The Malik Report

Red Wings prospect Moritz Seider has had a significant impact upon Rogle BK during his season on loan from the Red Wings to the SHL, and Seider spoke with Hockeysverige.se’s Samuel Josefson regarding his adventure thus far. What follows is roughly translated from Swedish:

“Everyone is happy that I’m in Sweden and the SHL”

He is one of German hockey’s great future prospects. Moritz Seider is currently successful in the SHL with Rogle–where he is on loan from Detroit this season.

“I like it so far,” says Seider to Hockeysverige.se.

Only 19 years old, he’s charmed the Swedish audience in the SHL with a mature defensive game. The love of hockey was already aroused in kindergarten by Moritz Seider. In his hometown of Zell, Germany, he quickly made friends with similar interests.

Ice hockey, which is far from the biggest sport in soccer-mad Germany, became a big part of Moritz Seider’s upbringing.

“In kindergarten we played once a week and I fell for it right away. I loved playing ice hockey. I also played soccer when I was younger, but it could not be compared to playing ice hockey. My upbringing was very good and fun. It was a lot of hockey all the time and I had many friends that I used to play with,” Moritz Seider tells Hockeysverige.se.

Continue reading Roughly Translated: Moritz Seider speaks with Hockeysverige.se regarding his SHL adventure (thus far)

Red Wings prospect and Quinnipiac Bobcats goaltender Keith Petruzzelli is currently on a three-game shutout streak, and his strong play of late has significantly bolstered his team’s 2020-2021 campaign, as noted by USCHO.com’s Nate Owen:

It’s been a long line of zeroes lately for Quinnipiac and goalie Keith Petruzzelli. Petruzzelli and the Bobcats shut out Colgate 3-0 Saturday, extending the senior’s shutout streak to three games. He’s the second goalie in program history to record three consecutive shutouts, joining Michael Garteig, who accomplished the feat in 2015.

“I think he’s locked in right now,” Quinnipiac coach Rand Pecknold said. “He’s seeing the puck well, he’s moving well, and he’s controlling his rebounds. His compete level has been excellent. We’ve been playing well in front of him too. The PK has gotten better as we’ve gotten more reps.”

Petruzzelli has started all 15 games for the Bobcats this season and already has a career-high four shutouts to go along with a .930 save percentage. He hasn’t allowed a goal over his last 198:27, a mark that is second in program history to Garteig’s 209:31.

“The boys have been great, blocking shots and selling out,” said Petruzzelli, who was named the league’s player and goalie of the week. “They’re making my job easy.”

Petruzzelli has been a rock lately for a Quinnipiac defense that has no seniors and five underclassmen that have seen playing time this season. There have been some bumps – Quinnipiac allowed 12 goals in the three games prior to the current shutout streak – but the defense has improved as the season has progressed.

“We are young on the backend, but [we’ve] just been building that trust and levels of communication,” Petruzzelli said.

Continued

Both the Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan and DetroitRedWings.com’s Josh Berenter focused on the “new faces” on the Red Wings roster who are contributing to the team’s 2-and-2 start over the course of Kulfan and Berenter’s respective notebook articles on Wednesday.

Kulfan duly noted that the Red Wings are feeling fairly satisfied with themselves after Tuesday’s 3-2 OT win over Columbus, and that’s in no small part due to the impact of their roster reinforcements…

“We are feeling good,” said forward Tyler Bertuzzi, who scored Tuesday’s winner, essentially banking in Dylan Larkin’s pass off a 2-on-1 rush. “We have a really good team this year and if we can play like that and keep doing the right things we’ll get rewarded with these one-goal wins.”

At least in the first 240 minutes and 15 seconds of hockey this season, general manager Steve Yzerman’s free-agent and trade acquisitions have been impactful on and off the ice. They’ve added an air of professionalism, and stability, that was much needed.

