The Malik Report

According to the Detroit News’s Tony Paul, the Red Wings’ general manager lent a hand to the Detroit Tigers’ search for their new general manager, Scott Harris:

One of the surprising names mentioned as part of the Tigers’ search committee: Steve Yzerman. Yzerman, the Red Wings’ legendary captain who now is vice president and general manager of the Red Wings, had multiple conversations with Harris during the process.

“It’s a unique opportunity to have two heads of operations under the same ownership group,” Harris said. “I’ll imagine I’ll be talking to him quite a bit for some advice.  I know I can learn a lot from him.”

This wasn’t the first time the two met, actually.

Once, during Harris’ time in the Cubs’ front office, Yzerman visited their suite at Wrigley Field.

“I remember being very impressed by him,” Harris said. “And I was even more impressed by him here.”

Continued

Sportsnet’s Rory Boylen posted an article in which he asks “one training camp-related question” for each and every one of the NHL’s 32 teams, and here’s what he’s curious about when it comes to the Red Wings:

Detroit Red Wings: How will newcomers Andrew Copp, David Perron and Dominik Kubalik shape the forward lines?

They may not be ready to run out of the rebuild yet, but GM Steve Yzerman at least set his team up to be harder to claim two points against. We’d expect returning players Dylan Larkin, Lucas Raymond, Tyler Bertuzzi and Jakub Vrana to be inside the top-six forwards (though Bertuzzi is still a trade candidate this season). So where do the new guys fit? Perron is a valuable leader with an underrated offensive game, Copp is coming off a career season which he ended by going on a tear with the Rangers, and Kubalik scored 30 goals two years ago — can that upside be reopened with better linemates?

Continued; the assumed depth chart in terms of the top three lines looks like this:

Raymond-Larkin-Bertuzzi

Vrana-Copp-Perron

Zadina-Suter-Kubalik

At least in theory!

The Red Wings’ prospects did something completely different on Tuesday.

On their one day off between the prospect tournament and training camp, the team headed to Traverse Heights Elementary School to hold a little hockey clinic with 4th and 5th graders in the school’s gym (the Wings’ prospects will skate together one last time on Wednesday before training camp begins on Thursday at Centre ICE Arena).

Red Wings setting up a youth hockey clinic at Traverse City’s Rose Elementary School. Fun to be had! pic.twitter.com/uJ5kzwMDgy— George Malik (@georgemalik) September 20, 2022

It was quite a bit of fun, if a little overwhelming, to “go back to elementary school” for a day for me–I had to check in at the office like any good visitor, and I was gob-smacked at the fact that the oldies station was playing the music of my own youth, but that’s 44 for you..

And it was just plain old cool to watch the players interact with the kids and slowly but surely warm up to the tasks at hand in terms of teaching the kids to shoot pucks, score on goaltenders, and engage in physical activity via a relay race.

It’s insane in here. 80 4th and 5th graders. And a bunch of Wings prospects. Fun stuff! pic.twitter.com/WLvsxmuxv7— George Malik (@georgemalik) September 20, 2022

Perhaps the funniest and best part of the two-and-a-half hour-long visit was when the Wings’ prospects held their own draft and picked sides for a spirited prospects vs. prospects scrimmage (in which nobody got hurt).

Continue reading The day the Red Wings’ prospects went back to (elementary) school

DetroitRedWings.com’s Jonathan Mills filed a notebook article in which he discusses Cross Hanas’ prospect tournament, as well as his attempts to earn a spot in Grand Rapids, if not Detroit:

As an aspiring professional hockey player, Cross Hanas doesn’t want to have a label affixed to him.

But if there’s one word the Detroit Red Wings forward prospect doesn’t mind being associated with, it’s “playmaker.”

“I like making plays and setting guys up,” said Hanas, who was Detroit’s 55th overall pick in the 2020 NHL Entry Draft. “That’s what I find joy in, and I’ve been like that my whole life.”

Last season, the 20-year-old showed he can generate offense by tallying 26 goals and 60 assists in 63 games with the Western Hockey League’s Portland Winterhawks.

“They (Portland coaching staff) had a lot of confidence in me being one of the older guys and being one of the scorers for the team,” Hanas said about his 2021-22 campaign. “I was in a lot of situations, which was really good for my game.”

Continued

ESPN’s Greg Wyshynski has posted his “fantasy hockey cheat sheet” as an ESPN+ article, and he’s picking one Red Wings player for his team:

Moritz Seider, D, Detroit Red Wings: He’s got name recognition after that Calder Trophy win, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there aren’t some fantasy managers that don’t quite know how great Seider was across the board. His 50 points tied him for 19th in the league among defensemen. Ditto his 187 shots on goal. If hits are rewarded in your league, he was just outside the top 30 with 151 collisions. He also picked up two shorthanded points. But the number we really liked: 21 power-play points. That ranked him 10th among defensemen, and that’s before the Red Wings added players like David Perron and Andrew Copp to the roster. No sophomore slump here.

Continued

The Sporting News’s Bryan Murphy posted a list of rookies who are “on the cusp” of earning roster spots on their respective NHL teams this fall, and I thought his comments regarding one Simon Edvinsson were…Interesting:

Simon Edvinsson, D, Red Wings: When the Red Wings’ 2021-22 season ended, it was easy to see Edvinsson’s path to a roster spot for the next season. A plethora of left-handed defensemen were leaving in free agency and Edvinsson would not have as much of a battle to get a spot in the lineup. Fast forward to now and after Steve Yzerman signed Ben Chiarot, Olli Maatta and Robert Hagg, and brought back Jake Walman, there is a jam on the left side. Edvinsson is good enough to make the team, but it may be more beneficial for his development to play top minutes in the AHL rather than battle for a bottom-pairing role. 

