titanium2

Doesn't really burst anyone's bubble since Malik is wrong a lot.

Isn't Filppula engaged too? (And of course, to someone other than ZDC). I'm a little surprised Svetlana Datsyuk and Filppula's fiancee weren't there.

Well, I was mainly trying to do some perspective taking on what it would be like to lose a guy like Barbero that's done more than a serviceable job for an organization. Of course I hate the Pens and everything but I feel like now's not the time for that. I'm sure he was a decent enough man and it always sucks when a decent person loses their life. It shouldn't be that hard to develop some kind of empathy for anyone when a death happens.

Eh, we're Stevie fans first and foremost. If he was the GM for the Panthers or Thrashers or some other organization save for a select few (Avs, Hawks, etc.), we would be fans of that team.

It's only one example but I could see maybe Roenick making a comment like that these days as far as star players go.

It pains me to hear the new guys voice at the Joe announce the names. When Budd Lynch says, "Last two minutes of the third period" I feel like things are right again. I don't really have anything against the new guy (even though his voice sounds like it's trying to be trendy; which is actually quite bad, remember Fedorov's "I'm really trying to stand out" white skates? Similar concept to me). But Budd Lynch is classic and it's really going to suck when he passes.

No wonder Kenny isn't all that worried about an enforcer.

Damn that sucks. My sympathies to his family and pens nation.

Well again, that is, if the team is still obsessed with using a right hand shot on the PP.

I got curious to see if HF had any reports on Eaves and they do have a little something. I know that the third line as of today will have Hudler and Cleary as its wingers but I just wanted to start a discussion about the possibility of Eaves perhaps becoming a guy we can count on to be a 35-40 point tweener. If Babs is so obsessed with having a right handed shot on the PP then I wish Babs would give Eaves a shot, pun intended, but according to trends of the way the Wings handle TOI among players, only a very select few play the penalty kill AND the power play on a game to game basis. Lidstrom, Kronwall and Zetterberg were the only ones last year iirc. It's as if you can only play Eaves on one or the other. Eaves is just one of those guys you really want to see do well. Maybe because he's so spazzy and happy when he scores, I don't know.

Pretty much. +1

What's the deal here? Are the Hawks still screwed?

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not. I've heard Brunnstrom is soft but I've also seen you enjoy a schtick every now and again of playing the Euros are soft angle.

Is Brunnstrom any good anymore?

Was Kyla Cole at Hossa's wedding?

We don't really know how good Abdelkader's shot is at the NHL level. He won't ever shoot the puck like Modano but how good can he shoot? Hopefully he's way better in that area than we know.

Jan Mursak took boxing lessons a couple summers ago just to stay in shape.

A lot of users on LGW are like that. Don't know if that's a good or bad thing.

http://blog.mlive.com/snapshots/2010/07/red_wings_prospect_camp_assess.html 50 Riley Sheahan Pluses: Um, how does going through an entire week of watching an 18-year-old who’s 6’2,” 200 lbs, has room to grow and lives up to his stickhandling YouTube video sound? Try, “Oh Dear Gord, how the hell did we get our hands on this guy again?” Riley Sheahan is a big, strong, hard-skating, hard-charging forward with ridiculously good hands in terms of playmaking passes, shooting the puck, chasing after it, and deftly dekeing rebounds past goaltenders, etc. He’s not only relatively fast while skating, but also extremely mobile, his shot is very hard and can pick corners, he’s again, a superb playmaking passer, he can bulldoze his way to the net all the way from the blueline or grind the puck out down low, and, perhaps most impressively, he has a mature and nuanced defensive game. Mostly, however, the 19-year-old was incredibly hard-working, he listened to his coaches intently, said he planned on taking his skill development lessons back to his skating coach and Piet Van Zant’s workout advice back to his personal trainer, and as the media’s belle of the ball, he’d willingly remain stickily stuck in his full uniform for as long as necessary to do interviews. Mostly, it appeared that he wasn’t letting the attention he got go to his head, and if you’re the team’s resident draft pick flavor of the day, that’s a very good thing. Minuses: Sheahan still has a bit of work to do on his conditioning as he did get pushed around on occasion, and he has yet to find a way to translate his tremendous offensive skills into production at Notre Dame, where he had to play a dedicated defensive role last season. He does have to continue to improve skating and skill-wise to maximize his potential. He also needs to make absolutely sure that he stays out of trouble off the ice as one off-ice “minor in possession” charge is enough, but as Sheahan headed back home to St. Catherines, Ontario last week, several of his teammates were arrested this past weekend for underage drinking, which doesn’t exactly bode well for the program’s leadership. Sheahan struck me as both bright enough and humble enough to understand that wearing the Winged Wheel involves keeping one’s nose clean. Potential “upside”: The Wings don’t have to sign Sheahan for three more years, and if he continues to develop on and off the ice, we’re talking about an honest-to-goodness power forward of the first order, with 30-goal potential and a fantastic two-way game, but, again, that’s at least three years and a few in the AHL down the line. That being said, it bears mentioning that he played his game like Brendan Smith, Ben Marshall, and Brent Raedeke in terms of pace and urgency throughout the week. Update: I forgot to mention the most striking comment Sheahan made to me this past week. When I asked him what he was majoring in, he admitted that he was going to stay "undeclared" for as long as possible because he did struggle with the combination of playing college hockey while trying to keep his head above water in terms of schoolwork. I thought that was an incredibly mature and honest comment from a young man who could have ducked the question entirely.

