The Malik Report

The Detroit Red Wings hit the ice at Little Caesars Arena just before noon today, hoping to rebound from last night’s OT loss to Tampa Bay when they host the Vancouver Canucks on Saturday (7 PM EDT start on Bally Sports Detroit/97.1 FM).

Whether the Wings will have Dylan Larkin in the lineup is in question; what’s not is the fact that Vancouver plays in Philadelphia tonight, so Detroit may be able to take advantage of a slightly fatigued Vancouver team.

Anyway, opening night was fun, eh?

Dylan Larkin took a slow, brief twirl on the ice before practice and left. He was shaken up from cross check into boards from Matthieu Joseph last night and has a hearing with NHL today for his retaliatory punch to the face. #RedWings pic.twitter.com/NQdTFkRX2X— Ansar Khan (@AnsarKhanMLive) October 15, 2021

Here’s a happy memory from Mike Commito to assuage your fears…

On this day in 2009, with two assists in the @DetroitRedWings‘ game against the Kings, @NicklasLidstrom became the first European-born defenceman to score 1,000 career NHL points #Hockey365 #LGRW pic.twitter.com/KpwVGdjBWM— Mike Commito (@mikecommito) October 15, 2021

Anyway, again….

Fabbri replaces Larkin as center on line with Bertuzzi and Raymond. Other practice lines:
Erne-Suter-Zadina
Namestnikov-Rasmussen-Gagner
Smith-Stephens-Rowney
D pairs:
DeKeyser-Hronek
Leddy-Seider
Staal-Lindstrom
Oesterle-Stecher pic.twitter.com/YjKNq1Qb9O— Ansar Khan (@AnsarKhanMLive) October 15, 2021

Dylan Larkin not on the ice today at Red Wings practice— Max Bultman (@m_bultman) October 15, 2021

The Wings also posted this little ditty…

Continue reading Friday’s Tweets from practice: Larkin ‘takes a twirl’; Fabbri steps into Larkin’s spot

The Grand Rapids Griffins begin their 2021-2022 season this evening vs. Rockford (7 PM EDT on WXSP/AHLTV [for free]), and two articles popped up this morning regarding the Griffins’ expectations for the upcoming season.

1. First, TheAHL.com’s Patrick Williams posted capsule previews for each and every one of the AHL’s 31 teams…

Grand Rapids Griffins (Detroit Red Wings)
What to watch: Several familiar faces moved on from the Griffins, but Grand Rapids again looks dangerous. Leading the way is reigning Eddie Shore Award winner Ryan Murphy. Touted 21-year-old forward Jonatan Berggren will make his North American debut, and forward Joe Veleno is back from Detroit. In net, Victor Brattstrom will join Calvin Pickard.

2. And DetroitRedWings.com’s Ethan Sears posted a list of six prospects to watch in GR:

Kirill Tyutyayev: At the Prospect Tournament, Tyutyayev was the breakout star, displaying a scoring prowess that no one saw coming after he played last season in Belarus, away from the eyes of the hockey world. His production leveled off in the preseason, but Tyutyayev left an impression on the coaching staff in Detroit.

“I like Kirill,” Blashill said after the Oct. 6 game at Columbus. “I think he’s got a good package. It doesn’t scream off the page at you, in terms of his size and skating and that, but when you really watch him play, he’s strong on the puck.”

Tyutyayev, a native of Russia, is still learning English, making communication an issue. But learning a language comes with time.

“I think there’s stuff there,” Blashill said. “… I’ll be interested to see how he does in Grand Rapids.”

Continued

I think that the NHL’s Player Safety department’s decision to hold a hearing for Dylan Larkin today is two things:

1. Inevitable, like the fine and/or suspension that Larkin will earn for his match penalty (I think he’ll at least be fined the maximum amount), and;
2. Bullshit.

