Updated 2x at 3:58 PM: If you missed it in the Locker Room Clean-Out Day Twitter post, Red Wings GM Ken Holland has confirmed that Jeff Blashill will return as the Wings’ coach for the fourth and final year of Blashill’s contract:
Holland on Blashill: He has had 3 years of experience. Team played hard till the end. The young kids improved. … He’s had success along the way (lower levels). .. There is reason for him to continue to be head coach of the Red Wings.
Updated with videos at 2:48 PM: The Detroit Red Wings posed for their 2017-18 team picture and cleaned out their lockers at Little Caesars Arena today, and after the team picture was taken, the players spoke with the media one final time:
Among the scribes taking part in the pressers and scrums were the Free Press’s Helene St. James…
I’m on scene at Little Caesars Arena, follow along here as Red Wings meet for last time of 2017-18 season … https://t.co/S0G6TDWTpO via @freep
(Toledo, OH) – The Toledo Walleye announced today its list of players that will be on the 2018 Kelly Cup Playoff Roster. Twenty two players are on the roster with the first day of playoffs starting Friday night against the Indy Fuel at the Huntington Center.
Goaltenders Pat Nagle and Angus Redmond will be joined by eight defensemen: Simon Denis, Kevin Lohan, Trevor Hamilton, Jared Wilson, Ryan Obuchowski, Kevin Tansey, Beau Schmitz and Patrick McCarron. The 12 forwards on Toledo’s roster include: Kyle Bonis, Connor Crisp, Austen Brassard, Tyler Barnes, Christian Hilbrich, Shane Berschbach, Dylan Sadowy, Colin Jacobs, Mike Borkowski, Charlie O’Connor, Mike Embach and A.J. Jenks.
Defenseman Parker Reno is on injured reserve and defenseman Kevin Gibson has been released.
The Grand Rapids Griffins didn’t get back Tyler Bertuzzi and will have to go the rest of the way without Matt Lorito as well.
Lorito, tied for fourth on the team in scoring (23-26-49), will not return from a knee injury and is out for the rest of the season, coach Todd Nelson said.
Nelson said Lorito will undergo surgery. He has not played the past six games since injured in a March 24 game against Iowa. The left winger is in the last season of a two-year, two-way contract.
“It’s unfortunate because, obviously, he’s a big part of our hockey team,” Nelson said. “We just have to get it done without him.”
Wallner reports that the Griffins are OK with Tyler Bertuzzi working on his off-season training…
“Tyler was asked about that option and he wanted to play. But that was a while ago,” Nelson said. “Since that time, he’s played important minutes and he really hasn’t had a summer the past two years to really develop his body. So, I think that’s why the decision was made to start training and get ready for next season. And I totally respect that. Once again, we’re here to facilitate the Detroit Red Wings.
“Are we going to miss him? Absolutely. But it will give other players an opportunity to step up.”
And yes, the Griffins are eying Michael Rasmussen as he plays tremendous hockey for the WHL’s Tri-City Americans. If the Americans are eliminated from the WHL playoffs, Rasmussen can join the Griffins:
“He’s a player we can certainly use,” Nelson said. “He’s a big body and he’s having a monster playoff. But we’ll have to see how that plays out.”
1. I’ve tried to avoid reading lists of power rankings this season as the Wings’ record among their competitors, both real and perceived, has been ugly this season, and TSN’s Scott Cullen wraps up his regular-season power rankings with a big thud for his 29th-place-ranked Wings:
Since the trade deadline the Red Wings compiled a record of 4-13-3, worst in the NHL. The 72 points they earned on the season were their lowest in a full season since they had 70 in 1989-90.
Tuesday, when the Wings gather for the team photo and locker clean out day, expect that the club will announce that [Red Wings coach Jeff] Blashill is returning to finish out the fourth season of the contract he signed to coach Detroit in 2015.
ONE TO WATCH: Andreas Athanasiou, a 23-year-old center, was inconsistent after holding out for a bigger contract last fall. He is a restricted free agent, eligible for arbitration, and may want to be on the move.
Does he want to play for the Red Wings next season?
“I want to be an NHL player,” he said. “I want to be in this league. I’ve been very happy to wear a Red Wings wheel, but it’s a business so we’ll see what happens.”
4. One way or another, the Red Wings’ pre-locker-room-clean-out-day comments were most intriguing in regards to the team’s style of play. According to the players and coach, as noted by the Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan, the Wings are going to continue to transition to a faster-paced game–and by faster-paced, they mean a break-neck paced “speed game” (which also happens to be fun to watch):
“New Jersey was the best hardest forechecking team we probably saw and they don’t have big, strong forwards, they have quickness,” Blashill said. “It’s become a real forechecking, hounding league in a lot of ways.”
Blashill didn’t feel the Red Wings were fast enough to play against last season. But that’s changed this season.
“We tried to implement a much faster transition game, to try to make use of one of our assets — our speed,” Blashill said. “I don’t think enough coaches said last year we were fast. (But) I don’t know if there’s a coach now that doesn’t say our team is fast.
“Part of “fast” is playing fast, and we’ve learned to play way faster, and so part of that is willing to put pucks behind people and go forecheck a little bit more. We’ve done a pretty good job of that, trying to use our quickness, and that’s a positive.”
A young player like Bertuzzi, who seems well suited for this type of style, also gives the organization hope going forward.
