly, Red Wings coach Jeff Blashill liked some elements of Pearson’s game in training camp.

“He’s a big body,” Blashill said. “He knows how to use his body. He’s got pretty good defensive instincts.”

The 6-foot-2, 200-pounder is showing 3-6-9 numbers through 11 AHL games. Pearson is also 24. His window to make something happen is smaller than many of the other prospects in GR.

Pearson will be a restricted free agent next season. Shouldn’t the Wings at least get a peek at him in the NHL before offering him a new deal? And opportunity to do that is knocking right now.

Continued; given Pearson’s age and production level in the AHL, I’d argue that he’s NHL-ready anyway, maybe over Carter Rowney or Givani Smith, but what do I know.

ESPN’s Kristen Shilton and Greg Wyshynski posted a column discussing the “bests” and “worsts” of the first month of the 2021-2022 season, with the Red Wings earning a collective nod for their strong start:

Most pleasant surprise (team): Detroit Red Wings Nine years removed from their last playoff series win and five years removed from their last playoff appearance, the once mighty Red Wings are deep into a rebuild that’s suddenly paying dividends. The arrival of top prospects — winger Lucas Raymond and defenseman Moritz Seider — was like a jolt of adrenaline for the franchise. Raymond, 19, meshed immediately on a line with leading scorer Tyler Bertuzzi and Dylan Larkin, who has waited a long time to experience competitive relevance again. — Wyshynski

Continued (Paywall)

The Detroit Red Wings face a particularly nasty end to their stretch of 11 games to be played over the course of 17 nights this week. Tonight’s game against the Columbus Blue Jackets (7 PM EST start on Bally Sports Detroit Plus/Bally Sports Ohio/97.1 FM) is the first of 2 games to be played over the course of 2 nights, 3 games to be played over the course of 4 nights, and 4 to be played over the course of 6 evenings.

Long story long, the next four games will be a ton of hockey to be played over the course of a very short period of time, and the 4 games will be played in 4 different locales as well.

This road trip should serve as a big test for the 8-6-and-2 Red Wings, who have proven to be excellent at home, but shaky at times on the road.

Monday’s opponent, the Columbus Blue jackets, are no slouch. Columbus stands at 7-and-5. They’re currently on a 2-game losing streak, having most recently dropped a 5-3 decision to the New York Rangers on Saturday, but the Blue Jackets always play well against Detroit.

Neither team practiced on Sunday, and both teams have injuries (Patrik Laine, Adam Boqvist and Max Domi are out for Columbus, and Kevin Stenlund was injured during Saturday’s game; Mitchell Stephens is out for Detroit), so we won’t know either team’s lineup until closer to game time, but we can go back and examine the teams’ previous games to discern what trends we might be seeing in Monday’s game.

For Columbus, the Blue Jackets haven’t lost 2 straight games until this past Friday and Saturday, so avoiding a 3-game losing streak is imperative as they wrap up a 4-game home stand. Columbus lost 5-3 to the Rangers in no small part due to giving up 3 goals in 63 seconds, as the Associated Press’s recap of Saturday’s game noted:

Continue reading Red Wings-Blue Jackets set-up: Wings open 4-game road trip vs. winless-in-2 Blue Jackets

NHL.com’s Mike Zeisberger spoke with Scott Niedermayer, Larry Murphy, Kevin Lowe and Doug Wilson, now all Hockey Hall of Fame-inducted defensemen, as well as former Wings GM Ken Holland, all regarding the NHL’s crop of young defenders, and Murphy was asked which defenseman he enjoys to watch the most:

Murphy: “I’m an analyst for Red Wings games with Bally Sports in Detroit, so I’m really impressed with Moritz Seider with the Wings. He went No. 6 overall in the 2019 NHL Draft and when Steve Yzerman picked him, some of the TV networks were saying it was maybe higher than expected. He’s played 16 games and I’ve seen him play every game, and it’s just impressive how he has enough confidence. He’s got the ability, the confidence, enough poise and enough belief in his game that he’s willing to stick his neck out; not recklessly, but he’s got a hunger. He’ll get right in the thick of things and will not think twice about it. Sometimes it goes awry like it’s going to at times, but he’ll be right back there again. It makes it very effective playing the game that way and it’s difficult for the opposition to play against him. He’s always looking to create offense.”