Larkin may very well have merited a 5-minute penalty last night for his punch to Mathieu Joseph after Joseph cross-checked Larkin in the numbers and raked his stick up Larkin’s back last night, but Joseph’s intent-to-injure play was equally cheap, and, as Manon Rheaume said (quietly) in her Bally Sports Detroit debut, both players’ infractions may very well have merited ejections.

Either that, or you call double-minors for roughing on both players and let things be.

Anyway, DetroitHockey.net’s Clark Rasmussen offers his take on the situation as well, and I agree with Clark here:

What we know is that Larkin retaliated and was ejected for [his retaliation].  What we know is that the Lightning scored twice while Givani Smith was in the penalty box serving Larkin’s major penalty, getting them back in the game when they seemed done.

You could argue that without those goals, it’s a very different game, one that Detroit might have even been able to win.

For Tampa, Joseph’s cheap-shot worked.  It removed Larkin from the game and, after all the power plays shook out, got them one more goal than Detroit.  There is no reason for them not to make that trade every single time.

In a league where protecting its stars is supposedly a priority, Larkin was hit in the neck twice in a span of about 30 minutes of game time with seemingly no punishments to the people who did it. When he took matters into his own hands, it may very well have cost his team the game. That’s a broken system.

From IceHockeyGifs on Twitter comes this clip from Bally Sports Detroit in which Ken Daniels explains why Moritz Seider wears #53:

Moritz Seider and the story of his number 53 #LGRW pic.twitter.com/FqkFIdb4jt— IcehockeyGifs (@IcehockeyG) October 15, 2021

Update: But wait, there’s more:

Some looks of Moritz Seider’s NHL debut.
20:26, +1, 2 assists, 3 hits. #LGRW pic.twitter.com/jHCUiguKIi— IcehockeyGifs (@IcehockeyG) October 15, 2021

This morning we’re greeted by a pair of sets of power rankings, from both the Fourth Period’s Tab Bamford, who earns an optimistic gold star for the following take…

30. Detroit Red Wings: Steve Yzerman is starting to put his fingerprints on the Red Wings’ roster, using his cap space to bring in players and picks to accelerate the rebuild in Motor City. Nick Leddy will bring a veteran leadership to the blueline.

And The Athletic’s Sean Gentille and Dom Luszczyszyn, who are less optimistic about the Red Wings:

27. Detroit Red Wings

Projected Points: 79

Sean’s Bold Prediction: Other than that their points leader has more than two goals? Hmm. There’s not much bolder than predicting the Wings to win a draft lottery, so they’re my pick. Still gonna be a lot of ping pong balls with their name on it.

Dom’s Take: The Red Wings winning a draft lottery after all their years of double losing is too far for me. It’s too bold.

What a cheerful duo.

We knew this was coming:

Detroit’s Dylan Larkin will have a hearing today for Roughing Tampa Bay’s Mathieu Joseph.

— NHL Player Safety (@NHLPlayerSafety) October 15, 2021

The Detroit Red Wings dropped a 7-6 OT loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning last night, and I posted a recap of the game around 1 AM, so it’s kind of weird to read TampaBayLightning.com’s Bryan Burns’ “Three Things” from the Lightning win (which was posted later in the morning) and read the following quotes:

“To me, the right team won the game,” [Lightning coach Jon] Cooper said. “I thought there was a lot of things we couldn’t control in that game tonight. We could control some of our play. There’s some things that we need to work on. In the end, we gave ourselves a chance to win. There’s probably long odds for us to win that game halfway through the third, but I think the gamesmanship and the work our team put in for 50 (minutes) paid off in the last 10. So you’ve got to give the guys a ton of credit.”

Despite trailing by three goals, the Lightning continued to plug away, knowing if they stuck to their game, they still had time to rally.

“We probably didn’t deserve to be down three goals multiple times in this game, it’s just the way that game went,” [Steven] Stamkos said. “It was a weird one. It’s early, but you can build off wins like this where they’re emotional and you come back and you start to build on something.”