Forwards Bobby Ryan (four goals in three games), Vladislav Namestnikov and Mathias Brome; defensemen Marc Staal, Jon Merrill and Troy Stecher; and goalie Thomas Greiss have solidified the roster in various ways.

“The fresh faces have calmed our bench down a little bit,” coach Jeff Blashill said. “We don’t seem to be as excitable as we’ve been. Is that growth in some of our guys that have returned? Probably. Is it new, fresh faces and not necessarily wearing previous years’ losses or struggles? Probably. We just keep playing, and that’s the approach I like. To a man, nothing has bothered us so far. We’ve just kept playing.”

Kulfan continues, and Berenter discussed the topic from a similar perspective:

And while the back end has been re-tooled, the offense was also in need of increased depth, as the top line of Dylan Larkin, Anthony Mantha and Tyler Bertuzzi accounted for more than a third of the team’s points last season.

The addition of Ryan has definitely helped take the burden off the Wings’ top line, as Ryan became the first player in franchise history to score four goals in his first three games with the club. Namestnikov hasn’t cracked the score sheet yet, but he can play all three forward positions and provides much-needed versatility up front.

Mantha said Ryan and Namestnikov have been crucial additions to Detroit’s offensive attack.

“It’s huge,” Mantha said about the added depth. “If you look up front, Namestnikov and Bobby are two guys that like to control the puck, and I think that’s a little bit what we were lacking last year. Giving the puck away a little too easy, and if they can slow down the play and make good plays, we’ll play with the puck more often.”

Berenter also continues…

Of prospect-related note from Europe:

In the ICE Hockey League, Jesper Eliasson was the back-up in the Red Bulls Salzburg’s 2-0 win over the Dornbirn Bulldogs;

In Belarus, Kirill Tyutyayev did not play in Yunost Minsk’s 2-1 loss to Metallurg-Zhlobin;

In the Finnish Liiga, Otto Kivenmaki finished at -1 with 3 shots in 13:10 played, and Kasper Kotkansalo finished even with 4 shots in 24:25 played as Assat Pori lost 4-3 to JYP. It’s good to see Kotkansalo continue to earn more ice time;

Eemil Viro finished at +1 with 1 shot in 16:26 played as TPS Turku won 3-1 over Sport.

Red Wings prospect Donovan Sebrango thought that he was going to play for the OHL’s Kitchener Rangers this season, but the OHL has yet to begin its 2020-2021 campaign, so the Red Wings loaned him to HC Levice of the Slovak 1 Liga. Now Sebrango is coming back to North America, to play on an amateur try-out for the Grand Rapids Griffins:

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. – The Grand Rapids Griffins on Wednesday signed defenseman Donovan Sebrango to an amateur tryout.

Sebrango, 19, was a third-round selection (63rd overall) of the Detroit Red Wings in the 2020 NHL Entry Draft. The 6-1, 190-pound native of Ottawa, Ontario, spent the last two seasons with the Kitchener Rangers of the Ontario Hockey League, posting 30 points (6-24—30) and 33 penalty minutes in 56 games last season after compiling 26 points (7-19-26) and 54 PIM in 62 games during the 2018-19 campaign.

The son of former Cuban soccer pro Eduardo Sebrango has played four games this season with HK Levice in Slovakia, totaling two points (1-1—2).

The Griffins will commence their training camp on Sunday, Jan. 31 at Van Andel Arena, in advance of the start of the 2020-21 American Hockey League season on Friday, Feb. 5. The AHL schedule has yet to be released.

While the Griffins remain hopeful for the potential to host fans at Van Andel Arena at some point, it is anticipated that the season will begin without fans in attendance. Fans are encouraged to watch the games via a subscription to AHLTV ($34.99 for all Griffins games), tune in on Newsradio WOOD 106.9 FM/1300 AM, and follow the team’s social media channels. Important information for Griffins season ticket members is available at griffinshockey.com.

