Red Wings-Avs morning skate Tweets: Wings face uphill battle vs. Avs, who will be without Kadri and Byram tonight

The Detroit Red Wings face a difficult opponent tonight in the Colorado Avalanche (9 PM EST start on Bally Sports Detroit/Altitude/97.1 FM), and the Avs’ morning skate happens to be in flux this early afternoon, Detroit time…

As the Avs are without two key contributors…

So…

You can take from this what you will:

Wouldn’t it stink to play spoiler?

Anyway, after the Avs’ morning skate, coach Jared Bednar confirmed the lineup tweaks:

F Nazem Kadri is day-to-day and won’t play tonight.— Kate Shefte (@KateShefte) December 10, 2021

J.T. Compher’s missed 11 games. He’s officially good to go. pic.twitter.com/GnCRPNoR2L— Kate Shefte (@KateShefte) December 10, 2021

Kurtis “Big Mac” MacDermid in as a forward tonight, Jacob “Littler Mac” MacDonald in on D— Adrian Dater (@adater) December 10, 2021

Darcy Kuemper starts tonight— Adrian Dater (@adater) December 10, 2021

Update:

#Avs forward Darren Helm on what the city of Detroit means to him: “It’s home.”

He’ll play against the Red Wings for the first tonight.— Peter Baugh (@Peter_Baugh) December 10, 2021

NHL.com’s “On tap” feature focuses on tonight’s Wings-Avs game…

Continue reading Red Wings-Avs morning skate Tweets: Wings face uphill battle vs. Avs, who will be without Kadri and Byram tonight

The Athletic’s power rankings remind us that Raymond probably isn’t going to the Olympics

Bally Sports Detroit’s Ken Daniels informed us that the Red Wings have the hardest “strength of schedule” in terms of their opponents among NHL teams, and this morning, The Athletic’s Dom Luszczyszyn and Sean Gentille are here to remind us that the Swedish Ice Hockey Association did not include Lucas Raymond on their 55-man master roster for the 2022 Olympics:

20. Detroit Red Wings

Record: 13-11-3
Last Week: 19
Dom rank: 20
Sean rank: 19

Dom: Lucas Raymond had two assists in a 6-2 loss against the Blues, a nice reminder of how great he’s been in his rookie season and a sad reminder that he will not be an Olympian for Sweden. The long lists? I don’t like them!

Sean: Oh readers, I wish you could’ve seen Dom’s face when I told him that all signs point to Raymond staying home during the tournament. In the Red Wings’ next seven games, they play the Avs twice, the Rangers, the Hurricanes and the Wild. We’ll know everything we need to know about them after that.

Continued; we’ll see what happens.

Tweet of note: Das stimmt

If you’re interested on a Friday morning Tweet from NHL.com/de, in which Roman Josi praises Moritz Seider:

“He’s very big, a good skater and he plays hard. He gives good passes and is strong on the power play. An unbelievable player for his age”–Roman Josi on Moritz Seider. https://t.co/xRBx9XGmu9— George Malik (@georgemalik) December 10, 2021

Red Wings-Avs mini preview: a stiff task ahead tonight in Denver

The Detroit Red Wings have a very stiff task ahead of them in facing the Colorado Avalanche tonight in Denver (9 PM EST start on Bally Sports Detroit Plus/Altitude/97.1 FM), playing their 3rd game in 4 nights tonight.

The 13-11-and-3 Red Wings are coming off a 6-2 loss to the St. Louis Blues, Detroit is 4-8-and-1 away from Little Caesars Arena thus far this season; our friends from Colorado sit at 14-7-and-2 over the course of only 23 games played to Detroit’s 27 games played, and the Avs are on a two-game winning streak, having most recently taken a 7-3 decision from the New York Rangers on Wednesday evening.

Field Level Media posted a game preview which has quite a bit of bluster about the old days of the Wings-Avs rivalry before getting down to brass tacks regarding both teams’ present-day rosters:

Continue reading Red Wings-Avs mini preview: a stiff task ahead tonight in Denver

A little WJC catch-up: Edvinsson, Niederbach, Sebrango, Cossa, Mazur and Savage seem to be WJC locks, but Wallinder is missing

While I was under the weather this week, Team Sweden named Simon Edvinsson and Theodor Niederbach to their World Junior Team, Eemil Viro was named to Finland’s World Junior roster, Donovan Sebrango and Sebastian Cossa departed the AHL and WHL, respectively, for Hockey Canada’s World Junior Selection Camp in Calgary, and Carter Mazur and Red Savage will be taking part in Team USA’s selection camp in Plymouth next week.

All seven of the Wings’ WJC camp participants are fairly likely to earn spots at the WJC, with Sebrango being a bit of an outlier for Canada, but you’ll notice that one name isn’t there–Sweden’s William Wallinder, who plays defense for Rogle BK, wasn’t named to Sweden’s roster.

While I can’t sneak behind the paywall, Kvallsposten’s Linus Vedmar wrote an article this morning which addresses Wallinder’s notable absence from Team Sweden coach Tomas Monten’s team, and Hockeysverige.se’s Mans Karlsson wrote a similar article regarding Monten’s decision to omit Wallinder from his team.