http://blog.mlive.com/snapshots/2010/07/red_wings_prospect_camp_assess_1.html 62 Calle Jarnkrok Pluses: This 5’10,” maybe 150-lb (probably 140-something) forward admittedly understands why the Red Wings drafted him, and understands that he must get much, much bigger and much, much stronger to have any pro potential… But what potential he has. The 18-year-old, right-shooting center who spent the latter half of the 2009-2010 season with Brynas IF’s men’s team after dominating at the Under-20 level looked absolutely horrible some of Andy Weidenbach’s skating drills, and awkward as his rail-thin-and-gangly-frame looked as he attempted to master Thomas Storm’s stickhandling exercises, and in Curt Fraser’s limited situational drills, he got pushed around like a rag doll at times. For the first part of camp, I was absolutely puzzled about the hype surrounding Jarnkrok. Then the wide-eyed rookie who also admitted that he was a bit dazzled and dazed about the fact that he’d gone from Los Angeles to Sweden and back to Detroit over the course of 13 days started to get comfortable with his surroundings, get comfortable with his teammates, and when he started to skate on a line alongside Landon Ferraro and Mitchell Callahan during scrimmages, he dangled, deked, dipsy-doodled and dazzled. Jarnkrok slipped to the Red Wings’ clutches in the second round because he really does have skills equal to Smith or Ferraro and really does have a body the size of a small teenager’s. His shot is hard, picks corners, and is incredibly sneaky and simply quick, his passing is nearly prescient at times, and as awkward as he looked at times, his skating was fantastic when the puck was on his stick. He generated offense consistently on the rush and on the cycle, serving as Ferraro’s “finisher” as he charged to the net and managed to sneak his body, or at least his stick, through the bigger and stronger players defending him and jab the puck either into the net or toward a teammate, he could deke the puck away from a player who was physically overpowering him, and for a bit of a puck hog, he certainly knew how to use his defensemen as outlets when necessary. He got caught cheating toward offense quite regularly, but he did work very, very hard to get back to help his defense, and his battle level in his own zone did not falter. Minuses: Incredibly slight doesn’t begin to describe Jarnkrok. He looked like he was 18 going on 14, and while he possessed a decent amount of muscle on his frame, there just wasn’t much frame to put muscle on to begin with. He’s going to have an incredibly hard time gaining weight and strength, and especially given his tenuous level of confidence, if he starts the season with Brynas IF’s men’s team and he falters, he could find himself in serious trouble. Ditto for his strength and conditioning. Despite his age and potential, if you look at some of the Wings’ Swedish prospects, for the Niklas Kronwalls and Henrik Zetterbergs that buy into the Wings’ system and learn to eat and train like professional athletes, there are the Johan Rynos and Jesper Samuelssons that simply refuse, believe that if they can persist and sometimes succeed at a reasonable level in Sweden, that that’s good enough for them, and one way or another, they fall by the wayside. Jarnkrok has to want to work himself incredibly hard over the next two years to garner a contract—that time frame’s in place now because the NHL and Sweden have hammered out a transfer agreement—and I suppose the difference between Ryno, Jesper Samuelsson, and even Hat Trick Dick Axelsson and Jarnkrok is a simple one. Somebody like Hat Trick Dick could become a star if his heart was into it. Even after watching him play for all of a week, I’m comfortable saying that Jarnkrok, like Smith and Ferraro, could become a superstar. Potential “upside”: He could become anything from a skinny kid who grows up into a skinny man and happily plies his trade in the Allsvenskan or Eliteserien to someone who can post 50-70 points at the NHL level. It’s far too early to say but his potential is ridiculously high.

