The Grand Rapids Griffins have released their 2026-2027 regular season schedule this afternoon:

Plot twist: your calendar just got a lot more exciting 🗓️‼️

MORE INFO | 🔗 https://t.co/kw1vGQRZx6 pic.twitter.com/QXPzXauMVr

— Grand Rapids Griffins (@griffinshockey) July 9, 2026

Here’s the Griffins’ press release, which highlights important dates on the GRG schedule:

GRIFFINS ANNOUNCE 2026-27 SCHEDULE

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. – The Grand Rapids Griffins on Thursday announced their schedule for the 2026-27 American Hockey League season. It will mark the franchise’s 31st campaign overall, 26th as a member of the AHL, and 25th as the primary affiliate of the Detroit Red Wings.

Under fourth-year head coach Dan Watson, the Griffins will begin a 72-game schedule when they travel to Rocket Arena to face the Cleveland Monsters on Friday, Oct. 2 at 7 p.m. Grand Rapids will return to Van Andel Arena for Opening Night presented by Huntington Bank on Friday, Oct. 9 when it welcomes the Manitoba Moose. Oct. 2 represents the second-earliest season opener in franchise history (Oct. 1, 1999 at Detroit), while Oct. 9 will mark the Griffins’ earliest home opener in nine years (Oct. 6, 2017 vs. Manitoba).

The Free Press’s Helene St. James counters MLive’s Ansar Khan’s report suggesting that disgruntled Red Wings captain Dylan Larkin has expanded his trade list from Florida, Vegas and Minnesota to include the Dallas Stars:

In the two-plus months since Larkin’s agent, Pat Brisson, requested a trade, Wings general manager Steve Yzerman has not received an offer he believes is worth his time from the three teams on the list Larkin submitted: The Florida Panthers, the Minnesota Wild and Vegas Golden Knights.

The Wing have listened to other teams – as is their right – but no trade is forthcoming.

Brisson told USA TODAY/Detroit Free Press on Wednesday, July 8, that there was nothing new to report.

Larkin, who turns 30 on July 30, has five years left on a contract carrying an $8.7 million salary cap hit.

More to the Wings’ point, they’re already paid him, in actual salary, $31 million, making his contract all the more favorable.

The Wings are not interested in future assets in this potential trade. A person with knowledge of the situation told USA TODAY/Detroit Free Press on condition on anonymity that Yzerman is prepared for Larkin to report to camp rather than trade him for the sake of trading him.

Yesterday, the Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan profiled Red Wings goaltending prospect Michal Orsulak, a 2026 draft pick, and, this morning, Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff offers more information regarding Orsulak’s pedigree:

His list of accomplishments also included helping Czechia win a silver medal at the World Junior Championships. Some teams had Orsulak ranked as high as second among the draft-eligible goalies.

The Red Wings saw him often because they were scouting defenseman Justice Christensen who was Orsulak’s Prince Albert teammate. They ended up signing Christensen for their Grand Rapids affiliate.

“We had a lot of eyes on (Orsulak) and we’re able to watch him play a lot,” Draper said. “And just watching the size, the compete, the way he moves, we just felt that, with where we were in the draft, we felt it was a real good pick.”

Orsulak is a particularly large netminder, and he catches with his right hand…

Red Wings forward Emmitt Finnie was named the team’s rookie of the year for the 2025-2026 season, as picked by the Detroit Sports Media:

EMMITT FINNIE NAMED RED WINGS ROOKIE OF THE YEAR BY DETROIT SPORTS MEDIA

  … 2023 Seventh-Round Pick Recorded 30 Points in 82 Games with Detroit in 2025-26 …

DETROIT – Detroit Red Wings forward Emmitt Finnie has been named the 2025-26 Red Wings Rookie of the Year by the Detroit Sports Media (DSM).

The NHLPA usually holds its “rookie showcase” in late August in Washington, D.C., but this year’s first photo shoot for NHL-bound prospects will be held later this month in Chicago instead:

2026 NHLPA ROOKIE SHOWCASE, PRESENTED BY UPPER DECK, HEADS TO CHICAGO

Annual event brings a number of the top rookies and prospects together in Chicago for the first time

TORONTO, ON (July 9, 2026) – The National Hockey League Players’ Association (NHLPA) and Upper Deck announced today that they will host many of the game’s top rookies and prospects at the 16th annual NHLPA Rookie Showcase from July 28-30, 2026, taking place for the first time in Chicago.  The on-ice content capturing and media availability for the event will take place at the Blackhawks Ice Center Presented by Fifth Third Bank in Chicago, IL. For these young players, the NHLPA Rookie Showcase serves as an entry point into the business of professional hockey, where player identity, content creation, and commercial opportunity begin to take shape.

Over the course of the event, Upper Deck – the official trading card partner of the NHL and NHLPA – will work directly with players to capture photos and video in their official team jerseys for upcoming trading cards, memorabilia, and promotional materials. The showcase gives Upper Deck access to the league’s next generation of talent while giving players a first look at how their name, image, and likeness can connect with fans and collectors beyond the ice.

