The Malik Report

The Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan filed a notebook article this afternoon, discussing the Red Wings’ relative luxury of having a (borderline) full lineup of players to utilize over the course of the team’s 3-game winning streak:

You can almost hear the coaching staff knocking on wood, but the Red Wings, heading into Thursday night’s game, essentially had a whole lineup.

Defenseman Troy Stecher is out with an undisclosed injury, but Stecher was alternating into the lineup, and hasn’t been a regular.

With Dylan Larkin returning from his family emergency, and Tyler Bertuzzi squarely into the lineup since there are no games in Canada (Bertuzzi is unvaccinated), the Red Wings can place personnel in the lineup where Blashill feels they’re most effective, and not have to slot players into roles that aren’t entirely comfortable or productive.

“When you are shorthanded you’re asking a lot of players at times to move up lineups and spots where they’re not ready for,” Blashill said. “When you have a full lineup, you can slot people into matchups where it allows them to be successful. It allows you to slot everyone in the right slots.”

Continued; the Red Wings play 6 more games over the course of the next 10 days, so the lineup has to stay healthy…

Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff posted a notebook article which discusses Red Wings coach Jeff Blashill’s update on defenseman Troy Stecher’s undisclosed injury:

“Stech has a number of options and one of which I think is that he’s gonna kind of go through the next couple of weeks and see how the injury reacts,” Red Wings coach Jeff Blashill expained. “He’s hoping that it becomes a pain tolerance thing.”

A week has already passed since Stecher’s injury was suffered during a 5-1 loss to the Boston Bruins. He’ll be missing from the lineup for a fourth straight game as the Wings are tangling with the Washington Capitals on Thursday at Little Caesars Arena.

One thing about the injury – it can’t get any worse. The question for the time being is apparently whether it’s already to the point where it’s bad enough that Stecher can’t perform effectively.

“It’s not something that he can hurt further,” Blashill said. “If it doesn’t react right, he’s either going to have to take significant time off, or have surgery. The other choice – that’s two of them – the third choice is give it a couple of days here and see if he can play through the pain and if the pain will subside at all. We’ll just keep taking it day by day.”

Continued; in this type of situation, I’m guessing that going for surgery might yield the least time for Stecher to recover.

Here’s a promotional Tweet worth noting:

Make sure you come early on Saturday to get the first bobble in our Champion Bobble series! The first bobblehead is of two-time Calder Cup Champion, Mitch Callahan! #GoGRG

Tickets >> https://t.co/YjJxKktFsa pic.twitter.com/QzipqgRcRO— Grand Rapids Griffins (@griffinshockey) November 11, 2021

Aaron Wilbur, the founder of The Coaches’ Site, has launched a podcast called “Glass and Out,” and his latest podcast involves Red Wings coach Jeff Blashill:

For episode #155, we’re changing things up and revisiting one of our favourite presentations from this year’s Virtual Hockey Summit. Detroit Red Wings head coach Jeff Blashill shared valuable tips for planning and executing a successful practice.

During the conversation, Blashill gets into the preparation and attention to detail that professional coaches need to invest into making a great practice, a great practice. While the drills you select for a practice certainly matter, he explains that it’s how you organize them within the structure of your practice, how you communicate the habits and details you want your players to pull out of each drill, and as a staff, how each coach plays a role in teaching and managing the flow of practice.

It’s clear the improvement and evolution of his approach has been rooted in being open minded and curious, in terms of what other coaches are doing, taking the time to watch how practices operate in other sports, and looking at how other industries educate their people and operate more efficiently.

Don’t miss out on this must-listen for any coach looking to improve their practice habits!

The Detroit News’s Mark Falkner and Ted Kulfan spoke with top draft prospect Shane Wright in their latest “Octopulse” podcast…

And Falkner penned a subscriber-only article noting that the Red Wings’ fast start all but takes them out of the Shane Wright sweepstakes:

Continue reading Detroit News’s ‘Octopulse’ podcast profiles Shane Wright

For what it’s worth, The Athletic’s Scott Wheeler assembled a set of World Junior Championship rosters, and he made predictions as to how his selected teams would perform at the WJC in Edmonton.