http://blog.mlive.com/snapshots/2010/07/red_wings_prospect_camp_assess_1.html 48 Louis-Marc Aubry Pluses: The Red Wings seemingly drafted a gentle giant who’s learning to drop his politeness in the massive 6’4,” 184-lb Louis-Marc Aubry, who literally and figuratively looks like he’s still got a ways to grow. Aubry posted decent numbers for the QMJHL’s Montreal Juniors in his sophomore season in the “Q,” and the son of a former Red Wing in Pierre Aubry (who was only 5’10,” go figure) came into the Red Wings’ locker room, admittedly wearing the jersey of the team he cheered for as a youngster… And he looked terrified, absolutely terrified. He looks like he’s 15 to begin with, speaks a hair above a whisper, albeit in superb self and roommate-taught English, and for the first two days of camp, I watched a 6’4” doe attempt to not trip over himself on the ice while adjusting to the pace of play and the intensity of the drills the Wings’ coaches put them through. He looked especially out-of-balance during skating drills because the growth spurts which have, per RedWingsCentral, added eight inches to his height over the past four years—and I’d suggest that there’s an inch or two left before he has to learn how to shave—he skates with a hunched-over posture, wasting energy as his shoulders are way out over the toes of his skates instead of no further forward than his knees, forcing him to work extra hard to get up to a remarkable level of speed for a big man and robbing him of energy during stops and starts or changes in direction. Therein lay the rub, however. Aubry told me that he took notes during Thomas Storm’s stickhandling drills and Andy Weidenbach’s skill drills, and did the same in terms of trying to learn the specifics of Curt Fraser and the coaching staff’s situational drills, as well as the tips that Piet Van Zant and the Wings’ training staff gave the incredibly stringy young man about improving his core strength and building his body up from the inside out and building his body the right way, slowly but surely. Aubry struck me as studious and thoughtful to a fault at times, but he stated that he knew he was at the camp to learn as much as possible, and I’m not sure if anyone took it more seriously than Marc-Louis did. So, not surprisingly, his game is remarkably mature for his age. Aubry skates superbly well for a big man, has a solid shot and deft passing abilities, he stickhandles very very well, and can generate a fair amount of offense when used in that role, but he was used as a defensive forward in Montreal, and in terms of his defensive awareness and understanding of when to hang back as the “high man” in the slot or when he needed to get those big legs churning to help his defenders, if not bail them out and precede them to the puck, to get that big body in front of shots and his long stick in shooting and passing lanes, to grind the puck out down low in his own end, help his defenders clear the puck, lead the rush himself or just simply make the safe and easy play at a camp where players very often either retreated into the safety of trap hockey or overextended themselves trying to do too much on his own… Aubry displayed the mature defensive awareness and polish of Brent Raedeke or Landon Ferraro, if not a professional hockey player. He definitely possesses the raw offensive skills to display more flourish to his game, but if he never puts the puck in the net again, his defensive game is worthy of a Mike Babcock-delivered, “Fan-tastic.” Minuses: Aubry won’t have to shave until he’s 20 at the earliest (and he turns 19 in November), and I would very conservatively estimate that he’s got another inch to grow. The biggest concern involves Louis-Marc growing into that big body and working on his strength and conditioning so that he fills out and can eventually use that size to a huge advantage, no pun intended, as he works up the ranks. His personality’s also reflected in his lack of on-ice assertiveness at times, and if he wants to establish himself as a forward who can do more than play defense, his offensive skills must manifest themselves in a demonstrative manner. Mostly, he’s a prospect who illustrates the frustrating fact that the post-lockout CBA forces teams to make incredibly difficult decisions as to the worthiness of their Major Junior Hockey-playing prospects of a spot on their 50-man roster in short order, because the Wings have to decide whether to sign Aubry by June of 2012, and at this rate, he could just be getting accustomed to a fully-grown and filled-out physique. He’s on an NHL-mandated clock. Potential “upside”: If he keeps growing into his body and building it up while establishing himself as a two-way forward in the QMJHL, and if he lays people out more regularly—in the limited-hitting environment of the prospect camp, he didn’t issue many bodychecks, but obviously can do so as he led Montreal in hits—and finds a way to fold scoring into his portfolio, the Wings will sign him two years from now, he’ll continue to grow into that big body and learn the game with that big brain, and he’ll emerge as a superb two-way forward and third-line center. He very literally has a huge upside, and the bottom line must not be minimized: he took notes. You can’t bet against somebody who’s a compulsive note taker.

