The Malik Report

MLive’s Ansar Khan and the Free Press’s Helene St. James offer a few more quips and quotes regarding one Lucas Raymond, per Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman and director of amateur scouting Kris Draper.

Khan noted that the Red Wings believe that Raymond has good “hockey sense”…

“It seems the smarter players always have the puck on their stick,” Draper said. “They know how to carry the puck, where to put the puck, how to get open. The vision and creativity with the puck, they see their teammates, they have the ability to make players around them better. These are the go-to guys on the power play. That’s what we’re seeing from Lucas Raymond. There’s a lot of things you can teach, but hockey sense is a gift.”

The Red Wings had several viable options at No. 4 after the first three selections went as expected – Alexis Lafreniere to the Rangers, Quinton Byfield to the Kings and Tim Stutzle to the Senators.

Yzerman said the Red Wings were set on Raymond for some time.

“I listened to our staff, they watched all the games, they debated a lot, and they come up with their rationale for the list,” Yzerman said. “I certainly have the ability to overrule, but in this situation, I was very comfortable and in agreement with our guys and their assessment of Lucas. I had the time to watch him a lot and be more familiar, so I was very supportive of this pick.”

And the Free Press’s St. James took note of Yzerman and Draper’s takes on the ways in which the team was able to scout Raymond:

Continue reading A bit more of Yzerman and Draper on Raymond from Khan and St. James

I’m not supposed to spill the beans yet, but I’m blogging again, so let’s put 2 and 2 together:

I have a really kind aunt. While dealing with a really bad case of the stomach flu, Aunt Annie had to postpone her date with an audiologist at U of M to test her hearing for some badly-needed hearing aids, but she felt terrible for me after I effed up my laptop’s monitor cable last night, reducing the 8-year-old I called GAMERA to spare parts.

Between your generosity–there are 22 of you so far, having donated from $5 to $300, and everywhere in between–and a sense of duty to my patrons/audience/peeps by both myself and my aunt…

I found a more-than-tolerable laptop, an ASUS Q537, and the last one at the Novi Best Buy, and Aunt Annie’s heart melted a bit, so she let me take out a loan in the form of a credit card payment that she can’t necessarily afford yet.

Long story long, Tuesday was a 20-hour day, but I’m typing from behind the screen and atop the keys of a laptop I am calling MOONSHOT in (all of) your honor, despite the fact that we’re about $250 short of where we should be to afford the machine.

I still need to raise funds to afford this damn thing, and I still need your help to do that, whether that’s by https://paypal.me/TheMalikReport, https://giftly.com or some other means.

But the moon shot is go. It’s just a matter of making sure that we can touch down and then safely return to the land of a saner blogger and a saner aunt, both grateful for the $1,200-out-of-$1,400’s worth of support.

I know this is not an easy time to ask for financial assistance, and I’ll have to keep doing it, but by Gord, we’ve come so far.

Mostly, thank you. My brain is scrambled from the stress and lack of sleep, and the second day of the draft won’t help in that regard, but that’s okay.

We’re almost there and back. That’s pretty damn amazing, and now it’s time to finish the trip.

You may not get that much out of this video interview that Lucas Raymond gave to HockeyNews.se…

But here’s a rough translation of John Falck’s conversation with Raymond from this morning, Swedish time:

Continue reading Roughly translated: Lucas Raymond speaks with HockeyNews.se

According to Kvallsposten’s Johan Svensson, a.k.a. Mr. Madhawk, the Red Wings are going to loan Moritz Seider to Rogle BK of the Swedish Hockey League until the DEL’s Adler Mannheim start up in mid-November. What follows is roughly translated:

ROGLE ABOUT TO LAND SUPER TALENT:

Rögle is about to land in a real super talent.
According to SportExpressen’s reporting, the team is about to reach an agreement with the Detroit Redwings to loan out Moritz Seider, the club’s first choice in last season’s draft.

“It is not me who will comment on it, but he is a player we of course like to see get ice time,” says Detroit scout Håkan Andersson.

Rögle has been looking for a defenseman that can step in and take on a big role. This summer, they were in the fight for Jesper Sellgren, when he chose Frölunda.
Seider was supposed to play for Adler Mannheim, but as the situation is now, their season will not start until later.

“I know that they have talked to other clubs. The ball is entirely with Detroit and we have nothing to say about that issue,” says Adler Mannheim’s general manager Jan-Axel Alavaara.

Now it is highly probable that Seider will play with Rögle. An agreement is expected to be completed shortly

According to SportExpressen’s reporting, Rögle is completely prepared to take him in immediately, and the solution will then be, like Sellgren, Jack Drury, Joe Veleno (who also belongs to Detroit) throughout the season.

