Video: Motor City Rockers to kick off second season with ‘Fan Fest’ on Saturday, August 26th

The Motor City Rockers are a professional hockey team that plays at Big Boy Arena in Fraser, Michigan, and the second-year franchise is holding a “Fan Fest” on Saturday, August 26th.

Their general manager, Nick Field, spoke with WDIV’s Victor Williams and Priya Mann on Sunday morning regarding the “Fan Fest” events and the team’s hopes for its second season of play:

Allen: Edvinsson, Kasper crack the NHL Network’s ‘Top 50 Prospects in the NHL’ list

These things tend to go in cycles, but, per Detroit Hockey Now’s Kevin Allen, only two Red Wings prospects were ranked among the NHL Network’s “Top 50 Prospects in the NHL,” with Simon Edvinsson and Marco Kasper landing at 11th and 25th, respectively…

And Allen discusses this development in an article on DetroitHockeyNow.com:

The bad news, from the Red Wings’ perspective, is that the Atlantic Division rival Buffalo Sabres have four players on the list. Forwards Zach Benson, Matthew Savoie, Jiri Kulich, and goalie Devon Levi are all ranked among the top 30 prospects.

The Ottawa Senators boast one player (Ridley Greig, 39th) in the top 50. Detroit general manager Steve Yzerman said last season that the Red Wings are primarily competing against the Sabres and Senators because they are at a similar stage of their rebuilding.

The Montreal Canadiens, another Atlantic rival, has two players (David Reinbacher at 17 and Lane Hutson at 26) on the NHL Network list.

Detroit’s 2023 first rounders Nate Danielson and Axel Sandin Pellikka are not on the list, even though players drafted later in the 2023 draft are on the list.  Sandin Pellikka is generally considered the best offensive defenseman coming out of the 2023 draft.

It happens. At this point, the Sabres and Senators are quite chic (ask their fan bases and bloggers, who have spent this summer looking down their noses at the poor, star and prospect-bereft Red Wings), and the Wings are going to have to prove that they belong in the conversation. The Atlantic Division is incredibly competitive, so both the Red Wings and their prospects will have to prove themselves on the ice.

A kind-of-sort-of report from Ben Chiarot’s ‘Scotland’s Yard’ street hockey game

While six Red Wings were raising funds for ALS research in Windsor on Saturday, Red Wings defenseman Ben Chiarot was took to the streets on a rainy day in Waterloo, Ontario to help raise funds for Grand River Hospital’s “Scotland’s Yard” charity.

There’s not that much information up about the events which took place at the “Scotland’s Yard Road Hockey Classic,” save an Instagram summary thereof…

Continue reading A kind-of-sort-of report from Ben Chiarot’s ‘Scotland’s Yard’ street hockey game

A bit more about the ‘All in 4 ALS’ game from the Ontario Hockey League

As noted yesterday, six Red Wings took part in the “All in 4 ALS” game in Windsor, Ontario on Saturday, helping raise funds to further the care of Ottawa Senators assistant coach Bob Jones.

The Ontario Hockey League received behind-the-scenes access, and Josh Sweetland filed a report from the game:

Jones was moved to tears when he received a pre-game standing ovation from the 6,149 in attendance on Saturday.

“It’s a good feeling,” the 53-year-old Jones said pre-game. “We’re trying to find a cure, but it’s not about me. It’s about (the cause).”

NHL captains Brady Tkachuk (Ottawa Senators) and Dylan Larkin (Detroit Red Wings) headlined a list of current NHL players competing, one that also featured more than 40 past and present OHL players and coaches. Team White won the game by a score of 10-6.

According to the Windsor Star, more than $202,000 had been raised before the puck had dropped on Saturday’s event with more than $11,000 more added from the 50-50 draw during the game and a post-game auction had the total pushing nearly a quarter million dollars. At the request of Jones, the bulk of that money will go to the Sunnybrook Foundation in Toronto, which supports the research and treatment for the disease.

The Windsor Spitfires organization, led by owners John Savage, Stephen Savage and Brian Schwab, did a great deal of work to make the event possible.

For more on the game and to hear from some of Bob Jones’ closest friends, check out Bruce Garrioch’s coverage in the Ottawa Sun.

For more information on the event, visit allin4als.ca.

If you’re not familiar with Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto, it’s the Mayo Clinic of Canada, and they really do remarkable, groundbreaking work.

I know that the goal of the “All in 4 ALS” game was to raise about $250,000 Canadian, but if you’re still interested in purchasing merchandise or donating, coach Jones is going to need the care one way or another.