http://www.westerncollegehockeyblog.com/2010/6/24/1534637/2010-nhl-draft-prospect-teemu 2010 NHL Draft Prospect: Teemu Pulkkinen Western-lg_tiny by WCHBlog on Jun 24, 2010 11:16 AM PDT Comment 0 comments Name:Teemu Pulkkinen Height: 5'11" Weight: 183 09-10 team: Jokerit(Finland) 09-10 stats: 12 games, 1 goal, 2 assists, 3 points Prospect Info: Nobody seems to question Teemu Pulkkinen's abilities once he steps on the ice. On pure talent alone, he may be one of the top ten, maybe even five, players in the draft. But it is Pulkkinen's ability to stay on the ice that will be of great concern for NHL teams. Pulkkinen played very little this year, thanks to a lingering knee injury, that has affected him off and on for two years now, a broken wrist, and a separated shoulder. All three injuries have required surgery, causing questions about how Pulkkinen will handle the physical North American game. Pulkkinen was a standout performer at this year's U18 tournament, which brought him back into the first round discussion, but shortly after the tournament, he underwent shoulder surgery, and didn't perform at the NHL Combine, since he didn't have all of his medical paperwork in order, though he was able to interview with most teams. Pulkkinen is a pure sniper with perhaps one of the best shots in the draft. He's also a very smooth stickhandler with the puck. He's not the fastest skater, but he plays on the wing, where his skating is less of an issue, and he's a solidly built player. One area where Pulkkinen will have to improve before playing in the NHL is improving his defensive game. It's still unclear where Pulkkinen will play next season. He is under contract with Jokerit's pro team for one more year, but there is a brief window this summer where he could transfer to the Kelowna Rockets of the WHL. Links of Interest: Pulkkinen Has Top 20 Potential-The Hockey News-April 2010 Pulkkinen Finally Showed True Form at End of Season-NHL.com-June 2010 On WCH... April 8, 2009: "This kid looks like he's going to be a superstar. He's absolutely electric 1-on-1 against a defender, and made a lot of highly ranked defenseman look absolutely silly. He's a natural goalscorer that could be among the tournament leaders in goals. I've heard a lot of good things about Taylor Hall, and I've been a huge Cam Fowler fan for years now, but Pulkkinen might be good enough to get consideration as the top overall pick in next year's draft." April 21, 2010: "Teemu Pulkkinen is a kid that I thought was very under-rated in the draft, and being one of this tournament's leading scorers probably brings him back into the first round conversation again, though the way the tournament ended for him today probably doesn't help." Final Analysis It's tough to tell where Pulkkinen will go in the draft, because the final decision on whether to gamble on him will likely be made by medical professionals, rather than hockey people. Pulkkinen made the paperwork from all of his surgeries available to any NHL team that was interested, and it will be up to those teams to decide if he is a player that merely ran into some bad luck, or if these physical issues will be a perpetual problem. Personally, I can't see a player of that talent slipping out of the first round, but he may slip into the middle of the second round or later if teams are nervous about his injury history.

