Red Wings’ Carley Johnston interviews Lucas Raymond on Instagram

DetroitRedWings.com’s Carley Johnston interviewed Wings prospect Lucas Raymond on Instagram this morning. The interview was posted on the Wings’ Instagram account, and it’s 21 minutes long:

97.1’s Burchfield profiles Red Wings prospect Jan Bednar

97.1 the Ticket’s Will Burchfield profiles Red Wings draft pick Jan Bednar, a 6’4″ Czech goalie, this morning:

“I think I’m a really calm goalie,” he said on a Zoom call with local media Thursday, his first-ever interview in English. “I like puckhandling, (making) plays with the puck. I’m a big goalie and I like big goalies and yeah, I think I’m a little athletic, but it’s not the most important thing for me. I need speed. And I just think I’m so calm in the net.”

To that end, Bednar said he spent most of this summer working on his ‘speed and agility.’ Rebound control and active hands were two more points of focus. He played the past two seasons in the top professional league in the Czech Republic, making his first appearance at the age of 16. “It was great experience,” he said.

Bednar will spend the coming season with the Acadie–Bathurst Titan of Quebec Major Junior, after the club selected him second overall in this year’s CHL draft. He told reporters in July it will be a “good step” toward the NHL: “small rink, more shots, and many hard situations for goalies.”

There’s a lot to like about Bednar, and just as much room for Bednar to grow. He turned 18 in August and remains a long way from Detroit. He’s the youngest of a trio of goalies in the pipeline with big size and big(ish?) upside, after 21-year-old Keith Petruzzelli and 23-year-old Victor Brattstrom. They comprise the giant question mark in the crease for the Red Wings’ future.

Continued; here’s Bednar’s Zoom call:

Roughly translated: Moritz Seider discusses his situation in the SHL

Moritz Seider played 16 minutes and 22 seconds in his SHL debut with Rogle BK on Thursday, and afterward, he spoke with Rogle’s website regarding his first competitive hockey game in 7 months. Seider also spoke with Hockeysverige.se’s Mans Karlsson for a wide-ranging profile, which follows in roughly translated form:

Continue reading Roughly translated: Moritz Seider discusses his situation in the SHL

St. James profiles Kyle Aucoin and other later-round draft picks

The Detroit Red Wings slowly but surely conducted Zoom calls with the remainder of their 2020 draft picks on Thursday, affording beat writers the opportunity to speak with Jan Bednar, Kyle Aucoin, Alex Cotton and Chase Bradley.

The Free Press’s Helene St. James posted a write-up regarding each player, and, among her notes is the following:

D Kyle Aucoin, 6th round (No. 156)

No pressure at all on Aucoin, other than trying to emulate the greatest sixth-round pick in franchise history in Datsyuk, who won two Stanley Cups and played 953 games for the Wings. Also, there’s Aucoin’s dad, Adrian, a former defenseman who played more than 1,100 games in the NHL. Kyle (5-10, 164) is a smart two-way player and a strong skater. He’s committed to playing at Harvard starting in 2021-22. “Education has always been really important to me and my family,” he said. “That was the best of both worlds with a great hockey program and a great education.”

Aucoin has history with the Wings’ next pick. While their dads were battling at the NHL level, the boys were battling at the triple-A level. “(Kienan Draper) played on Little Caesars (Hockey Club) growing up and I was at Chicago Mission, so that was kind of like our rival team,” Aucoin said. “So we were playing almost every couple of weekends and it was always a battle. They had a great team, so it was pretty awesome he got picked. He texted me after and was, ‘We’re finally on the same side.’ So that’s cool.”

Continued

NHL.com’s Cotsonika discusses the Red Wings’ self-improvement campaign

When asked which team has improved itself the most over the course of free agency (thus far), NHL.com’s Nicholas J. Cotsonika makes the case for Steve Yzerman’s job so far with the Red Wings as the NHL’s best…

Nick Cotsonika

I’m going to lead off with a surprise: the Detroit Red Wings. Coming off a season when they had the worst record in the NHL since the salary cap arrived in 2005-06 (17-49-5, .275 points percentage), there is a lot of room for improvement. Under general manager Steve Yzerman, the Red Wings chose forward Lucas Raymond No. 4 in the NHL Draft with their highest pick since 1990 and selected 11 players in rounds 2-7, including three in the second and two in the third. They have signed goalie Thomas Greiss, defensemen Jon Merrill and Troy Stecher, and forwards Bobby Ryan and Vladislav Namestnikov to short-term, economical contracts as unrestricted free agents. And they have acquired defenseman Marc Staal and a second-round pick in the 2021 NHL Draft from the New York Rangers for future considerations, using cap space to their advantage. They’re early in their rebuild, not close to contending for the Stanley Cup, but they have taken smart steps forward.

And Cotsonika also penned an article in which he discusses Yzerman’s work in greater detail. This article is superb, and it’s worth your time:

Continue reading NHL.com’s Cotsonika discusses the Red Wings’ self-improvement campaign

A bit more about Wings prospect Alex Cotton

The Red Wings posted defenseman Alex Cotton’s Zoom call with the Wings’ beat writers this afternoon…

And this evening, the BC Local News’s Dan Ferguson posted a quote-light article discussing the second day of the draft, when Cotton realized that he’d been drafted by Detroit:

He was waiting with his family to see whether he would be tapped for the 2020 NHL Entry draft and before anyone else noticed, he saw his name come up on the video feed, and the name of the team that had drafted him.

“Oh, crap,” Cotton remembers saying. “Wow. I was pretty shocked.”

It was a mixture of disbelief and delight at being picked by the legendary Detroit Red wings.

“It’s unreal,” Cotton told the Langley Advance Times.

Cotton was selected 132nd in the fifth round of the 2020 draft on Wednesday, Oct. 7. by the Detroit franchise that has been home to legends like Gordie Howe, Ted Lindsay and Alex Delvecchio, to name just a few.

Continued

Veleno, Seider reflect on their respective SHL debuts

Neither Joe Veleno nor Moritz Seider had particularly busy debuts with the Malmo Redhawks or Rogle BK, respectively, on Thursday, but both players spoke to their new teams’ websites after their SHL debuts.

You can watch a 2-minute interview with Veleno via the Redhawks’ website here after playing 17:55 in Malmo’s 5-2 loss to HV71;

And Seider spoke with Rogle BK’s website for just under a minute and fifty seconds, after playing 16:22 in Rogle’s 2-1 loss to Brynas.