• WHAT: NHLPA Rookie Showcase
• WHEN: July 28 – 30, 2026. 
• WHERE: Blackhawks Ice Center Presented by Fifth Third Bank, Chicago, IL
  

According to Expressen’s Mattias Persson and Johan Svensson, former Grand Rapids Griffins forward Tyler Angle is leaving the Griffins to join Leksands IF of the HockeyAllsvenskan.

Leksand has been looking for a center for the top lines for a long time.

Now the team has found the right one.

According to the sources for Expressen, Leksand agrees with 25-year-old Canadian Tyler Angle.

Angle comes most recently from games in Detroit Red Wings’ Grand Rapids Griffins, where he was posted 26 points in 62 AHL games this past season. Prior to that, he spent a season in the German top league with Düsseldorfer EG, where it was 27 points in 47 games.

The Athletic’s Harman Dayal issues a list of the “9 best contracts” signed over the course of unrestricted free agency (thus far, anyway), and Dayal includes the Red Wings’ 2-year, $10 million contract with 33-year-old winger Viktor Arvidsson on his list:

Viktor Arvidsson, Detroit Red Wings

Contract: $5 million x 2 years

The Red Wings were anemic offensively at even strength last season, ranking 30th in the NHL in five-on-five goals scored. There’s still a ton of work required to fix that, but Arvidsson is a smart, relatively low-risk gamble who will help in that area.

Arvidsson scored 25 goals and 54 points in 69 games for the Bruins last season. Crucially, nearly all of that production came at even strength; he scored 3.02 points per 60 at five-on-five, which ranked third-best among all NHL players, behind only Nikita Kucherov and Nathan MacKinnon. That said, Arvidsson is due for some regression next year — his line scored on an unsustainably high 14 percent of their five-on-five shots in 2025-26 — but at a modest $5 million AAV, they don’t need him to keep scoring at last year’s rate of 64 points per 82 games to live up to his contract.

It’s also noteworthy that his offensive numbers weren’t inflated by playing with star talent, which should increase Detroit’s confidence that his scoring will translate in a new environment. He never played with David Pastrnak because they’re both right wingers; Casey Mittelstadt and Pavel Zacha were his most common linemates last year according to Natural Stat Trick.

Arvidsson is 33 and injury-prone, so this isn’t to say it’s a completely risk-free deal, but the odds are stacked in the Red Wings’ favor.

Continued (paywall); Arvidsson is indeed a solid scorer at even strength, and he can play with both “top six” and “bottom six” forwards, so it’s possible to play Arvidsson “up and down” the lineup while expecting him to succeed. He is a little fragile injury-wise, but sometimes you look at his established production and cross your fingers that things work out here.

Of note from Detroit Hockey Now this morning:

First, Bob Duff reports that former Red Wings coach Derek Lalonde, who spent this past season as an assistant coach with the Toronto Maple Leafs, is moving to the Montreal Canadiens:

With his arrival in Montreal, Derek Lalonde is 50% of the way through the NHL’s so-called Original Six teams. With the Canadiens, he’ll be replacing Trevor Letowski. Letowski is stepping down from the coaching staff. He was hired by Montreal in 2021.

Lalonde was also an assistant coach with the Tampa Bay Lightning under Jon Cooper. He won Stanley Cups in 2020 and 2021. The latter win came at the expense of the Canadiens.

Even though Montreal coach Martin St. Louis spent 13 seasons with the Lightning, the two men never crossed paths. St. Louis left Tampa Bay in 2014.

Second, Duff notes that several tournaments are being held internationally which have a “Red Wings flavor“…

MLive’s Ansar Khan reports that Dylan Larkin has added one team to his trade-to list:

Dylan Larkin has expanded his list of teams he will waive his no-trade clause to join, but it’s not by much and it’s probably not going to get him any closer to being dealt by Detroit Red Wings general manager Steve Yzerman.

Larkin recently added the Dallas Stars to his original list that included only Florida, Minnesota and Vegas.

The Red Wings had talks with the Stars and according to a league source asked for young center Wyatt Johnston in return. It doesn’t hurt to ask, but there was no chance of that happening. Johnston is seven years younger than Larkin, coming off a 45-goal, 86-point season, and hasn’t missed a game in four NHL seasons (incidentally, the Stars selected Johnston 23^rd overall in 2021, after trading down from No. 15 with the Red Wings, who took Sebastian Cossa).

The Stars offered Jason Robertson, but there are a couple of hurdles to that potential deal.

Red Wings forward Marco Kasper and Boston Bruins forward J.J. Peterka highlighted a group of European pro hockey players who took part in a summertime skills camp hosted by Lausanne HC of the Swiss League recently. Here’s an Instagram gallery from the event, which was held by skills coach Yanick Dube: