The Grand Rapids Griffins always sign a fair number of unrestricted free agents to AHL/ECHL contracts during the final months of the regular season, and 25-year-old Drew Worrad, a 6’2,” 185-pound graduate of Western Michigan University, hopes to round out the Griffins’ roster.
This morning, the Griffins posted a 2021-2022 season in review article regarding Worrad’s short time spent with the Griffins this past season, as well as a highlight clip:
MLive’s Ansar Khan attempts to determine what the Red Wings’ forward lines might look like when the 2022-2023 regular season begins.
Khan notes that the Red Wings have more players than they presently need, assuming that they start the season with the 13 forwards currently signed (and Robby Fabbri on injured reserve):
The Detroit Red Wings, following Steve Yzerman’s free-agent signing spree, have a crowded roster, more NHL players than they can fit under the 23-man limit. That’s even with Robby Fabbri (ACL surgery) and Jake Walman (shoulder surgery) starting the season on injured reserve.
Yzerman might need to pare down the roster with a trade. A couple of players with NHL experience might be waived. A couple more who are waiver-exempt will be hard-pressed to make the season-opening roster.
It’s a good problem for new head coach Derek Lalonde. He inherits a deeper roster than his predecessor, Jeff Blashill, and will have several options for line combinations and defense pairings.
Injuries out of training camp and the preseason always play a factor. But here is a projection of what Lalonde’s forward lines might look like when the Red Wings open the season Oct. 14 against the Montreal Canadiens at Little Caesars Arena:
Continued (dig in)…
Red Wings 2022 draft pick Anton Johansson, the 105th overall pick in the 2022 draft, spoke with Hockeysverige.se’s Ronnie Ronnqvist recently. Here’s a rough translation of their conversation:
Anton Johansson has been drafted by Detroit: “Kronwall said congratulations”
Continue reading Roughly translated: Wings 2022 pick Anton Johansson speaks with Hockeysverige.seAnton Johansson was one of the Swedes that was picked in the 2022 NHL Draft. He now tells Hockeysverige.se about the excitement of being picked by the Detroit Red Wings.
“It felt incredible, and I was probably in shock for a while,” says the 18-year-old.
LEKSAND (Hockeysverige.se)
No less than three players from Djurgarden, Jonathan Lekkerimaki, Liam Ohgren and Noah Ostlund, were picked in the first round of the draft. Additionally, in the fourth round, another player who has played many seasons with Djurgarden, but who now earns his hockey education with Leksand, was picked: Anton Johansson.
“I had spoken a lot with Arizona and Montreal. They called a week or so before the draft and asked some simple questions,” says Anton Johansson when Hockeysverige.se meets him for an interview during Leksand’s famous hockey school.
“On the other hand, I didn’t see Detroit coming, but it feels incredibly good to join such a Swedish team.”
Western Michigan University senior Cedric Fielder impressed as a free agent try-out at last week’s Red Wings summer development camp. On Sunday, he spoke with WOOD TV8’s Marlee Wierda regarding his experiences at the Wings’ summer development camp, as well as his expectations for the upcoming NCAA season:
Detroit Hockey Now continues its audit of the Red Wings organization’s prospects this evening, and Bob Duff introduces us to defenseman Gustav Berglund, who bounced around the SHL, J20 league and Swedish Allsvenskan this past season:
The 21-year-old Berglund tends to get lost in the shuffle of Wings defensive prospects from Sweden, and he was one of the few Europeans to not take part in the summer development camp last week, as Duff notes:
There were high hopes for Berglund as a sleeper pick when the Wings claimed him late in the 2019 NHL entry draft from Frolunda. That’s the same organization responsible for producing Red Wings rookie sensation Lucas Raymond and top prospects Simon Edvinsson and Elmer Soderblom.
While acknowledging that there appears to be a well of potential in Berglund, Red Wings European scout Hakan Andersson gave a frank admission that Berglund has encountered off-ice issues in the past.
“He moved to Frolunda and had a tough time living on his own,” Andersson explained. “He didn’t eat properly, he was tired, didn’t train as hard. They had to straighten him out a little bit.”
At best, Berglund was projecting to be a third-pairing rearguard in the NHL. With so many defensive prospects now in the system, it’s looking as though many are passing by him on Detroit’s depth chart.
Detroit GM Steve Yzerman treasures players with high levels of hockey IQ and work ethic. It’s entirely possible that Yzerman isn’t all that interested in investing a lot of time and energy in a player who has shown evidence in the past that he’s not willing to invest in himself.
“Yzerman is pretty strict,” Andersson said. “He wants competitive players, too. There’s no dogs. Sometimes you draft a guy with high talent but they don’t compete.”
Continued; Berglund could be a wild card prospect, certainly, but at this point, the 6’2,” 201-pound defenseman is not a likely graduate of the SHL right now.
DobberHockey.com posted a massive set of 21 fantasy hockey rambles, and, according to one Michael Clifford, the Red Wings’ key free agent signing was Andrew Copp, from both on-ice and fantasy hockey perspectives:
5. The biggest mover during Day 1 of Free Agent Frenzy had to be the Detroit Red Wings. They had over $30M in cap space entering the day and have a pretty clean cap sheet moving forward. It didn’t take them long to get busy as Andrew Copp‘s signing was announced almost immediately at 12:00 ET. Throughout the day, they added David Perron, Dominik Kubalik, Ben Chiarot, and Olli Mattta. In one day, GM Steve Yzerman quite literally added an entire forward line and a defense pair. I would quibble with some of the values – I do not think Chiarot is worth $4.75M for four years – but this was a team desperate for depth and added a lot of quality.
Adding Copp as the second-line center is the biggest note here. Since the retirement of Henrik Zetterberg, this team has not had a competent center to play behind Dylan Larkin; certainly not one that can play 18-19 minutes a night with good offensive contributions and penalty killing ability. With Perron added and the skill that already exists, Copp’s raw points upside is capped because of lack of power-play exposure. All the same, this was a big need for them and Copp should fare well there.
The additional scoring is important for them, but who does it help in fantasy? Well, the goalies, for starters (zing!). Whether the team improved defensively, well, we’ll get to that in a second. But the ability to score more goals throughout the lineup will only help the goalies rack up wins. If Larkin/Bertuzzi had an off-night, and the goalies weren’t stellar, they weren’t winning games. Having secondary scoring to pick up the top guns will help the goalies in that vital Win column. (This isn’t an exaggeration, either – Alex Nedeljkovic had 18 games where he allowed at least four goals and lost all of them. Jack Campbell won over 20% of his games where he allowed at least four. A team being able to score helps the goalie’s wins stats.)
More than that, it’s improvements to the power play that should help the skaters, fantasy-wise. Larkin had just 13 PPPs (!) in 71 games despite being featured on the top unit all season. Detroit had one of the worst power plays in the league, and as I mentioned in my write-up on Perron, they added one of the top wingers in hockey when it comes to goal-driving with the man advantage. Larkin was just a couple points shy of being a point-per-game player in 2021-22. Any bets he can be a point-per-game guy if that top PP unit improves to even just league average? (july14)
Continued; yes, Copp can be that valuable going forward. It’s not about scoring points (per se) for Copp–filling in that 2nd line, 2-way yeoman center’s role frees up Larkin, it frees up the 3rd line to generate more offense, and it allows the 4th line (which will likely be centered by Michael Rasmussen) to take some chances from time to time.
The Red Wings needed depth, depth, depth and more depth during free agency, and Copp may indeed be “the guy that pushes them over the top” in terms of possessing real depth up the middle of the ice.
I almost feel badly for Red Wings free agent signing Pontus Andreasson from Lulea of the SHL, because he didn’t sign with the Red Wings whose roster has been assembled by GM Steve Yzerman’s free agency signings. He signed with a much thinner, shallower Wings team, hoping to make the team out of training camp, and it’s not certain by any means whether Andreasson will steal somebody’s job come September.
