Tweets from Wednesday’s practice: lineup remains stable ahead of Thursday’s opener vs. Montreal

The Detroit Red Wings took to the ice at Little Caesars Arena’s BELFOR Training Center one day before Detroit’s 2025-2026 home opener against the Montreal Canadiens (7 PM EDT start on FanDuel Sports Network Detroit/TSN2/RDS/97.1 the Ticket).

Montreal happens to be playing in Toronto tonight (7 PM EDT start on TVA Sports and Sportsnet), with Samuel Montembeault starting in goal, so we already know that Jakub Dobes will be the starter on Thursday evening.

Coach McLellan suggested yesterday that the team would be made to feel “light and fast” today, and we’ll see whether that was the case after practice…

If you’re attending tomorrow night’s game, there’s going to be a “Red Carpet Walk” from 3-4 PM and a pregame set of player introductions starting at 6:35 PM, and the Wings will be wearing their heritage alternate jerseys as well.

Update: For what it’s worth, three of the Detroit News’s four polled sportswriters believe that the Wings will make the playoffs this season:

Continue reading Tweets from Wednesday’s practice: lineup remains stable ahead of Thursday’s opener vs. Montreal

Audio link: Red Wings coach Todd McLellan appears on 97.1 the Ticket

Earlier this morning, Red Wings coach Todd McLellan appeared on 97.1 the Ticket’s “Costa and Jansen with Heather” show, giving a 10-minute interview to the hosts, speaking about the Red Wings’ season to come, expectations for said season, the Red Wings’ leadership group, its youth movement and the need for team cohesion to make an earnest push for a playoff spot.

Update: Here are some written quotes from 97.1 the Ticket:

Nine of Yzerman’s draft picks and six of his first-rounders will have a significant say in whether the Red Wings can snap a franchise-worst nine-year playoff drought.

“There certainly is (a youth movement), but that is not going to take us to the never-never land,” head coach Todd McLellan said Wednesday on 97.1 The Ticket. “We’re going to need a lot from everybody on the team including the veterans, but the youth has come in and infected a bit of enthusiasm and energy and the older players have embraced them.”

The biggest names of the aforementioned group are Seider and Raymond, alternate captains for the first time in Detroit. The hottest one might be Sandin-Pellikaa, the 20-year-old defenseman with major offensive upside. The most notable is Finnie, a seventh-round pick two years ago who spent most of last season in the WHL and forged his way onto the Red Wings’ roster over the last month by playing with irresistible pace. On a team that wants to play fast.

Finnie, who turned 20 in June, will start the season as the complement to Detroit’s one-two punch of Raymond and center Dylan Larkin on the top line. All three rookies on the Opening Night roster are here because of their play, not their pedigree, a long-standing tenet of the Red Wings’ organization.

“It wasn’t a token, ‘Hey, we’re going with youth this year and we’re going to just play them and see what happens,'” said McLellan. “They earned their way onto the roster. Finnie is a speedster, I talk about him being fueled by nitro. He’s a guy that can really skate, he hunts the opposition down in all situations, he’s got some pretty good puck skills and a mind.”

Brandsegg-Nygård, the 15th overall pick last year who turned 20 this month, is “more of a bully, heavier-set, more physical,” said McLellan, “and definitely a shooter. He finds open ice and can shoot the puck.” He will add some thump to the lineup that the Wings have been lacking.

Sandin-Pellikaa, the 17th overall pick in 2023 who turned 20 in March, plays “with tremendous vision and a great hockey mind” on the backend, said McLellan. “Very creative. A little undersized, but we think that we can help him with that.” Listed at 5’11, Sandin-Pellika should help the Wings get up the ice with his deft passing ability and will get a look on the second power-play unit.

The Red Wings believe “all three (rookies) can be a factor” this season. They’ll almost have to be for the team to take the step that it intends to.