“He’s a real good piece to a winning hockey team,” Blashill said. “He plays winning hockey. He’s extremely smart defensively, he has a very strong stick, he’s very strong on the puck. He’s hard and smart and has good skill and that’s a rare combination.”
Stylistically, I still believe in puck possession hockey over dump-and-chase, but you’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do, and today’s team speed is all about getting through the neutral zone fast and setting up on the cycle.
MLive’s Ansar Khan happens to have posted a video in which Blashill spoke about the Wings’ harder-charging style, prior to Saturday’s game, and I’m just guessing that Khan will post a 6 AM-published column regarding this topic:
They still want to possess the puck, but when they don’t have it, they need to be more aggressive, coach Jeff Blashill said.
“More forechecking and a faster transition game,” Blashill said. “I think in the past it was bring it back and loop and do some things and it was awesome for a while. Some of that was with the number of Russian players that were here, that’s how they’d grown up playing. Some of that is the league was much different, there were huge disparities in talent from one team to the next.
“It’s not that way anymore. We’ve tried to implement a much faster transition game to try to make use of what I think is one of our best assets — our speed. I didn’t think enough coaches said to me last year that our team was fast. I don’t know if there’s a coach I talk to now that doesn’t say our team’s fast. I think we’ve learned to play way faster, and part of that is being willing to put pucks behind people and go forecheck a little bit more. This certainly wasn’t noted as a forechecking team in the past. I think everybody in here knows that you have to be that if you want to win.”
The Grand Rapids Griffins will wrap up their regular season with three games to be played over the course of four nights this week, and the Griffins will do so with something of an open competition for their playoff starting goalie’s spot.
“Tommy has been playing his best hockey right now; he played exceptional last game,” [Griffins coach Todd] Nelson said of a 4-1 win Saturday at Tucson. “Jared, obviously, he would have wanted things to go better but he was playing his best hockey when he left us. So, I have three games to figure it out.”
The Griffins practice in Austin on Tuesday and play against Texas on Wednesday. Then they are at San Antonio on Thursday and home Saturday for the regular-season finale against Cleveland. Within that, the Griffins (40-25-1-7) will finish between first or fourth in a tightly-contested Central Division.
Coreau will likely get one if not two starts to see if he can forget about what happened with the Red Wings. In seven games, he was winless with a 4.26 goals-against-average and .867 save percentage.
In 36 games with the Griffins, Coreau is 20-10-4 with a 2.47 GAA and .916 save percentage. His last two games with the Griffins (Feb. 15, 17) were shutouts and he earned the league’s monthly honor after a 1.46 GAA and .951 save percentage and two shutouts in six games before recalled.
When he left, McCollum stepped in and has played very well especially of late with two goals allowed in nine of his past 10 games (he allowed three the other game). Likewise, he also has appeared in 36 games, going 19-14-3 with a 2.56 GAA and .911 save percentage.
Wallner continues, and Nelson suggests that playoff starts will be earned on a winning basis…
The Toledo Blade’s Mark Monroe posted an article discussing the Toledo Walleye’s impending playoff series against the Indy Fuel, as well as Simon Denis’ return from the AHL’s Hartford Wolfpack. As Monroe notes, the Walleye are a heavy favorite in their first-round series:
The Fuel did not earn a spot in the playoffs until the season finale on Sunday. Toledo is 8-1-0 against Indy this season.
The best-of-7 series will follow a 2-3-2 format. Game 2 is Sunday at 5:15 p.m. before the series shifts to Indiana.
The Walleye have earned the No. 1 seed in the conference for the fourth straight season. They reached the conference finals last year and in 2014-15. They were ousted by Reading in the first round in 2015-16.
“Being the No. 1 seed comes with a lot of high expectations,” Watson said. “So there are several ways to handle it. I’m 100 percent excited to see how our guys respond. We are very deep at every position. We are built differently than the last few years. Everyone will have to play up to their potential for a long playoff run.”
I try to reserve my post-season observations regarding the Red Wings until the team takes part in its annual team picture and locker room clean-out day.
The Wings’ players, coach and GM engage in end-of-the-season press conferences and media scrums that can be very telling in terms of shedding light upon player performances and their mindsets going forward…
And in Ken Holland’s case, a 20-to-45-minute lecture in which he shares his philosophies and “game plan” for the offseason.
The Athletic’s Craig Custance doesn’t believe that it’s too early to 13 “Before the Locker cleanout” takeaways, however, and among them are the following takes on the Wings’ draft position:
5. Ultimately, in judging the Red Wings this season, there are a couple things to look at. First is draft position. It would have been a disaster for this team to finish closer to the playoff line, stuck in the middle. Whether it was by design or not, they didn’t. They’ve put themselves in position to grab a talented player at the top of a 2018 draft strong on defense — a major need. The worst they’ll be drafting is No. 8 overall and that’s if three teams leapfrog them into the top three. It takes a lot of clicks on tankathon to get that to happen.
6. Even if we go worst-case scenario with the lottery and drop the Red Wings to No. 8, it’s not hard to come up with a list of players they’re looking hard at who would vault to the top of their prospect list They’d still be selecting from a pool of these players, any of whom would be a nice addition to the organization (in no particular order): Rasmus Dahlin, Filip Zadina, Andrei Svechnikov, Noah Dobson, Evan Bouchard, Brady Tkachuk, Quinn Hughes, Adam Boqvist.
