The Free Press’s Helene St. James has posted something of a training camp preview as we are just over two weeks out from the Red Wings’ hitting the ice in Traverse City:

The Detroit Red Wings are two weeks out from the start of training camp, their ice time booked for Traverse City as has been tradition since 1997.

They weren’t able to go in 2020, of course, because of COVID-19. This year’s event runs about a week later than normal, with a golf outing Sept. 22 and practices/scrimmages Sept. 23-28. Their exhibition season begins Sept. 29 with a game at the Chicago Blackhawks and runs through Oct. 9. The home opener is Oct. 14 against the Tampa Bay Lightning.

This will be the third season under general manager Steve Yzerman. When training began in September 2019, players noted most of them weren’t “his,” meaning they were on the roster when Yzerman was named GM five months earlier.

Now, nearly every player on the roster bears Yzerman’s endorsement. Gone from the squad that finished the 2018-19 season are: forwards Anthony Mantha, Andreas Athanasiou, Frans Nielsen, Thomas Vanek, Darren Helm, Luke Glendening, Justin Abdelkader, Christoffer Ehn and Jacob de la Rose; defensemen Niklas Kronwall (who retired and joined the front office), Trevor Daley, Madison Bowey and Jonathan Ericsson; and goaltenders Jimmy Howard and Jonathan Bernier. In addition, defenseman Dennis Cholowski, a first-round pick from 2016, was lost in the Seattle expansion draft, and forward Evgeny Svechnikov, a first-round pick from 2017, was not tendered a qualifying offer this summer.

Continued

This is a bummer, per UpNorthLive’s Roxane Werly:

The Detroit Red Wings are cancelling some events planned for Traverse City during its Training Camp.

Due to the increase in COVID-19 cases the Training Camp Golf Classic and the Alumni Hockey Game are cancelled.

The 22nd Annual Detroit Red Wings Training Camp Golf Classic was scheduled for Sept. 22.

The Alumni and Celebrity Game was scheduled for Sept. 25.

The NHL Prospect Tournament and main Detroit Red Wings Training Camp will go on as planned.

The Red Wings took something of a leap of faith in drafting Windsor Spitfires forward Pasquale Zito this summer, because Zito didn’t play a meaningful game during the 2020-2021 season. MLive’s Ansar Khan has penned a profile of the Windsor Spitfires forward:

The Detroit Red Wings, with their final pick in this year’s draft, took a chance on a gritty, two-way forward from just across the river who didn’t play in 2020-21 due to the pandemic.

Pasquale Zito is determined to reward their faith.

“He said, ‘I’m going to do everything I can to make it worthwhile’ of us stepping up and picking him. That’s pretty neat to hear,” Kris Draper, Detroit’s director of amateur scouting, said. “For us it was about relationships we trusted. He lost a year of hockey, but we feel over the next couple years he’s going to do everything on and off the ice to make himself ready and turn himself into the prospect we want him to be.”

The Red Wigs selected Zito, a 6-foot, 175-pound left wing, in the sixth round (166th overall), based on his play as a 16-year-old for the Windsor Spitfires in 2019-20 (three goals and 13 points in 46 games) and conversations with the junior club’s front office and training staff.

After the 2020-21 OHL season was canceled due to the pandemic, Zito was relegated to playing pick-up games and working out in the gym to stay in shape.

Continued

Per Detroit Hockey Now’s Kevin Allen, former NHL’er Hakan Loob, who was taking part in a Swedish hockey television broadcast today, made quite the comparison, invoking Nicklas Lidstrom as a comparable for Simon Edvinsson (per IceHockeyGifs):

Håkan Loob compares Simon Edvinsson to ‘that’ player. #LGRW pic.twitter.com/HC7YYjlQVq

— IcehockeyGifs (@IcehockeyG) September 2, 2021

Duff notes that there are other opinions regarding Edvinsson’s upside:

Edvinsson is 6-foot-4, 205 pounds. He is playing with Frolunda. Loob said Edvinsson is playing like  he’s think he could “maybe play in the NHL next year.”

Draft expert Russ Cohen’s assessment differs in terms of the Edvinsson’s time frame.

“(He) gets in the flow of the game well. His wrist shot is very accurate,” Cohen said. “The Swede is elusive up the ice and he’s very confident as a puck distributor on the power play. His skating is already very good. He has good physical strength that could improve and that’s why it will take him one more year in the SHL and then he’ll come over and start in the AHL and maybe play the entire season there or a portion of it before they call him up. ”

Cohen is a regular on NHL Network Radio. He also is owner of the Sportsology website and a contributor to EP Rinkside.

Red Wings coach Jeff Blashill will be part of a virtual hockey summit held by The Coaches’ Site, to be held between September 13th and 17th. Here’s a snippet of his presentation:

#LGRW head coach Jeff Blashill on what it takes to be great.

Catch Blashill at this month's #VirtualHockeySummit!

Join now: https://t.co/BB8uKipWgn pic.twitter.com/pdojgkreDh

— The Coaches Site (@TheCoachesSite) September 4, 2021

Blashill will be joined by Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy, Blues coach Craig Berube, Kings coach Todd McLellan, Stars coach Rick Bouwness and others…

Quoting Fox Sports Detroit’s YouTube page:

Brooke bonds with Deone Walker and Jalen Thompson at a Cass Tech football practice and later welcomes new Red Wings defenseman Nick Leddy to Detroit.

The Leddy interview starts at 4:50….

