The Athletic’s Scott Wheeler re-drafted the NHL’s class of 2019, attempting to assuage any mistakes made in terms of evaluating players incorrectly as The Athletic’s resident prospect guru…
And it’s a little surprising to see him ranking both Jack Hughes and Trevor Zegras ahead of Moritz Seider:
Continue reading Seider still third-best in Wheeler’s 2019 re-draftThe Detroit Red Wings did not sign defenseman John Klingberg to the 1-year, $7 million contract which the Swedish rearguard signed with the Anaheim Ducks for several reasons, including team fit (or the lack thereof), the team’s strength on its right side defense, cap space, and, very frankly, probably because Klingberg chose to go to Anaheim after he received their offer.
This morning, the Free Press’s Helene St. James offers her answer as to why Klingberg didn’t end up wearing red and white, per a reader mailbag question:
Had [GM Steve] Yzerman signed Klingberg, it would have meant jettisoning [Filip] Hronek, and Yzerman made it clear on July 14 that he wasn’t interested in being put in such a situation: “What I wouldn’t want to do is go and sign another free agent, a significant free agent, and put myself in a position where I have to trade somebody, because that’s not a good time to do it.”
Hronek is coming off a subpar season in which he struggled to adapt to losing his spot as the Wings’ top defenseman to Seider. But Hronek is five years younger than Klingberg, and has a respectable 118 points in 245 games on a team that, since Hronek entered the NHL in 2018-19, has not had as much talent as the [Dallas] Stars.
Yzerman signed Hronek for three years, $13.2 million last September. Yzerman clearly sees Hronek, drafted at No. 53 in 2016, as part of the rebuild. Hronek plays bigger than his 6-foot frame, and is a good shooter and passer.
Since being named GM in April 2019, Yzerman has been careful about the contracts he has given to free agents.
When he signed forward Andrew Copp on July 13, it marked the longest (five years) and highest annual average value ($5.625 million) for a deal, but the Wings didn’t have a second-line center. They do have two talented, young right-handed defensemen in Seider (21 years old) and Hronek (24) and with the signings of Chiarot and Määttä, now have two partners who project to strengthen the top-four corps.
Continued; I’m not certain whether Filip Hronek’s presence alone is the reason the Wings didn’t end up signing Klingberg, but I do believe that St. James hits at the nail on the head by suggesting that the Red Wings didn’t need to put themselves in a salary cap bind by signing the soon-to-be-30-year-old Klingberg.
Between the fact that he’s a right-shooting right defenseman, which the Red Wings already have, and the fact that they have to re-sign Filip Zadina and Jake Walman, the Wings didn’t need to tie their hands salary-wise…
And, quite frankly, Steve Yzerman tends to tell you what he’s thinking on the rare occasions that he does speak.
He was blunt and frank in stating that he would be more interested in pursuing a trade with a salary cap-stressed team than he would be interested in signing any more unrestricted free agents this summer, and I believe that he’s going to be good upon his word.
In a subscriber-only article, MLive’s Ansar Khan discusses the Red Wings’ probable standing in the Atlantic Division via a set of power rankings. Khan feels that the Atlantic Division has gotten more difficult to win thanks to the teams’ offseason machinations, and he doesn’t see the Wings as a playoff team–yet:
5. DETROIT: The Red Wings are much deeper and have a different look following a series of moves. Andrew Copp, David Perron and Dominik Kubalik provide pieces for an upgraded second line and improved power play. Chiarot, Olli Maatta, Robert Hagg, Mark Pysyk (out the first half of the season due to Achilles surgery) and possibly top 2021 pick Simon Edvinsson make for a better defense. Ville Husso is an upgrade over Thomas Greiss. Derek Lalonde, in his first NHL head-coaching job, has enough talent to get the Red Wings over .500 for the first time since 2015-2016, but ending a six-year playoff drought doesn’t seem likely in a tough Eastern Conference.