This note comes from the Associated Press’s Larry Lage’s recap from last night’s Red Wings win:

The NHL announced games on Tuesday night would use pucks made for last season, temporarily ditching microchipped pucks after concerns were raised about their performance.

“There was no doubt the pucks were not performing up to NHL standards,” Blashill said. “We never used it as an excuse, but there was definitely frustration from everyone I spoke with.”

Here’s hoping things work out for an AHL season…

The stage is set #IsItFebruaryYet pic.twitter.com/9LmV5bxuQX— Grand Rapids Griffins (@griffinshockey) January 20, 2021

Of Red Wings-related note this morning:

1. The Athletic’s Max Bultman wrote an article discussing Michael Rasmussen’s promotion from the “taxi squad” to the Red Wings’ roster, discussing Rasmussen’s literal, figurative and statistical value to the team:

“Him and I talked about grabbing (this opportunity),” [coach Jeff] Blashill said Tuesday morning, after calling Rasmussen’s Monday performance solid. “He can’t play afraid to make a mistake. He’s got to go out there and do what he thinks is right, and we’ll coach him when he gets back to the bench, and coach him after games, and do those type of things. But he’s gotta go out there and play with confidence, and be ready to grab it.”

One thing that shouldn’t be lost here, though: As much as Rasmussen is the one responsible for proving he’s ready to play on a more prolonged basis in Detroit, the Red Wings would benefit just as much as him if he does so.

Their depth at center is still relatively weak behind Larkin, and Rasmussen, while green, still has the potential to give the Red Wings a unique presence in the middle of the ice and down low with his physicality.

“He’s an interesting player,” [Bobby] Ryan said Monday night. “He can kind of command the middle of the ice and then kick it wide. Really, really good in a lot of areas.”

Bultman continues (paywall);

2. MLive’s Ansar Khan offers a 3-topic notebook via a subscriber-only article, noting that the Red Wings’ new additions and new lines have given the team a refreshed outlook:

Continue reading Morning round-up: On Rasmussen, new additions, a new outlook and praise for Bobby Ryan

The Detroit Red Wings did what they could not do in Monday afternoon’s loss to Columbus: the Wings rallied from a 1-0 loss, rallied despite surrendering a 2-1 lead, and fought their way to a hard-earned 3-2 overtime win over the self-same Blue Jackets on Tuesday night.

This Red Wings team is 2-and-2 after 2 games, and it will rest on Wednesday ahead of a 4-game road trip (to Chicago and Dallas) starting on Friday, and if the team were to even approach .500 by the end of this 56-game season, many Red Wings fans would be thrilled, or at least satisfied with a team that appears to be learning and growing “on the fly.”

Now all of that is easy to say after 4 games, and, as we’ve seen in previous seasons, the weight of losing streaks tends to wear on this team’s young (and key) players. But we can at least hope that this year’s Red Wings are a different group of individuals, and all of 4 games in, there is room for progress and room for hope here.

On Tuesday night, put bluntly, the Red Wings won because Dylan Larkin’s shot went off Elvis Merzlikins, then Tyler Bertuzzi’s inner thigh, and sometimes you need that grit and jam to make an ugly game pretty.

All of that happened in that one sequence, as well as over the course of the 60:15 played, and that much is worth celebrating for one evening.

Our friends from Columbus were a little baffled as to how the game could have slipped from their grasp, as The Athletic’s Aaron Portzline noted…

Continue reading Red Wings-Blue Jackets Game 2 wrap-up: OT win on the learning curve

Of prospect-related note in North America this evening, pursuant to a busy day in Europe:

In the USHL, Kienan Draper finished at -1 in the Omaha Lancers’ 4-3 OT win over the Waterloo Black Hawks;

Chase Bradley scored a goal, but somehow finished at -4 with 2 shots in the Sioux City Musketeers’ 6-3 loss to the Tri-City Storm. Cross Hanas finished at +1 with a penalty taken for Tri-City.