“He has been here and trained all autumn, but our league will not start in time. It is more important for such a prospect that he gets playing time and that he develops. As I said, I have heard that they have looked at another solution, but do not know if something is definite,” says Alavaara.

Detroit has high expectations of Seider. He played 23-25 ​​minutes per game in Grand Rapids last season, and had fought for a spot in the NHL team this season.

The club sees him as a future great defender and possible team captain. Now the first game in Rögle awaits.

Just before the Red Wings made Lucas Raymond their 4th overall pick, Sportnset’s Elliotte Friedman Tweeted that the Red Wings were throwing a “curveball” into the mix, and I’ll readily admit that I was surprised by the team’s decision to pick the 5’10,” 170-pound Frolunda Indians winger.

Not, “Holy shit, it’s Askarov!” surprised, but I had assumed, perhaps incorrectly, that the Wings were going to go up the middle, either drafting Cole Perfetti, Marco Rossi or Jamie Drysdale (if not Jake Sanderson). Instead, they pulled an old Hakan Andersson special, going for a diminutive Swede who’s been playing against men for with the Frolunda’s mighty developmental machine over the past two years.

The experts gave Raymond good marks, as noted by ESPN’s Chris Peters and Greg Wyshynski…

Continue reading On the Wings’ drafting of Lucas Raymond

As the Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan noted, the Red Wings are happy with their first-round selection in Lucas Raymond, but Wings director of amateur scouting Kris Draper’s job is just getting started ahead of the second through seventh rounds of the 2020 NHL draft today (11:30 AM EDT on NHL.com):

The Wings have nine picks in Tuesday’s portion of the NHL Entry Draft (rounds two through seven), including three picks in the second round, including the first pick in the second round.

Kris Draper, director of amateur scouting, said the Wings’ staff met immediately after Tuesday’s first round ended to review Wednesday’s possibilities.

“We talked and threw out some names (available) and scenarios,” Draper said. “When we get back (Wednesday) we’ll be ready to take pick 32. We’re comfortable with the name we’ll announce.”

Yzerman will likely receive phone calls and offers for the pick, and Draper acknowledged as much.

“It’s a coveted pick and I’m sure Steve will listen and discuss possible scenarios that might benefit the Detroit Red Wings,” Draper said.  

Here are the Wings’ remaining picks, courtesy of the Detroit News’s Mark Falkner:

2. No. 32 pick

2. No. 45 pick

2. No. 55 pick

3. No. 63 pick

3. No. 65 pick

4. No. 107 pick

5. No. 125 pick

6. No. 156 pick

7. No. 187 pick

Update: Here’s more Draper from MLive’s Ansar Khan:

Continue reading Red Wings already shifting focus to draft’s second through seventh rounds

The Red Wings’ decision to buy out Justin Abdelkader won’t come easily: CapFriendly and PuckPedia both have the data regarding the fact that the Red Wings are going to be paying their former alternate captain $6.33 million over the next 6 years to not play for the Detroit Red Wings.

Abdelkader will probably find gainful employment of some kind with another NHL team during the free agency period, but Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman was blunt regarding his decision to pay Abdelkader to go away, as noted by WXYZ’s Brad Galli:

The Free Press’s Helene St. James also took note of Yzerman’s remarks…

“It was really just a cost-savings for us,” general manager Steve Yzerman said. “We felt that the value of what we were paying him, we could try to save some money and replace Justin with a player making less.”

Under normal circumstances, the Wings could have waived Abdelkader and, once he cleared, assigned him to the Grand Rapids Griffins. That would have created roster room and provided a little more than $1 million in salary cap relief on Abdelkader’s $4.25 million average annual hit.

Taking that path, however, was waylaid by the pandemic. 

And she offered a logical rationale as to why the Wings are doing what they’re doing:

Continue reading On the Abdelkader buyout

The Red Wings posted a 32-minute clip of GM Steve Yzerman and director of amateur scouting Kris Draper’s comments regarding drafting Lucas Raymond 4th overall, the team’s outlook going into the second day of the draft, and Justin Abdelkader’s buyout (among other things) via a Zoom call:

Steve Yzerman said letting go of Justin Abdelkader was a cost-cutting move.

“Felt that the value of what we were paying for him in the situation, we could try to save some money and replace Justin with a player making less,” he said. pic.twitter.com/JrvWDQPpRp— Brad Galli (@BradGalli) October 7, 2020

Here’s Lucas Raymond’s Zoom call with the media from this evening, via the Red Wings:

Update: Ken Daniels weighed in on Raymond’s selection:

This came as a shock earlier today:

pic.twitter.com/qxDpCTWiSu

— Detroit Red Wings (@DetroitRedWings) October 6, 2020