Wheeler expects the Red Wings’ representation at the WJC to look like this:

Canada: Donovan Sebrango (defense, Grand Rapids Griffins, AHL);

Sebastian Cossa (goaltender, Edmonton Oil Kings, WHL);

USA: Red Savage (center, Miami of Ohio Redhawks, NCAA)

Sweden: William Wallinder (defense, Rogle BK, SHL);

Simon Edvinsson (defense, Frolunda HC, SHL);

Theodor Niederbach (center, Frolunda HC, SHL);

Liam Dower Nilsson (center, Frolunda HC, SHL);

Finland: Eemil Viro (defense, TPS Turku, Liiga).

On this day in NHL history, per the NHL’s PR Twitter account, Red Wings captain Steve Yzerman passed his idol, Bryan Trottier, on the NHL’s all-time scoring list:

THIS DATE IN 1998: Steve Yzerman collects a goal and an assist to record his 1,426th career point, surpassing Bryan Trottier (1,425) for 10th place on the NHL’s all-time points list. #NHLStats pic.twitter.com/5O61xNVaZd— NHL Public Relations (@PR_NHL) November 11, 2021

Red Wings play-by-play announcer Ken Daniels appeared on the Stoney and Janssen with Heather” show this morning on 97.1 the Ticket, addressing the Celebrity Roast of Brett Hull (click for auction items), the mission of his Jamie Daniels Foundation and the Red Wings’ strong start:

Washington Capitals forward Alex Ovechkin is looking to pass Brett Hull’s 741 goals on the all-time goal-scoring list tonight vs. the Detroit Red Wings (7:30 PM EST start on Bally Sports Detroit/NBC Sports Washington/97.1 FM). This morning, Red Wings head coach Jeff Blashill discussed the challenges of defending one of the league’s best all-time goal-scorers, as noted by MLive’s Ansar Khan:

“It’s been cool to watch him play for the number of years I’ve been on an NHL bench,” Red Wings coach Jeff Blashill said. “I remember when I was an assistant my first year in the NHL, I could not believe how big he was. He’s way bigger when you see him on the ice at ice level than you realize on TV. He’s a huge, huge, strong person. He still plays with the same passion that he did back then, and that’s probably now 10-11 years ago, and probably the same passion that he did when he came into the league.

“But yet he’s gotten better over time without a doubt. He can shoot the puck from anywhere and it’s a scoring chance. You can be on him, and he’ll find a way to get it off. They’re different, him and (Edmonton’s) Connor McDavid. Connor McDavid, you have to be aware of his speed. You have to really start defending him in the O-zone. Where I think with Alex, it’s more once you enter your own zone you have to know where he’s at on the ice all of the time. You can’t give him a millisecond or otherwise he’s getting his shot off and every shot has a chance to go in.”

Washington is missing three key forwards due to injuries – Nicklas Backstrom, T.J. Oshie and former Red Wing Anthony Mantha, who last week underwent shoulder surgery.

It is one of the reasons the Capitals’ typically strong power play has been average at best so far (8 for 46, 18.6 percent). The Red Wings were shorthanded only twice against Edmonton’s league-leading power play on Tuesday, killing both penalties.

Continued (with news on Troy Stecher’s injury)

I wanted to let you know that I’ve been battling through a bad “bug” of the non-COVID variety over the last two weeks, something that’s really dragging my energy level down and causing a lot of congestion…

But I’m doing my damnedest to fight through it and provide as much content as I’m physically able to do on a given day.

I can only say that, if the Wings weren’t playing 11 games over the course of 17 nights, I’d be taking more “maintenance days” myself, but sometimes one must battle through feeling like crap.

So the timing isn’t great for this, but I need to attempt to raise funds to pay the bills and save up for that damn cell phone that Sprint is forcing me to buy by the end of December as my S7 will turn into a brick on New Year’s Day. That, and I’m continuing to try and help AA pay off the outstanding tax bill on the condo so that we can stay here.

I know that it’s not exciting to be asked to help defer non-hockey expenses, and if I could get these items paid for on my own dime, I would, but this is how I earn “my dime.”

If you’re willing to lend a hand, you can use PayPal at https://paypal.me/TheMalikReport, Venmo at https://venmo.com/george-malik-2, Giftly by using my email, rtxg@yahoo.com, at https://www.giftly.com. And you can contact me via email if you want to send me a paper check.

Thank you for reading and thank you for your time.