The Malik Report

The Red Wings tried to rebound from a difficult road loss in St. Louis on Friday night, heading to Ball Arena to battle one of the NHL’s best teams in the Colorado Avalanche.

The Red Wings lost their third straight game in ugly fashion, dropping a 7-3 decision to the Avs that could have been far closer, had the Red Wings made fewer mistakes…and it could have been a lot worse, had the Avs finished on a few more of their chances.

There were the ironic goals against, like Darren Helm’s breakaway goal on Thomas Griess (who was pulled), there were scares (like Lucas Raymond getting kneed and leaving the ice for five minutes) and there was a lot of learning being done by a Red Wings team that hasn’t played teams like the caliber of the Blues or Avs yet.

The Wings and Avs will meet again at Little Caesars Arena on December 20th, and here is hoping that the Red Wings get their shit together by a week from Monday.

They’ve got a 3-day break to grow upon before playing their 5 final pre-Christmas games, 3 of which will be held at home.

Continue reading Red Wings-Avs quick take: Make it three disappointing losses in a row

Red Wings prospects Sebastian Cossa and Donovan Sebrango are taking part in the Canadian World Junior selection camp in Calgary this week; Carter Mazur and Red Savage will take part in Team USA’s WJC selection camp in Plymouth next week; Frolunda’s Simon Edvinsson and Theodor Niederbach have been named to the Swedish WJC team; and Eemil Viro has been named to the Finnish WJC team.

According to the Acadie-Bathurst Titan, Red Wings prospect and goaltender Jan Bednar has joined the fray:

Acadie-Bathurst Titan goaltender Jan Bednar has been named to the Czech Republic’s National Junior Team selection camp.

The 19-year-old from Karlovy, Czech Republic is among 28 players invited to the camp ahead of the 2022 World Junior Hockey Championship. The selection camp runs from December 15-25 in Red Deer, Alberta while the tournament itself gets underway on boxing day. The Czech staff will need to make three cuts before announcing the final roster for the tournament.

In his second season with the Titan, Bednar is 9-8-0 in 18 starts with a .898 save percentage and a 3.21 goals-against-average. The big six-foot-four, 196-pound netminder also has three assists this season which is the most among QMJHL goaltenders.

Czech Republic will play two exhibition games in preparation against the United States (December 20th) and Switzerland (December 23rd). They’ll open the World Juniors against Canada on December 26th at 8pm AST.

Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff posted a pre-game Red Wings notebook in which he notes that Red Wings forward Lucas Raymond has been particularly productive away from Little Caesars Arena:

Every day, the Detroit Red Wings and the NHL are learning something new about first-year forward Lucas Raymond. Here’s another nugget to file away – the kid is a road warrior. Of his NHL rookie-leading 24 points, Raymond, 19, has gathered exactly two-thirds of that total – 16 points – while the Red Wings are skating away from home.

“I haven’t thought of it that way,” Red Wings coach Jeff Blashill said. “I judge his game more than I judge his points, so I wouldn’t say that’s how I judge it necessarily.”

Strill, it’s difficult not to be impressed by how well Raymond is performing when the Wings are away for home. He’s definitely taking his show on the road. In 14 home games at Little Caesars Arena, Raymond is accounting for five goals and 3 assists. However, during 14 away contests, he’s compiling 5-11-16 numbers.

Clearly, playing in some tough rinks such as Boston’s TD Garden and Washington’s Capital One Arena aren’t proving to be intimidatng to the Swedish teenager. His teammates think that Raymond’s approach to hockey and to life in general, are probably playing a role in his success any he’s playing.

Continued

The Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan posted a game-day notebook discussing some of the Red Wings’ post-game comments after last night’s loss to the St. Louis Blues:

“We didn’t play horribly,” said forward Robby Fabbri, who scored both Wings goals. “We gave up some things but we worked and sustained some pressure in the offensive zone. We just didn’t get enough bodies at the net.”

That was the stark difference between the Blues and the Wings.

The bigger, physical Blues parked themselves often in front of goaltender Alex Nedeljkovic and made life difficult. Nedeljkovic was pulled after two periods. Blues forward Dakota Joshua (Dearborn) had two assists and was one of many Blues forwards disrupting down low.

The Wings, on the flip side, didn’t do so nearly enough.

“They were harder at the net, and they had a better net presence than us,” Wings coach Jeff Blashill said. “That’s the one thing if you look at all their goals, they did a real good job at the net. We lost our game a little bit in the third, especially in our zone on a couple of big breakdowns. (But) we couldn’t find ways to create good enough chances, because not enough net presence.”