A bit about Joe Veleno, the as-yet-unsigned restricted free agent

It’s August, and Joe Veleno remains an unsigned restricted free agent. In my opinion, it’s just not something to worry about–Veleno was issued a qualifying offer, so the Red Wings have already chosen to not walk away from him, and he didn’t have arbitration rights, so…

These things tend to take time. Veleno may very well be in a prove-you’re-worth-it-or-lose-your-job scenario at 23 years of age, but I’m just assuming that his representatives and the Red Wings will hammer out a contract closer to training camp.

Daily Faceoff’s Colton Davies seems to think a little differently while offering a list of 10 important unsigned restricted free agents:

Joe Veleno, C, 23 (Detroit Red Wings)

2022-23 salary cap hit: $894,167

Joe Veleno has become a regular in the Red Wings’ lineup over the past two campaigns. During the 2022-23 season, Veleno tallied nine goals and 11 assists for a career-high 20 points in 81 games. Consistency has been an issue – Veleno went pointless for a 20-game stretch this past season from mid-February to the end of March. There is also the whole ‘stomping incident’ that unfolded at the World Championship. GM Steve Yzerman already inked J.T. Compher, Daniel Sprong, Klim Kostin, and Christian Fischer to deals while also acquiring Alex DeBrincat from the Senators. With spots dwindling down, it seems like Veleno will once again be situated in the bottom six, assuming the Red Wings keep him around.

Davies continues…

  1. The “Stomping Incident” shouldn’t affect the Red Wings’ perspective as to Veleno’s worth as a player or human being, because the dang kid apologized. There’s a stigma against him for sure, but he’s got to make sure that it’s not the biggest moment of his career;
  2. There’s very little doubt that Veleno will be a 3rd or 4th line forward this upcoming season, but I don’t see the Red Wings trying to waive him to send him to Grand Rapids, at least not yet.

This strikes me as “much ado about nothing,” and while there are many questions as to Veleno’s future place in the larger scheme of things, I expect him to find himself in a Filip Zadina-style “prove it or lose your job” campaign, not a, “You’re going to Grand Rapids and you’re going to like the career reset” situation. The leash is certainly short for Veleno, but it isn’t out of slack just yet.

Discussing the Red Wings’ goalie coaches, via DHN’s Duff

The Red Wings revamped their goaltending coaches when Derek Lalonde was hired, bringing in long-time Hershey Bears goaltending coach Alex Westlund at the NHL level, and hiring Karpat Oulu’s Roope Koistinen at the AHL level last month.

The other constant over the course of the Lalonde regime has been goaltending development coach Phil Osaer. The Red Wings’ goaltending prospects speak glowingly about the tip of the Red Wings’ developmental spear.

This morning, Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff posted a profile of Osaer, who’s given Sebastian Cossa a leg up on learning the professional ropes:

Grading and developing puckstoppers is not an exact science. Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman willingly acknowledges this is an area of the game that remains in flux for his team. This is both in terms of the direction they’ll be taking and investment they’ll be making in goaltender development.

“The majority of the league is kind of creating these department of goaltending, so to speak, and Phil is our department of goaltending,” Yzerman said. “It’s debatable. We’re all trying to figure out how many guys we need on the staff. Phil works hard. He does a lot of scouting for us. He’s really dialed into the goalie world, the goalie fraternity, I guess. He does a lot of scouting for us.”

In the past year, Osaer has held a big say in a couple of major aspects of Detroit’s goalie future. He’s taken a very hands-on approach with 2021 first-round pick Sebastian Cossa, supervising his training and development while Cossa was playing last season with the ECHL Toledo Walleye.

“Particularly him living in the Detroit area and Toledo just down the road, he was able to spend a lot of time in Toledo with Sebastian, working on his development, working on his technique,” Yzerman said. “Kind of being his de facto goaltender coach. He’s had a really positive impact on it. I know Phil really enjoys that part of the job as well. It was a very beneficial year for our organization and for Sebastian and we’re very fortunate to have Phil here. It was a positive year both for Phil and the organization and for Sebastian most importantly.”

Continued;

I know that the Red Wings were pretty happy with previous goaltending coach Jeff Salajko and Grand Rapids’ Brian Mahoney-Wilson, but Salajko commuted to Detroit, Grand Rapids and Toledo from his home in Columbus, Ohio, and that complicated things.

Continue reading Discussing the Red Wings’ goalie coaches, via DHN’s Duff

An informal report from the ‘All in 4 ALS’ game

Red Wings forwards Andrew Copp, Robby Fabbri, Dylan Larkin, Alex DeBrincat, defenseman Jake Walman and prospect Andrew Gibson all took part in the “All in 4 ALS” game on Saturday at Windsor’s WFCU Centre.

The Spitfires pulled out the stops for player introductions, the anthems, and the presentation of several cheques to the Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto and causes which will further the care of Bob Jones, an assistant coach with the Ottawa Senators and Windsor Spitfires alumnus who’s battling ALS.

Larkin scored two goals en route to a 10-6 Team Tkachuk win (with Larkin and DeBrincat playing on Brady Tkachuk’s line, ironically enough).

Over 40 current and former Ontario Hockey League alums, a gaggle of current and former Windsor Spitfires, Ottawa Senators coach D.J. Smith, Red Wings coach Derek Lalonde, assistant coaches Bob Boughner, Jay Varady and Alex Westlund and many more folks rallied around coach Jones on Saturday, and the WFCU Centre was at least 3/4ths full for a charity hockey game in August, which was pretty damn impressive.

I was one of the only official media members in attendance–there were certainly lots of folks following along from the Spitfires, Senators and TSN, but their videos might be coming out over the next couple of days and weeks as opposed to tonight, because, well…

When you bring that many hockey types together to celebrate the life of someone who is battling a fatal disease, it’s one big party. I was able to speak with Red Wings coach Lalonde after the game, but only because Dylan Larkin (who got married last weekend) was heading to a wedding out-of-state, and was unable to stop for a chat.

Given the back-up at the Ambassador Bridge on the way home, I understood.

I took the heavy hint from the atmosphere that the event wasn’t really meant to be buzzed by the heavy-hitting media corps of one, so I asked coach Lalonde whether he could make any sort of assessments out of a summer hockey exhibition game, to which he replied that he’s getting to know DeBrincat’s personality;

Coach Lalonde was in awe of the way that the community was rallying around “Jonesy,” but he told me that people who’ve been around hockey for as long as, well, I have shouldn’t be surprised that the hockey community takes care of its own (and I am not, honestly, having been doing the blogging thing since 2006);

And coach Lalonde said that he’s getting his family settled in Metro Detroit after having to spend a year as a bachelor while his kids were in school in Tampa Bay, which had been very good. With that, I let him get back to the party:

What did I see on the ice, myself?

The usual. Dylan Larkin may never eclipse 80 points, but my goodness, even in a summertime exhibition game, where players are double-dekeing and dipsy-doodling, Larkin drives play, drives play, and drives play;

Alex DeBrincat is going to take some time to adjust to being a Red Wing in my estimation, but that’s not a bad thing. He was almost at a disadvantage because he was trying to tuck home passes from puck hogs, and he tended to defer to Larkin, the puck-carrier, and Tkachuk, who hammed it up more than hammering it home;

Robby Fabbri looks like he’s getting back to health and full speed;

Michael Rasmussen, to his credit, lurks around dead areas near the net and loves going to the top of the crease or the periphery of the net to sniff out pucks, and he can’t seem to help but work hard;

Andrew Copp’s work ethic is always there, as is his attention to detail, even if there are times that he can’t seem to land a puck anywhere near the net (ha);

Jake Walman has speed to burn at times, but he’s at his best when he’s reading off his defensive partner (today, that was Anaheim’s Cam Fowler) and doing his best to keep his game simple;

And Wings prospect and Soo Greyhounds defenseman Andrew Gibson is steady, strong and simple in the best sense of the term. I sensed an edge that we weren’t seeing during summertime shinny, too.

More than anything, I was impressed by coach Jones and the very clear hockey family that’s going to be there for him when the road gets harder–because, sadly, it’s going to get harder from here on out.

It’s not particularly easy to get to the WFCU Centre if you’re not familiar with the twists and turns of Lauzon Avenue and Lauzon Road, but the facility is excellent, and I’ll definitely try to take in a couple of games if I’m at all able this upcoming season. Some of you told me on Twitter that Windsor’s a pizza town, and I’ll have to explore that as well.

On Saturday, which was a mercilessly humid summer day, I got in, I went to Harvey’s for a hamburger, and I got out of Canada and went home to check in on the aunt, who wanted Chinese food for dinner. That’s why this little entry is so late, but the day as a whole was a success.

I got to visit my favourite country that’s not my own, I watched a community of athletes, coaches and alums come together to form a family around someone who needs it, and I, “Yes sir, no sir, yes sir, yes sir’ed” my way through customs on the way home. All in all, a good adventure goes in the books.

Over 40 OHL Alums taking part in today’s ‘All in 4 ALS’ game in Windsor

The Windsor Spitfires are hosting the “All in 4 ALS” game to raise funds for Ottawa Senators assistant coach Bob Jones today at the WFCU Centre, and the Canadian Hockey League’s website’s Josh Sweetland reports that over 40 OHL Alumni are taking part in the event:

Over 40 OHL Alumni are in Windsor this weekend, lacing up the skates in support of a good friend and contributor to the Ontario Hockey League for more than 25 years.

Ottawa Senators assistant coach Bob Jones shared news of his ALS (Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) diagnosis back in January, an ailment also referred to as Lou Gehrig’s disease. A star-studded lineup hits the ice at the WFCU Centre in Windsor on Saturday afternoon at 2:00pm in support of a man whose well-travelled journey through the game has touched the lives of so many.

Originally from Sault Ste. Marie, Jones played parts of five seasons on the Greyhounds blueline from 1985-90 and returned to the club following his professional career, serving as an assistant coach from 1995-99. Since then, Jones enjoyed coaching stints in Brampton, Sudbury and Windsor, taking the reins as Spitfires head coach in 2010-11. He was also the head coach of the Oshawa Generals from 2015-18 and has been in the professional ranks since, recently completing his fourth season with the Ottawa Senators.

Senators captain Brady Tkachuk headlines a list of current NHL players competing, one that also features more than 40 past and present OHL players and coaches.

The Windsor Spitfires organization, led by owners John Savage, Stephen Savage and Brian Schwab, has done a great deal of work to make the event possible, and a big crowd is expected on hand with proceeds being directed to ALS research initiatives.

For more on the game and to hear from some of Bob Jones’ closest friends, check out Bruce Garrioch’s coverage in the Ottawa Sun.

For more information on the event, visit allin4als.ca.

Continued

DHN’s Allen offers four training camp-related ‘thoughts’

Detroit Hockey Now’s Kevin Allen takes this quiet Saturday in August to ponder several training camp-related “thoughts“:

Moritz Seider is Still Only 22 Years Old: It’s hard to remember how young Moritz Seider is because he plays like a veteran. It’s probably too early for him to be a Norris Trophy candidate, but it’s not unthinkable. He’s listed on the betting odds, although certainly not as one of the favorites.

Just the fact that it’s acceptable to discuss Seider’s future Norris potential speaks to how valuable he is to the franchise. When the Red Wings are a Stanley Cup contender again, Seider likely will be among the league’s top five all-around defenseman and playing 26+ minutes per game.

This season, the Red Wings will be hoping just for his continued steady improvement. No player in this league, regardless of his skill level, intimidates Seider in a one-on-one defensive situations.

Berggren and Veleno Need to be Better in 2023-24: Jonatan Berggren scored 15 goals last season, but only four goals in his last 28 games.  Joe Veleno only had nine goals and only two in his last 30 games. They are both 23 and need a breakthrough season.

Those two players served a mixed salad with their NHL performances in 2022-23.

“Some positives for sure,” Coach Derek Lalonde said after the season. “They took some steps but they need more growth. I have no problem saying they took a dip in their game towards the end of the year. Understandable for young players. We asked a lot of those guys. Even after the deadline their role increased more and there was an obvious dip in their production, and some of their five-on-five play. I think it’s natural for young players. I think it’s valuable to get those types of minutes in games. Now it’s on them…You would hope there’s a natural growth and progression in their game and they’ll be better for it once camp starts next year.”

Continued

DobberProspects examines the Red Wings’ prospect pool

DobberProspects’ Evan Sabourin examines the Red Wings’ prospect pool this morning, discussing 8 players:

Risers

Elmer Soderblom: The 6-8 behemoth was an early season surprise earning a roster spot with the team right out of  training camp and even scored in his first game against Montreal. He played 21 games total in Detroit registering five goals and three assists, but injuries and trouble adjusting to the North American ice would leave him in the press box and he was ultimately sent to Grand Rapids to finish out the season in early January. Skating could be an issue for Soderblom at the NHL level and he will have to work at it to keep up in the NHL. The 2019 sixth round pick has the potential to be a force at that height. His hands are one of his key assets and really stand out for someone with that kind of size. He could also become the net front presence that the Wings have lacked since Tomas Holmstrom retired. He is a very intriguing prospect and also worth a late round stash in most leagues.

Carter Mazur: There was no one in the organization whose stock rose more this past season than Mazur’s. The former University of Denver prospect registered 22 goals and 15 assists in 40 games at the NCAA level. He signed his entry level contract with Detroit in March and was assigned to Grand Rapids where he netted three goals and three assists in six games. After impressing in the AHL, he represented the United States in the World Championship where he recorded four points in ten games, and left quite an impression with Detroit head coach Derek Lalonde who was an assistant on the team. The 2021 third round pick plays with an edge while also possessing  some scoring ability. It remains to be seen how that will translate to the NHL level, but he looks like a player you could slot in for a top six role. It may be difficult for him to make the opening  night roster, but do not be surprised if you see his name called up at some point this season. The Jackson, Michigan native could be a fantasy surprise in the next few years and is definitely worth an add in most dynasty league formats.

Continued