Continued;

Detroit Hockey Now’s Kevin Allen and Bob Duff wrote a pair of articles about the Red Wings’ goaltending, past and present, with Allen discussing Alex Nedeljkovic’s emergence as a reliable source of strong goaltending in the Wings’ crease…

After giving up seven goals in his Detroit debut against Tampa Bay, Nedeljkovic is 4-2-1 with a 2.24 GAA and .930 save pct. in eight appearances. In three of his last four starts, Nedeljkovic posted save percentages of .939 and above. He’s been the goalie general manager Steve Yzerman hoped he would be when he gave up a third-round pick and Jonathan Bernier’s rights to get him.

“Every game you get more and more comfortable” Nedeljkovic said. “The start of the season, whether you were here the year before or not, there’s always a little adjustment period. Obviously, being new to the team, a little bit more than some of the other guys. Just trying to work out the kinks that come with the new year, shaking off the rust from the summertime. Every game I feel more and more comfortable. Game gets a little easier, you get into a bit of a rhythm, you stop thinking about things and just start doing them. For me, the less I think the better I play.”

Nedeljkovic appreciates that this arrival has been a big adjustment for his defensive group.

“Guys always being ready for anything,” Nedeljkovic said. “For me, it’s kind of learning the system and learning guys’ habits and tendencies and how we like to play certain scenarios. Preseason camp was great, really got to hone in on some system stuff, but now finally gotten 14 games under us, some live action stuff, because you can’t replicate that in a practice. That’s been great and I think we’re getting better and better.”

Allen continues, and Duff wrote an article for Detroit Hockey Now Plus discussing the best goaltending tandems in Red Wings history:

Chris Osgood/Mike Vernon: Following first-round failures in the 1992-93 and 1993-94 playoffs, Detroit coach Scotty Bowman sought to shore up the club’s goaltending. The Red Wings did so by acquiring Stanley Cup champion Mike Vernon from the Calgary Flames.

During the 1994-95 season, Vernon was a stellar 19-6-4 during the 48-game regular season. Then he backstopped the Red Wings all the way to the Stanley Cup final. It was the first appearance for the team in the Cup final since 1965-66.

The following season as the Red Wings won an NHL-record 62 games, it was Chris Osgood who took the netminding reins. He was 39-6-5, earning NHL Second All-Star status and was a Vezina Trophy finalist. The Red Wings also won the Jennings Trophy.

Vernon bounced back strongly in 1996-97. He led the Red Wings to their first Stanley Cup title since 1954-55 and won the Conn Smythe Trophy in the process.

Continued (paywall)

Of prospect-related note in Europe and North America on Sunday:

In the Swedish Allsvenskan, Gustav Berglund finished at -1 with 1 shot in Mora IK’s 3-1 loss to MoDo;

Jesper Eliasson only stopped 4 of 7 shots and was replaced in Almtuna IS’s 5-4 loss to Bjorkloven;

At the Four Nations Cup, Eemil Viro finished at +1 in Finland’s 4-2 win over the Czech Republic;

William Wallinder scored a goal on 3 shots, finishing at -1, and neither Theodor Niederbach nor Simon Edvinsson played as Sweden lost 5-2 to Russia:

William Wallinder with a powerplay goal against Russia #LGRW pic.twitter.com/4l7ji95QQW

— IcehockeyGifs (@IcehockeyG) November 14, 2021

In the QMJHL, Jan Bednar was the back-up in the Acadie-Bathurst Titan’s 5-2 loss to Chicoutimi;

Oscar Plandowski scored a goal, finishing at +1 with 1 shot in the Charlottetown Islanders’ 6-4 win over Halifax;

And in the ECHL, Kaden Fulcher was the back-up in the Toledo Walleye’s 7-4 win over the Indy Fuel.

On a Sunday morning in which former Red Wings players Christian Djoos and Mattias Brome have chatted with Hockeynews.se and Aftonbladet, respectively, regarding their decisions to head back to Europe after spending chunks of last season with the Red Wings…

A third Swede spoke with Hockeysverige.se’s Robin Olausson regarding a trajectory which he hopes will lead him to North America. Olausson spoke with Rogle BK defenseman and probable Swedish World Junior Championship defenseman William Wallinder, and here’s a rough translation of the interview from Swedish:

Continue reading Roughly translated: William Wallinder speaks at length with Hockeysverige.se

The Detroit Red Wings face a difficult road trip this week, facing the Columbus Blue Jackets (Monday), Dallas Stars (Tuesday), Vegas Golden Knights (Thursday) and Arizona Coyotes (Saturday), all on the road, in a set of 4 games to be played over the course of 6 nights.