Continued (paywall)
New Red Wings goaltender Ville Husso spoke with Iltaleti’s Juuso Taipale while taking part in a street hockey tournament in Helsinki, Finland. Here’s a very rough translation of the article, which comes from a very difficult-to-translate language:
Continue reading Roughly translated: Ville Husso speaks with Iltalheti while taking part in a street hockey tournamentVille Husso, who received an award as a hero of the Finnish Lions, didn’t rush home: “The weather was good there, too”
Ville Husso is looking forward to the upcoming season. Fellow Finnish Lion Jussi Olkinuora will also arrive to compete with the goaltender who’s been traded to Detroit.
Ville Husso speaks enthusiastically about the upcoming NHL season. New winds await the 27-year-old goaltender. His time in St. Louis came to an end when the team traded its Finnish player, who had displayed great performances, to the Detroit Red Wings.
“I didn’t come back to Finland until the middle of July. The plan is to fly back at the end of August. Before then, the plan is to train a bit and see family and friends,” Husso tells Iltalheti.
Just a reminder that, in Europe, at least, teams’ training camps are about to get underway by the end of the first week of August: Mannheimer Morgen, the main newspaper in Moritz Seider’s off-season home, let us know that his German Eishockey Liga “parent club,” the Adler Mannheim, took part in their annual charity golf tournament today:
Sankt Leon-Rot. This year, the Adler Mannheim once again traditionally swapped out their ice hockey sticks for golf clubs at the start of their preparations. At the “Eagles’ Cup,” the golf tournament where they collect money for the association “Adler Helfen Menschen” (Adler Helps People), prominent visitors were also in attendance. The two former Eagles and current NHL players Moritz Seider and Tim Stuetzle also hit the golf ball over the perfectly-manicured greens. For the Adler/Eagles, meanwhile, their first on-ice training session is on Tuesday, before the team presents itself for the first time to its fans on Saturday at the “Boys Are Back in Town” party.
Detroit Hockey Now’s audit of the Red Wings’ prospect system brings us to a prospect whose ceiling is still a little difficult to discern in 2022 draft pick Tnias Mathurin, a defenseman.
When I watched the 6’3,” 201-pound defenseman take part in the Wings’ summer development camp, I had no doubt that the Wings drafted a “support player,” but whether the North Bay Battalion blueliner is simply a third-pair guy or something more was hard to tell.
Red Wings director of amateur scouting Kris Draper spoke with Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff about the big defender:
“Big D-man out of North Bay,” was how Red Wings director of amateur scouting Kris Draper began his assessment of the rearguard for the Ontario Hockey League’s North Bay Batallion. “I was able to see him quite a bit in the playoffs. We like his size. He moves well for a big man and is a pretty athletic defenseman.”
While defense is his forte, Mathurin does display some offensive instincts. Interestingly, his 15 points last season as an OHL rookie weren’t far off the 19 points he gathered the previous season with the Ajax/Pickering Raiders AAA U16 squad. Mathurin was captain of that club. Mathurin was also +17, an impressive number for an OHL rookie. In 13 playoff games, he dished out four assists.
He displays vision in the offensive zone, and makes an astute first pass. Mathurin shows some zip in his shot and displays a knack for getting into shooting lanes.
“He’s got a good stick, and he’s pretty mobile defender,” Draper said.
Continued; the Wings will invite Mathurin to the prospect tournament this September, and he’ll have an opportunity to establish himself in a more-defined role.
The Free Press’s Mick McCabe penned an early-morning article which discusses new Red Wings forward Andrew Copp’s ability to play baseball, football and soccer (for a time) as a young man, which helped the 28-year-old blossom into the professional athlete he is today:
Copp is adamant that playing football has made him a better hockey player.
“Being able to take a hit to make a play, understanding how to accept contact and be able to concentrate on the throw when someone is bearing down on you has some similarity to hockey,” he said. “How to accept contact and knowing where people are coming from so you are able to protect yourself a little bit because hockey is a very violent game just like football.”
There are guys who years ago specialized in hockey and Copp thought were better than him back then. But they have been out of the sport for years now while his career continues to flourish.
“You see a lot of kids that are the best at their age when they’re 12, 13, 14 and they get burnt out by the time they’re 18, 19, 20,” he said. “I was very lucky not to feel that way about hockey. I think that’s a big part of why I still feel like I have parts of my hockey game that I can get better and continue to improve and I feel like I’m still trending upward instead of plateauing or being on the decline at 28, 29.