Continued

Tweet of note: Red Wings name ‘Origins Era’ team

The Red Wings are getting serious about celebrating their “eras” today, naming an “Origins Era” team and a starting six from said team:

Also, from Ken Kal:

Press release: Grand Rapids Griffins sign Tyler Angle to a 1-year AHL contract

Per the Grand Rapids Griffins:

Griffins Sign Forward Tyler Angle to One-Year Deal

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. – The Grand Rapids Griffins on Wednesday signed forward Tyler Angle to a one-year contract. 

Angle most recently competed for Dusseldorfer in Germany (DEL) during the 2024-25 season, showing 27 points (7-20—27), 14 penalty minutes and a minus-32 rating in 47 appearances. Prior to his time overseas, Angle spent four campaigns within the Columbus Blue Jackets’ organization from 2020-24 after being selected with the 212th overall pick by the franchise in the 2019 NHL Entry Draft. The 5-foot-11 forward played in four NHL games with the Blue Jackets from 2022-24, scoring a goal in his debut on April 14, 2023, against Buffalo. Angle, a native of Niagara Falls, Ontario, saw action in 200 AHL games with Cleveland from 2020-24, producing 100 points (41-59—100) and 84 penalty minutes. In 2021-22 with the Monsters, Angle logged career-high numbers in games played (71), goals (11), assists (26), points (37) and penalty minutes (32). 

Prior to turning pro, Angle spent parts of four seasons in the OHL with the Windsor Spitfires from 2016-20. In 228 OHL regular-season outings, the 25-year-old accumulated 132 points (61-71—132) and 120 penalty minutes. He also spent parts of two campaigns in the GOJHL with the St. Catharines Falcons and notched eight points (5-3—8) and 26 penalty minutes in 12 games from 2015-17. 

Bultman discusses the Red Wings rebuild’s elusive playoff goal

The Athletic’s Max Bultman wrote an article which discusses the pressure under which both Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman, the Wings’ coaching staff and Detroit’s players face this upcoming season:

The Red Wings have come close to the playoffs in each of the last two seasons. In 2023-24, their 91 points tied for the final wild-card spot, but they lost out to the Washington Capitals on a tiebreaker. Last season, a midyear coaching change saw Detroit roar back to life under new head coach Todd McLellan, miraculously getting back into playoff position by the end of February — only to collapse in March and miss the postseason by five points.

After that unraveling, the Red Wings finished last season with 86 points. It was the first time they had taken a step back in the standings since Yzerman took over, and the signs of frustration began to show. Detroit’s captain, Dylan Larkin, remarked at his year-end news conference that the team “didn’t gain any momentum from the trade deadline, and guys were kind of down about it” after Yzerman didn’t add any meaningful upgrades for the playoff chase.

Yzerman defended his approach at the deadline, saying his front office looked and hoped to improve the team, but that “there (were) no deals to bring in anyone of any significance that we really felt would make a difference — not just to make the playoffs this year, but to make us a better team in the long run, and to get us ultimately to where we’re going to go.”

Since he arrived, that has been one of Yzerman’s consistent messages: wanting to build a sustainable winner, not simply chase the closest or quickest path back to the playoffs.

“You can’t compete for the Stanley Cup, obviously, until you make the playoffs,” Yzerman said on the eve of this year’s training camp. “But our goal, again, is to be a team that can compete for a Stanley Cup. These rebuilds take time. How much time, I can’t really predict. Every one’s different.”

And in fairness, the Red Wings’ rebuild has yielded some positive results.

Continued (paywall)

Season preview stuff: A 7th place finish, rating the Red Wings’ forward corps, getting the plot wrong and staples for Raymond

Of 2025-2026 NHL Season Preview note this morning:

  1. ESPN’s Greg Wyshynski suggests that the Red Wings will finish in 7th place in the Atlantic Division this upcoming season, ahead of only the Boston Bruins:

Detroit Red Wings: The latest amendment to GM Steve Yzerman’s “Yzerplan,” which the Red Wings have executed since 2019: Finally getting John Gibson out of Anaheim for the last two years of his contract. Detroit used four goalies last season, and Cam Talbot was the only keeper. This new goalie battery on a Todd McLellan-coached team gave me pause, but not as much as Gibson’s inability to stay in the lineup does. Otherwise, it’s another season with some young bright spots — Moritz Seider, Simon Edvinsson, Lucas Raymond and hopefully Marco Kasper, or else Detroit’s in real trouble this season. The Wings don’t have the talent to make the playoffs but have enough of it to limit their lottery odds. Which is unfortunately the most palpable result of the Yzerplan.