Continued; with Walman out due to Achilles tendon surgery and Hagg AHL-eligible, there could be a spot for Edvinsson in the lineup, but the Red Wings aren’t going to put him on the third pairing just to give him some NHL experience.

Unless he can prove that he’s ready to be top-four defenseman at the NHL level, over the course of training camp and the exhibition season, he’ll head to Grand Rapids.

ESPN’s Victoria Matiash offers a set of rookie and sophomore players for fantasy hockey poolies to target in their drafts this fall, and she suggests that Lucas Raymond and Moritz Seider stand among the “sensational sophomores” available to pick:

Lucas Raymond, F, Detroit Red Wings: Slotted alongside top center Dylan Larkin and fellow winger Tyler Bertuzzi, the 20-year-old sophomore should pick up where he left off, in contributing at a regular pace with Detroit in round two of his young career. With the additions of David Perron and Andrew Copp taking some of the pressure off the Red Wings’ top line, Raymond can be expected to bust through the 60-point mark after collecting 23 goals and 34 assists this past season. Perron’s presence also renders Detroit’s top power play, which includes Raymond, a bit more dangerous. The fourth-overall draft pick (2020) has a role to play in all but the shallowest of ESPN.com fantasy leagues.

…

Moritz Seider, D, Detroit Red Wings: As with his aforementioned teammate, Raymond, there’s nothing holding Seider back from imitating, if not bettering, his rookie performance in 2021-22. This Calder-winning kid is the real deal. A productive, physical, shot-blocking gem in ESPN standard leagues, the towering 21-year-old is a top-five fantasy defender in my books.

Continued

DobberHockey’s Michael Clifford discusses a set of “training camp battles” to watch for this upcoming training camp and preseason, and he suggests that the Red Wings’ power play may require some competition for the “fourth forward’s” spot on the top unit:

Detroit Fourth PP Forward

In Detroit, we are assuming that all of Dylan Larkin, Tyler Bertuzzi, David Perron, and Moritz Seider are on the top power play. With all the offseason acquisitions and injury returns, the team has a lot of options for that fourth forward. They have Jakub Vrana, who is second in the entire league in goals per 60 minutes at 5-on-5 over the last four years, coming off a year where he missed over 50 games with a shoulder injury. They also have Lucas Raymond, who is coming off a 23-goal, 57-point rookie season where he was a fixture of the top power play. Andrew Copp has limited power play experience but is an option if they want two centres up there. Finally, there’s Robby Fabbri, who had an ACL surgery last March and whose status for training camp is uncertain but has seen top PP time for the Wings. (If anyone has seen an update, let us know in the comments, but I haven’t seen anything yet.) Derek Lalonde is the new coach, and he doesn’t have the same history with the players, so it’s not a guarantee that Raymond is the fourth forward. My lean is that he gets the spot as the incumbent, but there is no certainty. Exhibition games will help clarify things in this regard.  

Continued; Fabbri will be out to start the season, and yes, Raymond and Vrana will battle for that last forward’s spot on the top unit.

MLive’s Ansar Khan, The Athletic’s Max Bultman and Detroit Hockey Now’s Nate Brown all weigh in regarding prospect tournament “standouts” this morning, with each author discussing prospects in a slightly different manner.

1. Khan offers capsule assessments of six prospects, via coach Ben Simon’s takes on said prospects…

Sebastian Cossa, goaltender: “He played extremely well here. … You can see that he’s ready, he’s hungry, and let’s see what happens in camp. … I always defer to the goalie gurus we have, but I thought he played the puck pretty well (Monday), not that that was a perceived deficiency, but it was noticeable that he was competent coming out and playing the puck.”

Simon Edvinsson, defenseman: “I think you can see the poise he has with the puck, his play recognition for the most part is elite. He’s going to be a really good player for a really long time. He’s still very young, though, that’s important to understand. Some of these kids that come in here, there’s all this hype and expectation, sometimes it just doesn’t happen overnight. He will make rookie mistakes. Veterans have made rookie mistakes. But he does a lot of little things well for a younger player and has the confidence that bodes well for his future.”

Continued;

2. Bultman’s set of observations are tournament-wide, so he went with one player who stood out from across the rosters of four of the five participating teams, with Sebastian Cossa earning the nod as Detroit’s representative:

Continue reading A trio of prospect observations from Khan, Bultman and Brown

The Free Press’s Helene St. James posted an early-morning article discussing Eemil Viro’s performance at the Red Wings’ prospect tournament, and his acclimation to North American hockey as he “turns pro” with Swedish defenders Simon Edvinsson and Albert Johansson:

“You can tell those guys have played at a high level,” Griffins coach Ben Simon said. “It’s fun to see those guys because of how they apply what we’re trying to teach them and learn and get better. They were very receptive to that and were able to apply that. For me as a coach that’s very important, that they were very receptive. 

“It can be chaotic at times because you don’t have a lot of preparation and play three games in four days. You’re looking for guys that are consistent. Coaches love guys that are consistent, dependable, accountable and do learn from their mistakes. You are inevitably going to make mistakes, but when you see the growth and learning and not repetitive mistakes, that’s what you like to see.”

What stands out about Viro is his skating and his competitiveness.

“He’s got a high battle level,” Simon said. “He’s not afraid to get his nose dirty in the corner, so that’s a pretty good set of attributes to have and to work with and see how he’s going to continue to develop.”

Continued