“I think a lot of it is not specializing in one sport.”
Hope this sinks in.
Continued (paywall)
Red Wings summer development camp invite Connor Murphy spoke with the Daily Gazette a couple of weeks ago regarding his lessons learned at the Wings’ development camp. This evening, the 23-year-old goaltender from Hudson Falls, New York spoke with the Glenns Falls Post-Star’s Pete Tobey about taking part in the Wings’ camp as well:
Connor Murphy may not know exactly what he wants to do with his eventual degree in economics, but he definitely knows what he wants after Union College: a shot at playing professional hockey.
Earlier this month, the incoming senior goalie got a sneak peek at pro hockey when he was invited to the Detroit Red Wings’ development camp in Detroit. On top of improving his goaltending skills, Murphy said he learned a lot about how pro athletes take care of their bodies before and after games and workouts.
“It was obviously a big honor just to be invited to the camp,” Murphy, a 23-year-old Hudson Falls native, said in a phone interview Friday. “It was a really big learning experience. I learned how to do the things professional players do to prepare, recover and eat right. That was the big takeaway for me, and how I can incorporate that into my game now.”
At 6-foot-4 and 200 pounds, Murphy presents an imposing figure in goal. Last season — his first at Union after transferring from Northeastern University — he racked up a 14-18-3 record, with a 2.66 goals-against average and a .919 save percentage. His 1,060 saves set a Dutchmen single-season record.
One area Murphy said he’s working on is reading how plays are developing in front of him, and keeping an awareness of where he is in the crease.
“I’m working on controlling my depth — when a play is coming in, I tend to get a little bit aggressive and I get out too far in the crease,” he said. “I’m learning to sit back a little more and control where I can get across if there’s a pass. I’m learning to read the play better, get my eyes on the puck first and see where they’re going, turning my head quicker — little details to tune up. As long as I can get those things dialed in, I’ll be pretty good, but there’s always things to work on.”
Continued; I’m not sure whether the big goaltender will have pro aspirations unless he delivers a superb senior season at Union College, but he’s massive at 6’4″ and 201 pounds, and he may have had the best fundamentals of any of the goaltenders who was in camp–he was just a little slow and lumbering.
If he takes the lessons that Wings goalie coach Phil Osaer and the coaching staff imparted upon him, and executes them successfully, he may yet impress a professional team.
Now I have a story to tell, and I’m gonna tell it after this note from the New York Post’s Larry Brooks:
So maybe the Red Wings will never erect a statue of Sergei Fedorov outside their arena, but have not the statute of limitations run out on the transcendent center’s 1998 perceived offer sheet transgression with Carolina?
It is surely past time for Detroit to retire Fedorov’s No. 91.
Brooks continues; and here’s the story that I have been told (and it’s late July, so you get this one, but I do NOT like to tread in this kind of talk of, “Lies, rumors and innuendo” any more):
Continue reading A bit of Fedorov scuttlebutt for your Saturday evening readingDetroit Hockey Now’s hockey writers have ventured to the periphery of the Red Wings’ prospect system over the past couple of days, and today’s entry from Kevin Allen is no different: he scouts center Owen Mehlenbacher, who the Red Wings selected 201st overall in the 2022 draft.
Mehlenbacher was essentially scouted in the Wings’ backyard, posting 17 goals, 25 assists and 42 points in 52 games for the USHL’s Muskegon Lumberjacks, and he’s headed to the University of Wisconsin this upcoming season.
The 6’2,” 190-pound Mehlenbacher took part in the Wings’ summer development camp, and while his excellent reach stood out, he, 212th overall pick Brennan Ali and 137th overall pick Tnias Mathurin all looked incredibly raw and all of 18 years old.
Mehlenbacher (Wisconsin) and Ali (Notre Dame) can’t participate in the prospect tournament due to their NCAA eligibility being on the line, so, as Allen notes, the Red Wings made an educated decision in picking the big center:
Continue reading DHN’s Allen scouts big Owen Mehlenbacher