That being said, the 23-year-old forward is someone to watch over the course of the upcoming season, and the Hockey News’s Ian Kennedy named Andreasson to his list of European free agents “which should make an impact“:
Pontus Andreasson, F (Detroit): At 23, Andreasson still has time to become an NHL contributor. He was second in SHL rookie of the year voting showcasing his skating skills and ability to finish around the net. Andreasson scored 18 goals with Lulua during the regular season and had 13 points in 13 playoff games. With Red Wings super-scout Hakan Andersson following Andreasson this season, the Wings certainly did their due diligence and feel Andreasson has NHL upside. He’ll likely join Grand Rapids in the AHL this season, but don’t expect him to be ignored for too long.
From the NHLPA: Red Wings defenseman Jake Walman has chosen to file for salary arbitration:
24 PLAYERS ELECT SALARY ARBITRATION
TORONTO (July 17, 2022) – The National Hockey League Players’ Association announced that 24 players have elected Salary Arbitration:
Mason Appleton (Winnipeg Jets)
Ethan Bear (Carolina Hurricanes)
Jesper Bratt (New Jersey Devils)
Lawson Crouse (Arizona Coyotes)
Morgan Geekie (Seattle Kraken)
Mathieu Joseph (Ottawa Senators)
Kaapo Kahkonen (San Jose Sharks)
Kasperi Kapanen (Pittsburgh Penguins)
Keegan Kolesar (Vegas Golden Knights)
Oliver Kylington (Calgary Flames)
Maxime Lajoie (Carolina Hurricanes)
Steven Lorentz (San Jose Sharks)
Isac Lundestrom (Anaheim Ducks)
Zack MacEwen (Philadelphia Flyers)
Niko Mikkola (St. Louis Blues)*
Andrew Mangiapane (Calgary Flames)
Matthew Phillips (Calgary Flames)
Jesse Puljujarvi (Edmonton Oilers)
Tyce Thompson (New Jersey Devils)
Yakov Trenin (Nashville Predators)
Vitek Vanecek (New Jersey Devils)
Jake Walman (Detroit Red Wings)
Kailer Yamamoto (Edmonton Oilers)
Pavel Zacha (Boston Bruins)
USA Today’s Mary Clarke posted a light-hearted article which attempts to rank the 30 “mascots” which are associated with NHL teams, and while nobody wears a big, purple suit to walk around Little Caesars Arena, I’d certainly like to see more of this guy, soon:
10. Al the Octopus: Detroit Red Wings
Though not a mascot by the standard definition anymore, Al the Octopus rocks. Al is yet another NHL mascot tied into its team’s traditions but the Red Wings pull it off wonderfully with a giant octopus that descends from the rafters. Here’s hoping we get to see Al the Octopus at a Red Wings game again in the near future.
Continued (with Gritty as #1); I wish that the Red Wings would employ Al the Octopus on a much more regular basis, not saving him for playoff time almost exclusively.
Kids love that big, purple thing, adults love that big, purple thing, and while I don’t want to see a mascot walking around the rink, “Al” would make a great secondary logo on an alternate jersey, for example.
The Hockey News’s Jason Chen admittedly issues “hot takes” on the biggest signings from the first four days of unrestricted free agency this summer, and the three scoring forwards the Red Wings added make his list:
Andrew Copp, Detroit Red Wings, 5 years, $28.125 million
David Perron, Detroit Red Wings, 2 years, $9.5 million
Dominik Kubalik, Detroit Red Wings, 2 years, $5 millionCopp will slot in as [Detroit’s] No. 2 center behind Dylan Larkin, and along with Perron and Kubalik, the Wings basically bought themselves another scoring line. Their additions capped off a big day for Steve Yzerman’s club, and along with a bolstered defense and goaltending should fare much better this coming season. Copp and Perron are already proven contributors, but note that Perron has historically had his best seasons with the Blues. Kubalik has a bit more to prove, having fallen off a bit after a 30-goal rookie season, but he’s leaving behind a train wreck in Chicago. Value: Copp and Perron, even; Kubalik, up.
Continued; at this point, I think it’s more likely that Copp plays alongside Jakub Vrana and Perron, but that’s just a guess in mid-July.
