The Malik Report

When we talk about prospects, I like to talk about the concept of having “runway” with which to develop, meaning that the longer a prospect has to develop before his chances of making the jump to the NHL, the more “runway” he has.

Detroit Hockey Now’s Kevin Allen profiles Red Wings prospect and recently re-signed center Chase Pearson today, and Pearson, who is 24 going on 25 this August (and is 6’3″ and 203 pounds), very simply needs to make the jump to the Red Wings’ roster sometime this upcoming season, or he may need to pursue other opportunities.

He’s running out of runway at an alarming rate, as Allen notes:

The Detroit Red Wings brass may believe Chase Pearson can play in the NHL. What they don’t know is whether he can make a difference in the NHL.

Grand Rapids coach Ben Simon told Pearson at his season-ending meeting that his focus coming into the 2022-23 season must be on proving he has the drive to take that next step. Two seasons ago, Pearson had a strong AHL season. He posted eight goals and 22 points in 28 games. But last season, Pearson had less of an impact for the Griffins.

“We just have to make sure he’s ready to go next season,” Simon said.

Pearson, 24, did get three games with the Red Wings and didn’t look out of place. Even if he’s a bottom six forward, the Red Wings need him to do more than just blend in.

He’s a 6-foot-3 center with a strong understanding of how he needs to play to be effective.The Red Wings believe in him enough to sign him for another season. But they want to see more from him, more consistency and more production.

Allen continues, wondering aloud whether another team might pluck Pearson off the waiver wire if/when he’s sent to Grand Rapids this fall.

My assessment is that he would not be picked as a no-longer-waiver-exempt player, mostly because he experienced a bumpy 2021-2022 season, but I do believe that he’s going to be a fine checking-line center somewhere, and that his skill set and work ethic are NHL-worthy. I’m just no longer certain whether he’ll “make the jump” with the Red Wings.

Per NHL.com:

The Yzerplan is in full swing in Detroit. 🙌@NHLFantasy discusses the @DetroitRedWings & more in the most recent episode of Fantasy on Ice.

Listen ➡️ https://t.co/VS3dc4PHUn pic.twitter.com/Fc3XyIHkNR— NHL (@NHL) July 26, 2022

You can listen to the 50-minute podcast on various streaming platforms here.

Red Wings prospect and 2022 8th overall draft pick Marco Kasper spoke with Bally Sports Detroit’s Natalie Kerwin while attending the Wings’ summer development camp earlier this month:

A couple of days ago, the Kleine Zeitung in Austria posted a behind-the-paywall article discussing Red Wings 8th overall draft pick Marco Kasper and his relationship with his dad, Peter, who was a long-time professional hockey player.

Yesterday night, Hockey-News.info’s Markus Rinner lifted the veil on the article ever-so-slightly, revealing that the Buffalo Sabres, who picked right behind the Red Wings at 9th overall, really wanted to pick Kasper instead of Winnipeg Ice center Matt Savoie.

This is one of those “small detail, but you might be interested in it” articles.

Anyway, here’s a translation thereof:

Continue reading Roughly Translated: The Buffalo Sabres wanted Marco Kasper at 9th overall, but Detroit got their man with pick #8

Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman’s most polarizing signing this month is a simple answer: the signing of 31-year-old Ben Chiarot.

The big defenseman signed a 4-year, $19 million contract (with an average aggregate value of $4.75 million per season), and the contract includes a modified no-trade clause (per CapFriendly) over the course of the deal.

That’s a lot of money to be paying a defenseman on the Tylenol-taking side of 30. We’ll see how Chiarot performs as he accumulates hard miles on his odometer, but the history for big, tough defensemen in terms of an aging curve isn’t spectacular, so more than a few eyebrows were raised at the money and term that Yzerman gave the 6’3, 234-pound Chiarot.

This morning, The Athletic’s Dom Luszczyszyn ranks the Chiarot contract as the 10th-worst contract in the NHL today:

10. Ben Chiarot

Contract: $4.8M x four years

Surplus Value: -$16.2M

Positive Value Probability: 11.7 percent

Ben Chiarot is 31 years old. He plays a very rugged and punishing game. He is signed until he’s 35 for nearly $5 million per season. His best comps are Jack Johnson, Roman Polak, Dion Phaneuf, Brent Seabrook, Mark Stuart, Dan Girardi and a slew of other similarly-branded defencemen. Of his 25 best comps, over half were out of the league after two years.

This is not a good contract in any sense of the imagination. 

Is it bad enough to be on this list? It depends on how you calculate surplus value. The chart above shows a negative $16.2 million, but that imagines a low-end cutoff of the league minimum. As you can see on the left side of the chart, Chiarot’s market value — according to the model — falls well below that. The actual retail price is negative $23.7 million. 

But. That’s based on the model’s judgement of value. As has been often reported, Chiarot’s real value lies somewhere above that… and somewhere below what traditional hockey folks believe. That mid-point is a third-pairing defender, and $4.8 million is already a steep price for that. Add in his age, the term, and the comps that all scream limited utility and Chiarot is a player who belongs here. He can be worth it if traditional scouts are right about his game, or if he thrives in a more suitable role. For now, however, it’s a bit hard to see.

Continued; even Steve Yzerman makes mistakes from time to time (the Brendan Perlini for defensive prospect Alec Regula trade worked out spectacularly well for Chicago, who’s gotten a solid middle-pair defender in Regula)…

But it’s just too early for me to predict nothing but gloom and doom for the Red Wings because one defenseman’s been over-paid.