NHL.com is examining each and every one of the NHL’s 32 teams this month, asking five questions of each team. Today, NHL.com’s Nicholas J. Cotsonika covers the questions surrounding the Red Wings. Among his queries:

2. How much will the offense improve, particularly the power play? Detroit scored 127 goals last season, one more than the Anaheim Ducks, who scored the fewest in the NHL. Their power play (11.4 percent) also ranked second-to-last, ahead of the Ducks (8.9 percent). But three of the Red Wings’ top four scorers from 2019-20 — forwards Dylan Larkin (12 games), Tyler Bertuzzi (47) and Robby Fabbri (26) — missed significant time with injuries. Each is expected to be ready for the start of this season.

The Red Wings made key additions in the offseason: center Pius Suter, defenseman Nick Leddy and assistant coach Alex Tanguay. Suter scored 27 points (14 goals, 13 assists) in 55 games for the Chicago Blackhawks last season. Leddy scored 31 points (two goals, 29 assists) in 56 games for the New York Islanders. Tanguay will run the power play.

“I think we’re going to generate a little bit more offense, will score a few more goals, I think,” Yzerman said. “How many, I really don’t know.”

…

4. Can Moritz Seider contend for the Calder Trophy? Seider, the No. 6 pick of the 2019 NHL Draft, scored 22 points (two goals, 20 assists) in 49 games for Grand Rapids of the American Hockey League in 2019-20. After he was loaned to Rogle of the Sweden Hockey League during the coronavirus pandemic last season, he scored 28 points (seven goals, 21 assists) in 41 games. He won the SHL Elite Prospects Award and was named SHL Defenseman of the Year.

Can the 20-year-old contend for the Calder? First things first.

“If he’s in the top six and he’s earned that spot in the top six, he’ll play,” Yzerman said. “I’m not sure if he’s not in the top six how much we’re going to want to sit him in the press box, so we’ll worry about that when it comes. But we anticipate him making a really good push to play.”

Continued

Detroit Hockey Now’s Kevin Allen has written an article discussing the Red Wings’ salary cap picture after signing every restricted free agent save Givani Smith:

In the NHL where 20 teams have less than $3 million salary cap remaining, the Detroit Red Wings will start the season with more than $13 million in salary cap space.

The Red Wings have $14.2 million remaining with only Givani Smith still to sign, according to CapFriendly.com. Only the Ottawa Senators and Buffalo Sabres have more cap space than the Red Wings. The Sabres have $23.6 million and the Senators are at $24.5 million with Brady Tkachuk still to sign

What’s remarkable is that Yzerman, at least on paper, significantly improved his team this offseason with the acquisitions of center Pius Suter, goalie Alex Nedeljkovic and defenseman Nick Leddy. He spent more than $11 million on those three players and that could not have been predicted. He also left room for prize prospect defenseman Moritz Seider.

Continued; whether you use CapFriendly or PuckPedia to check on salary cap space around the league, you’ll see that many teams are over the salary cap at present, so the Red Wings’ GM may not be done dealing quite yet.

I’m a little late to this one, but that happens sometimes, so: McKeen’s Hockey’s Ryan Wagman posted a review of the Atlantic Division teams‘ respective 2021 draft classes, and here is part of what his behind-the-paywall article says about the Red Wings’ selections:

As General Manager of the Red Wings, Steve Yzerman knows who he wants at the top, and grabs them, no matter how iconoclastic the selection is at that point. See Seider, Moritz from two years ago. Seen as a surprising overdraft at the time, he is now one of the top prospects in the sport and seemingly ready to break into the NHL now. The Wings took an elite-skilled forward up top last year in Lucas Raymond, but returned to building from the back out this year. At sixth overall, they selected a defender who holds some similarities to Seider in Simon Edvinsson, as big, smooth skaters with men’s league experience and untapped athleticism. Edvinsson may not be as advanced now as Seider was when he was drafted, but his tools give him a slightly higher upside if he can put it all together. Not long after selecting the big Swedish defender, Detroit traded a late 1^st rounder (part of the return from the Anthony Mantha trade) to Dallas to pick up the #15 pick, which they used to select the first goalie in the draft, the towering Sebastian Cossa. Many had Cossa ranked behind Sweden’s Jesper Wallstedt, but Yzerman likes who he likes and Cossa is a Wing.

Pick shuffling was a bit of theme for Detroit in this draft, as they did it again in the second round to grab USHL defender Shai Buium, and then traded down in the fourth round in order to acquire an extra pick in the fifth round. In the end, the eight players selected by the Red Wings were nicely divided between the positions, with two other defenders taken after Edvinsson, four forwards, and the one goalie in Cossa. They drafted two out of Sweden, three college-bound players from the USHL, and one player from each of the three CHL leagues. When the final chapter of this draft class is written, it will be judged on the top three picks’ (Edvinsson, Cossa, Buium) abilities to prevent goals far more than the production numbers any of the forwards may eventually put up.

In the “for the record” department, HockeySvergie.se’s Rasmus Kagstrom reports that the Malmo Redhawks’ GM, Patrik Sylvegard, is “holding the door open” in case Frans Nielsen wants to play in the SHL this upcoming season.

Nielsen has been previously linked to Malmo as he lives there with his Swedish wife, not that far from his hometown of Herning, Denmark, and Sylvegard suggests to Sydsvenskan’s Kent Lejon Jonsson that, should both Nielsen and Malmo’s fans feel that Nielsen is a good fit, the Redhawks would make such a deal happen.