2. Yesterday, The Athletic’s Harman Dayal and James Mirtle suggested that the Red Wings’ defense has a slate of “question marks” ahead of it, and this morning, the duo ranks the Wings’ forward corps as “Below average, but with some potential“:

Continue reading Season preview stuff: A 7th place finish, rating the Red Wings’ forward corps, getting the plot wrong and staples for Raymond

Wings have a whole lot of people to ‘prove wrong’ this upcoming season

Detroit Hockey Now’s Max Smith has posted a “Two Truths and a Lie” column, suggesting that the Red Wings won’t be able to make the playoffs this season, but will see significant progress from its prospects:

Lie: This is the year the Red Wings make the Playoffs

This one is more of a prediction, but it’s one I’d be more than happy to be proven wrong on. However, it’s hard to see the Red Wings making it through their Murderer’s Row of division opponents. To put it into perspective, of the eight teams in the Eastern Conference playoffs last year, five of them are in the Atlantic with the Red Wings. And the Florida Panthers won the Stanley Cup.  At the moment, the Red Wings are banking on the play of two rookie forwards and one rookie defenseman to be their true needle movers.

John Gibson’s save percentage of .910 is impressive until you see that he only played in 29 games last year, and the goaltender whose roster spot he ostensibly took had 30 games for a .896 save percentage. Gibson should win a few more games for Detroit in net. Hopefully, he stays healthy enough to split the load a little more evenly with Cam Talbot. But there are a lot of “ifs” in this season. At the moment, there’s a lot more hope than evidence that the Red Wings will be truly showing improvement this season.

Continued; there are many moving parts in the Red Wings’ situation which have to line up nearly perfectly for the team to make the playoffs, but I’ve read more than a few predictions suggesting that the Wings won’t finish higher than 7th in the Atlantic, and…

Well, the Wings are going to have to prove a significant slate of “experts” wrong this season, plain and simple.

Al Sobotka gets his day in court

According to the Free Press’s Tresa Baldas, former Red Wings Zamboni driver Al Sobotka’s getting his day in court:

More than three years after getting fired for urinating in a drain at work, ex-Detroit Red Wings Zamboni driver Al Sobotka heads to trial this week in Wayne County Circuit Court, where he hopes to convince a jury that he was wrongfully axed from a job he held for 50 hockey seasons.

A jury of five women and three men was seated on Tuesday, Oct. 7 in the high-profile employment dispute, which pits a beloved Zamboni driver and octopus twirler and hurler against a multibillion-dollar entertainment company.

Sobotka is suing Olympia Entertainment, alleging he was let go because the higher-ups at the company thought he was too old, and used the 2022 peeing debacle as an excuse to get rid of him. Moreover, he alleges the company engaged in a cover-up by having an executive who knew nothing about him fire him, just so they could wall off another executive who allegedly called him “old” just weeks before the incident, and then replaced him with a 37-year-old underling after he was fired.

Continue reading Al Sobotka gets his day in court

Midnight Red Wings ride: From Wings & Tigers to a LEGO LCA, great expectations, and Red Wings origins

Of Red Wings-related note as of midnight on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning:

  1. The Detroit Tigers had a rough go on Tuesday, but the Red Wings were at least there to witness the game from a suite:

2. Both the Free Press’s Helene St. James and MLive’s Ansar Khan also posted short articles about the LEGO Little Caesars Arena which impressed the Wings’ locker room and coaches on Tuesday:

3. Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff took note of Red Wings coach Todd McLellan’s comments regarding the rookie trio of Emmitt Finnie, Michael Brandsegg-Nygard and Axel Sandin Pellikka:

Continue reading Midnight Red Wings ride: From Wings & Tigers to a LEGO LCA, great expectations, and Red Wings origins