Continued, with several other topics…

Hey everybody, I just wanted to let you know that I appreciated your well-wishes when I was particularly ill earlier this week.

I have managed to recover well enough to at least be able to sit up and type, which is half the battle for this job. I’m going to continue to battle through the fatigue and pain I’m dealing with (I’ve had a lot of weird back pain in particular) as I try to vanquish my sniffles and regain a measure of health.

In the interim, I’ll try to be as consistent as possible content-wise, though I am hoping that the three-day break between tonight’s road game in Colorado and the home stand that opens on Tuesday vs. the Islanders will afford me a bit of rest time.

Please do let me know if you want me to do a prospect catch-up or whether you’re interested in some late player grades over the weekend. I’m still catching up myself (I have over 350 Google Mail alerts to go through), but after spending the better part of four days curled up in bed, it’s good to be back at work.

The Griffins play the Moose tonight at 8 PM EST:

Of Red Wings prospect-related note this afternoon:

In the Swedish Allsvenskan, Filip Larsson stopped 17 of 20 shots in HV71 Jonkoping’s 4-3 overtime win over MoDo;

And Albin Grewe returned to Mora IK’s lineup after battling a concussion for a couple of weeks, finishing even with 2 shots and a penalty taken during Mora’s 3-0 win over Tingsryds IF.

The Detroit Red Wings will see a familiar face in the opposition lineup in one Darren Helm as his Colorado Avalanche host Detroit this evening (9 PM EST start on Bally Sports Detroit Plus/Altitude/97.1 FM), and the Avs’ website posted a set of video clips this afternoon, of which the following might be the most interesting:

If you want to watch JT Compher or coach Jared Bednar speak with the media, enjoy:

Continue reading Avs’ pregame videos include Darren Helm discussing reunion with Wings

From the Red Wings:

DETROIT ASSIGNS WITKOWSKI TO GRAND RAPIDS  

… Michigan Native Previously Logged 65 Games with Detroit from 2017-19 …

DETROIT – The Detroit Red Wings today assigned defenseman Luke Witkowski to the American Hockey League’s Grand Rapids Griffins.

Witkowski, 31, has skated in 17 games with the Griffins this season, picking up one point and 43 penalty minutes. The Holland, Mich., native is in his second stint with the Red Wings after previously spending two seasons with the Red Wings from 2017-19 and picking up six points (1-5-6) and 86 penalty minutes in 65 games. Witkowski rejoined the organization in the offseason after serving as captain of the AHL’s Syracuse Crunch in 2020-21, posting two points (0-2-2), a plus-eight rating and 32 penalty minutes in 14 games before his season was cut short due to injury. In 2019-20, Witkowski appeared in 12 games with the eventual Stanley Cup-champion Tampa Bay Lightning, logging three points (1-2-3) and 13 penalty minutes while adding six points (2-4-6), a plus-12 rating and 63 penalty minutes in 29 games with the Crunch. Over nine professional seasons, Witkowski has notched 13 points (2-11-13) and 162 penalty minutes in 131 NHL games between Detroit and Tampa Bay and 48 points (9-39-48), a plus-31 rating and 662 penalty minutes in 278 AHL games with Syracuse and Grand Rapids

Originally drafted by the Lightning in the sixth round (160th overall) of the 2008 NHL Entry Draft, Witkowski spent four seasons at Western Michigan University, where he won a CCHA championship in 2012 with Jeff Blashill as his head coach and was teammates with Red Wings defensemen Danny DeKeyser (2010-13) and Jordan Oesterle (2011-13). Witkowski was also a CCHA Second-Team All-Star as a senior in 2013 prior to signing his first professional contract and ended his collegiate career with 38 points (7-31-38), a plus-seven rating and 235 penalty minutes in 152 games from 2009-13. Witkowski also spent two seasons in the USHL from 2007-09, combining for 35 points (9-26-35), a plus-20 rating and 257 penalty minutes in 113 games between the Ohio Junior Blue Jackets and the Fargo Force, where he served as captain in 2008-09 and was a USHL All-Star.

The Grand Rapids Griffins are spending this weekend in sunny Winnipeg, Manitoba, where the Griffins will play a back-to-back slate of games against the Manitoba Moose.

As forward Kyle Criscuolo and defensemen Luke Witkowski and Brian Lashoff have been recalled by Detroit, the Griffins signed winger Max Humitz to a pro try-out on Wednesday, and today, they signed center Josh Dickinson and defenseman Randy Gazzola from Toledo of the ECHL.

Meanwhile in Toledo, the Walleye signed scoring forward Mitchell Heard, who’s 29 and has posted point-per-game totals at the ECHL level, after things didn’t work out for Heard in the German League.