As they say, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Yesterday morning, one Red Wings prospect, Simon Edvinsson, cracked The Athletic’s Scott Wheeler’s Top 50 NHL Prospects (skaters) list.

This morning, Wheeler ranks the top 10 goaltending prospects under 25 years of age, and Sebastian Cossa finishes 3rd, behind Minnesota’s Jesper Wallstedt and Nashville’s Yaroslav Askarov:

3. Sebastian Cossa, G, 19 (Detroit Red Wings — No. 15, 2021): Between the Traverse City Prospects Tournament in September, a pair of Calgary camps with Canada in August and December, and the Memorial Cup in June, I’ve watched Cossa play live more than double-digit times this season. In those viewings, I’ve seen him look unflappable. I’ve also seen him look rattled as shots sneak through holes they shouldn’t be finding. The same was true this year for him in the WHL, where his previously-stellar numbers came back down to earth.

Cossa’s a huge (6-foot-6), powerful, athletic goalie and those last two things don’t always come with the first. He’s a fiery, confident, talkative competitor who doesn’t like to get beat (which contrasts with the stoic demeanour we see in many goalies) and wants to command the net and the room. Bigger goalies often struggle with their movements and their recoveries but neither are an issue for Cossa. His positioning (he does a really good job holding his outside edges to be patient on shots) and reflexes (he’s got great hands up high) help him block and grab a lot of pucks. But it’s his ability to bounce back into his stance or change directions with passes that separates him. His power through his pushes gives him rare side-to-side ability for a goalie as big as he is.

But there are also some question marks. Some of them are contextual, like how good the Oil Kings have been in front of him these last three years. But others are about the tools, including some of the trouble he faces closing his five-hole because of his size (this is a major recurring issue, even though he does a really good job kicking pucks aimed for the lower corners) and the way he can occasionally lose himself in his net on scramble plays (those strong pushes to get to tough lateral saves can pull him off his lines). He can get pulled out of his net overcommitting on dekes too. His natural gifts give him undeniable upside though. When he’s set and square to shots (as he almost always is), he’s tough to beat. I still think he’s got starter upside due to his combination of size, dexterity and rare explosiveness in the net, but I wouldn’t quite consider him in the same tier as Wallstedt or Askarov at this stage.

Continued (paywall); Cossa is definitely still somewhat raw in terms of the details of his technique, but he’s still only 19, and he’s been designed to win 2-1 and 3-2 games for the stacked Edmonton Oil Kings of the WHL while playing behind a stellar defense.

I’d argue that Cossa may need to play for a worse team than this past season’s WHL Champions/Memorial Cup-participating Oil Kings to really challenge himself as a still-blossoming pre-professional.

All of that being said, picking the “best” goaltender out of Wallstedt, Askarov and Cossa is like picking your favorite flavor of ice cream. It’s easy–just pick one.

Per a Tweet from DetroitRedWings.com’s Daniella Bruce comes a new episode of The Word on Woodward:

TSN Analyst @CraigJButton had great things to say about the moves the @DetroitRedWings made this offseason👀. We hit on each FA addition, the draft, training camp, & more. Click the link to hear all of Craig’s insight! This is a good one folks🚨 #LGRW
🎥: https://t.co/Up1KRFof1f pic.twitter.com/maPspD9Qsg— Daniella Bruce (@daniellabruce_) July 25, 2022

New Red Wings coach Derek Lalonde gave a 6-and-a-half-minute interview to The NHL Tonight, speaking about his hiring by the Red Wings and his journey to the head coaching job:

Former Red Wing and Woodward Sports Network host Darren McCarty weighed in on his expectations for the Red Wings this upcoming season today on the “Big D Energy” show:

The Red Wings signed 27-year-old defenseman Robert Hagg to a one-year, $800,000 contract today as Mark Pysyk suffered an offseason Achilles tendon injury which required surgery.

Hagg, a 6’2,” 205-pound defenseman, is known for his heavy hits, and the Uppsala, Sweden native spoke with Expressen’s Gunnar Nordstrom this evening regarding signing with Detroit. Here’s a rough translation of their conversation:

Eager to Help Detroit

Los Angeles. Robert Hagg, 27, was free to choose a new team in the NHL when his contract with the Florida Panthers expired this summer. Now, he’s made that choice. It’s the Detroit Red Wings.

“There were a few different options on the table, but I stuck with Detroit. Partly because of how the team looks and is structured, and also that there’s a big upside and a very exciting future there,” says Robert to SportExpressen.

On Monday, [Hagg] signed a one-year contract worth $800,000 dollars, which corresponds to about 8.2 million Swedish Krona.

The Red Wings are in the midst of a generational change and have drafted a slew of highly-rated talent over the course of recent seasons.

Some of them have already made the lineup, like Swedish forward Lucas Raymond, 20, and German defenseman Moritz Seider, 21, who won the Calder Trophy for his play in his 2021-2022 season debut.

In its pipeline, Detroit also has Swedish defensemen Simon Edvinsson, 19, Albert Johansson, 21, and Gustav Lindstrom, 23.

The fact that they get help from a Swedish compatriot with experience from several years of playing in the NHL can be an advantage.

“There are many talented players here, and it will be fun to get to know them all. I’m looking forward to getting over there and getting started,” says Hagg.

Is there any other particular reason that you got hooked on Detroit [as a destination]?

“It’s a young team, but with many players who’ve been in the league for several years and have gained experience.”