So there are at least some grumbles regarding Wallinder’s omission.

Update: As IceHockeyGifs on Twitter notes…

William Wallinder on the WJC snub:

“- I’ve developed a lot in Rögle. I’m happy with my performance which makes me even more disappointed to not be selected.”

Kronwall’s advice?

“-Just let it go and focus on Rögle. Which is what I will do.”#LGRW https://t.co/wZWtheqRE1— IcehockeyGifs (@IcehockeyG) December 10, 2021

Wallinder says that he is doubly disappointed because he was included in last year’s Swedish team, but had to stay home due to a positive coronavirus test.

Khan in the morning: Wings weren’t good enough vs. St. Louis

MLive’s Ansar Khan posted his customary morning-after-the-game column today, discussing the Red Wings’ 6-2 loss to the St. Louis Blues on Thursday night. As Khan notes, two-goal-scorer Robby Fabbri and coach Jeff Blashill weren’t overly disappointed in the Wings’ team game against the Blues, but an inability to execute bit the Wings in the backside on more than one occasion. That was especially the case for Alex Nedeljkovic, who gave up 3 goals on 18 shots and took the loss:

“To me it was one of those nights where the puck seemed to go in,” Blashill said. “It wasn’t necessarily anybody’s fault. We had breakdowns, don’t get me wrong, but they had breakdowns where we had chances and the puck didn’t go in. For them it did.”

Blashill said his team had as many opportunities, if not more than the Blues, who got a 29-save performance from Charlie Lindgren.

“I thought they were harder at the net, and they had a better net presence than us,” Blashill said. “That’s the one thing if you look at all their goals, they did a real good job at the net. I thought we lost our game a little bit in the third, especially in our zone on a couple of big breakdowns. But it wasn’t a game where I was disappointed with our effort. Again, I thought through two periods it probably should’ve been a tie game or a one-goal game one way or the other.”

After [Nathan] Walker scored twice in the first period, Fabbri cut his team’s deficit to 2-1 at 4:17 of the second.

Even after Colton Parayko scored at 16:01 of the second to give the Blues back their two-goal lead, the Red Wings had ample time to mount a comeback.

Those hopes were all but dashed when Walker deflected in a shot at 9:27 of the third period to give St. Louis a 4-1 lead.

“I thought we didn’t play horrible tonight,” Fabbri said. “We gave up some things, but we worked, we sustained some pressure in the O-zone. We just didn’t get enough bodies in front of the net. Lindgren was seeing a lot of the shots, so we made it easy for him.”

Continued

Red Wings-Blues wrap-up: It’s no fun to be the big bully that the underdog defeats

The Detroit Red Wings struggled en route to a 6-2 loss to the St. Louis Blues on Thursday night, and the Red Wings will have to get right back at ‘er on Friday as the Wings visit the high-octane Colorado Avalanche (9 PM EST start on Bally Sports Detroit Plus/Altitude/97.1 FM).

Thursday’s game was a strange one: the Red Wings actually out-shot St. Louis 31-26, out-attempted St. Louis 51-48, and the Wings were monsters in the faceoff circle, going 27-and-16…

But the shots don’t matter if the goaltender sees them all, and the faceoff wins don’t count in the long term if you ultimately lose possession early and often in the neutral zone.

So the 13-11-and-3 Red Wings fell to an ugly 4-8-and-1 away from Little Caesars Arena this season, and with 5 road games and 4 home games remaining in this month’s schedule, the Wings are going to earn ample practice time at righting their “biggest wrong” in their road record by the time 2021 is over.

On Thursday night, the Wings served as the foil for a St. Louis Blues team decimated by COVID protocols, injuries and the salary cap, playing with 17 skaters and an ECHL-starting netminder so it would be appropriate that a Welsh-born, Australian-raised forward would score the hat trick that made all the difference for the shorthanded Blues.

As In the Slot’s Louie Korac noted, it was Nathan Walker’s night on Thursday in St. Louis:

Continue reading Red Wings-Blues wrap-up: It’s no fun to be the big bully that the underdog defeats

Red Wings-Blues quick take: When you lay an egg, lay it thoroughly

The Detroit Red Wings attempted to rebound from Tuesday’s disappointing loss to Nashville by taking advantage of a severely shorthanded St. Louis Blues team.

Perhaps not-so-bafflingly given the Red Wings’ struggles vs. Nashville on Tuesday, the Red Wings laid an egg on Thursday, losing 6-2 to Nathan Walker (who scored a hat trick) and a 17-skater Blues team. Robby Fabbri scored both of Detroit’s goals, and Alex Nedeljkovic was pulled after 2 periods and 3 goals against on 18 St. Louis shots faced.

The Red Wings actually out-shot St. Louis 31-26 and out-attempted the Blues 61-48, but Danny DeKeyser and Dan Renouf were -3 on a team that finished -21 overall, which means that the Wings gave up the vast majority of their goals against at even strength.

The Wings are horrible on the road, technically speaking, and they’ll have to re-set in a big way ahead of tomorrow night’s game vs. a very good Avalanche team.

Continue reading Red Wings-Blues quick take: When you lay an egg, lay it thoroughly