That warning being issued, MLive’s Ansar Khan notes that the 8-6-and-2 Wings have turned their ship around over the course of last week’s 4-game home stand:

The mood surrounding the Detroit Red Wings changed dramatically in one week, culminated by Saturday’s 3-2 victory over the Montreal Canadiens on Dylan Larkin’s overtime goal.

Just seven days before, the Red Wings were riding a four-game winless streak, had difficulty scoring and weren’t sure when Larkin would return after being away for personal reasons.

“We sat in Buffalo, and we talked on the ice in practice,” coach Jeff Blashill said. “We talked about the fact that the week prior, we had a ton of confidence. And then all of a sudden, we had not much confidence. I thought that third period in Buffalo was huge, the end of it, how good Tyler (Bertuzzi) played there. We’ve picked up steam from there.”

The Red Wings are 4-1-0 in their past five, improving to 8-6-2 on the season as they head on a four-game trip starting Monday in Columbus. The Canadiens, who has defeated Detroit twice this season — 6-1 and 3-0 in Montreal — dropped to 4-10-2.

“We’ve been a good hockey team at home, we’ve played well on the road at times,” Larkin said. “Through a long season you’re going to go through tough stretches. Our response has been great. It’s something that in the past few years we haven’t had that response, where we weren’t able to dig ourselves out of holes where three games has gone to five or seven games. We came home and turned it around. We didn’t play as good as we wanted to against Washington (2-0 loss Thursday). We responded tonight. We played hard.”

Continued; here are extended highlights of Saturday’s win from AWood40:

The Free Press’s Helene St. James answers a reader question as to whether Sergei Fedorov or Alex Ovechkin was/is a better Russian hockey player this morning, and St. James’ answer in her subscriber-only missive is definitive:

But given a choice between drafting the two, I’d take Fedorov. He was an incredible player at both ends of the ice, a superstar forward who impressed equally when asked by Scotty Bowman to play as a defenseman — so much so there was chatter within the organization that Fedorov would have been in the mix for a Norris Trophy had the experiment become permanent.

In 1993-94, with Steve Yzerman injured for a chunk of the first half, Fedorov’s expanded role led to a career year. He paced the Wings with 56 goals and 64 assists, and his 120 points were second in the NHL only to Gretzky’s 130. Fedorov was awarded the Hart Trophy (NHL’s most valuable player) and the Selke Trophy (best defensive forward), along with the Lester B. Pearson (most outstanding player as voted by NHL players).

No other player in NHL history has won the Hart and Selke in the same year.

Fedorov’s skating was on another level. His explosiveness came from the training he went through as a youngster, when he’d lie on the ice, jump up, race to the blue line, kneel, jump up and race to the other blue line then repeat the drill. His leg strength was legendary.

Fedorov once scored five goals in one game, capping a historic performance in overtime, 5-4 against the Capitals on Dec. 26, 1996. (The news was somewhat overshadowed in Detroit because that was also the day the Detroit Lions fired Wayne Fontes).

Continued (paywall)

According to HockeyNews.se’s Henrik Sjoberg, Red Wings prospect Simon Edvinsson won’t be playing in today’s game 4 Nations Cup game for Sweden because coach Tomas Monten believes that 3 games in 3 days would be too difficult for the Frolunda HC defenseman to deal with as he’s just returning from an illness.

What follows is roughly translated from Swedish:

Frolunda defenseman won’t play against Russia

Angelholm, Sweden. Simon Edvinsson has been Sweden’s team captain in Angelholm and the Frolunda defenseman is moving toward a key role on the World Junior Championship team.

But he won’t play against Russia today.

“Three games in three days would be too tough, “says Tomas Monten to HockeyNews.se.

The Junior Crowns defeated the Czech Republic on Friday (5-0) but lost against Finland (3-0) yesterday [at the 4 Nations Cup].

Today, the 4 Nations tournament in Angelholm comes to an end when the Swedes face Russia at the Catena Arena.

Frolunda defenseman Simon Edvinsson looks to be an important piece of the puzzle in the Swedish World Junior Championship team, and during this past weekend, he has gained confidence as one of the team captains in what has been his first experience with the Junior Crowns.

But against the Russians, the team will have to do without him today–Edvinsson has finished playing in Angelholm.

“When Simon was sick last week and couldn’t train or play, the plan was that he would only play in two games. Three games in three days immediately after a week without skating on the ice would be too tough,” says national team coach Tomas Monten to HockeyNews.se.

The 18-year-old has impressed this weekend in front of several representatives of the Detroit Red Wings–who drafted him as the sixth overall pick earlier this year.

During this fall, he’s posted 9 points (1 goal + 8 assists) in 16 games for Frolunda HC.