…

“That was a crazy game no question,” Cooper said. “But the bottom line is who came with two points. Did we come here to get two points? We did. But we do have to tighten things up as this season goes along. But pretty proud of how they came back.”

Let’s just say that watching the following interviews might be bad for your blood pressure, assuming that you’re a Wings fan:

Continue reading Your ‘alternate reality’ take on the Red Wings-Lightning game

The Athletic’s Joe Smith offers the Tampa Bay Lightning’s take on the incident between Red Wings captain Dylan Larkin and Tampa Bay Lightning forward Mathieu Joseph:

For Larkin to punch Joseph like that was a dirty play.

“Absolutely,” Stamkos said. “Sucker punching a guy while the play is going on? Obviously, he’s mad about the borderline hit. But there’s different ways you can go about it. You can grab a guy and then punch him in the face. But it’s just an unsuspecting guy. It’s a sucker punch, whether it’s hard or not. That’s what it was.”

Larkin will likely hear from the NHL Department of Player Safety.

“I mean, a punch with a glove on — I don’t know, maybe I’m old school — I don’t think I am,” Blashill said. “There’s a lot of punches without gloves on, I think it’s way different if a guy hits a guy with his gloves off than with his glove on.”

Joseph played just two shifts after serving his penalty. I asked Cooper if Joseph was OK, and he said, “We hope so.” Joseph seemed fine walking out of the building, but we’ll find out more Saturday.

Continued (paywall);

The Free Press’s Gene Myers and Helene St. James remember Sergei Fedorov’s 5-goal game against the Washington Capitals on December 26, 1996 this morning, comparing and contrasting it with Tyler Bertuzzi’s 4-goal game last night, as part of a promotion for the Free Press’s Stanleytown 25 book:

At the beginning of the hockey season, Fedorov rarely put the puck in the net. He had one goal in the first 11 games, when he played on a line with Steve Yzerman and Brendan Shanahan. But he had been on a tear since the Russian Five of forwards Fedorov, Igor Larionov and Slava Kozlov and defensemen Vladimir Konstantinov and Slava Fetisov, once beset by injuries, had regained their health and were reunited by coach Scotty Bowman.

“He had a lot of quality chances,” Konstantinov said, “but he didn’t score. He didn’t believe in himself. … I told him if he can believe in himself, he can score goals.”

On the five-goal night, Konstantinov assisted on four of Fedorov’s goals, Larionov on three and Fetisov on one.

“I’m glad for Sergei because he needed confidence,” Larionov said. “I don’t think it’s right for someone of his skills to be somewhere in the shadows. He’s a superstar, and he has to be the center of attention. It’s a shame for him to be somewhere in the middle. It’s easiest for Sergei when we play together. It’s easier for him to fulfill all his qualities. He’s a goal-scorer, he’s a playmaker, he’s a defensive forward. It’s easier when you’ve got somebody right beside him who knows what he’s doing.”

Continued

The Athletic’s Max Bultman posted a superb article about Detroit native Jalen Smereck this morning, discussing the racial incident that the former Donbass Donetsk forward faced last month, Smereck’s decision to move on to the German league, and noting Smereck’s Detroit-area ties:

Thursday, the DEL — Germany’s top league — announced Smereck has signed with the Bietigheim Steelers, the first of many next steps to come.

It can be easy to forget, though, that while so many were introduced to Smereck in the last few weeks, his story did not start in Ukraine. It began in Detroit, where Smereck grew up, honed his game and has already become a young leader in his community.

And everything in his journey so far suggests that story is still only beginning.

“As the world gets to know him, they’ll really see how great of a gift this kid is,” said Jason McCrimmon, the founder of the Detroit Ice Dreams hockey program, who has known Smereck since he was young.

“Not only to the game of hockey, but to the city of Detroit and to the people that surround him. He’s going to do very, very big things. … I think he’s going to be one of those monumental kids.”

Continued (paywall)