http://blog.mlive.com/snapshots/2010/07/red_wings_prospect_camp_assess.html 34 Petr Mrazek Pluses: For a goaltender optimistically listed at 6’ and 170 lbs—Mrazek stands 5’10” and might weigh 150—the 18-year-old earned two very specific mentions from me over the course of prospect camp for a simple reason: his athleticism more than made up for his lack of size, and while he’s a raw goaltender who uses oversized equipment to block the puck, he blocks that puck with authority and confidence, and his athleticism allows him to charge out to the top of the crease and maximize his blocking surfaces while also buying him the time and space necessary to recover and attempt to cover up on rebound opportunities. His Hasek-like glove is just brilliant, nothing less than brilliant, because he not only snags pucks out of the air a-la McCollum, but also knows how to drop the puck out of his glove and keep the game moving by chipping it to his defensemen with his smart stick-work—he wasn’t kidding when he suggested that he works on it regularly, because his passes were both efficient and fast enough that he could recover and get back into his stance quickly and smoothly--his rebound control is fantastic in that the big rebounds that thudded off his pads all went into the corners, like Mountain’s rebounds, his blocker is solid, his butterfly is wide and confident, he possesses superb lateral movement and can cover up the “holes” in his technique relatively quickly, and he and McCollum possessed the best combinations of technical aplomb and the ability to intimidate shooters. Minuses: Mrazek is both incredibly skinny—Daniel Larsson, skinny-as-a-rake thin—and, despite his athleticism, inefficient in terms of his skating and overenthusiastic to the point of taking himself out of position in terms of his movement across the crease. When Mountain and Mrazek did lateral movement drills or worked on their positioning with Jim Bedard, you’d think that Al Sobotka would be weeping because the gents cut up his ice with all the sound and fury of someone trying to ski on gravel, expending a tremendous amount of energy to just dig in and slide across—and when Mrazek lost his crease, he would wander out of the net and sometimes seem like he didn’t plan on recovering until he was halfway to Windsor. The other issue with Mrazek’s style involved the fact that, when you’re a puck-blocking netminder (whether he wants to call himself a hybrid, butterfly, whatever) who relies on his athletic ability and a big, un-tucked-in chest protector, high-as-possible pads and big goalie pants to make up for your rope-thin physique, the combination of bulk and inefficient movement means that if you get spun around, all of a sudden there’s a skinny kid in the net who has a hard time blocking the puck or getting to rebounds. By the end of camp, most of the Wings’ players figured out that the best way to beat Mrazek was to get the puck in tight for a rebound chance, force him to commit to his butterfly, and just walk the puck around him laterally because he couldn’t spin around fast enough and didn’t have enough bulk , technical aplomb, or simple puck-fighting ability to do what McCollum can—when you twist McCollum around and his big bulk’s pointed away from the net, he becomes Hasek-like in his tenacity and will use his glove, blocker, stick, head, you name it to bat the puck away and pull the rebound back into him. Mrazek didn’t display that tenacity once the puck was behind him. Potential “upside”: Mrazek has miles to go in terms of improving his skating, strength, and graduating from a puck-blocking goaltender to someone with a balanced game, but in terms of raw skill, solid technique and fantastic athleticism, he earns “boom or bust” status. The Wings will watch him closely and send Bedard to Ottawa on a regular basis to ensure that a fantastic and fantastically slim goaltender works on his skating and learns how to play a more efficient game so that he can channel that athleticism into mastering the nuances of goaltending. I loved what I saw from him, but he’s got a few dozen Manitoba miles to go before he rounds into legitimate pro prospect form.

http://blog.mlive.com/snapshots/2010/07/red_wings_prospect_camp_assess.html 73 Brooks Macek Pluses: Macek came into camp as a right-shooting center supposedly standing 5’11” (I’ll buy that) and 180 lbs (um, try 155) who scored at a point-per-game clip with the WHL’s Tri-City Americans, but looked exactly like what he was—someone two months north of his 18th birthday, and someone who looked a little out of his element among bigger, stronger, more seasoned and plain old older players. Macek and Marc-Louis Aubry never quite got over the fact that they started camp all of 13 days removed from being drafted by the Wings. That being said, Macek’s skills most certainly presented themselves inherently—his skating is not only strong but also authoritative, establishing his presence in the offensive zone in such a way as to simply force his opponents to back off and afford him the room to dish the puck to a winger or chip a high shot at the net. He did everything at a high tempo and competed hard on an every-day basis. Minuses: He’s very physically immature and definitely experienced some culture shock. With the Tri-City Americans, he’s a big fish in a small hockey market pond, and in Detroit, he was out of his element. He’d occasionally display extremely high-skill play during a skill drill or on the breakout, but he mostly looked outclassed in terms of his physical maturity. I’d expect him to improve come September. Potential “upside”: At this point it’s hard to say as we’re talking about a 171st overall draft pick who posted a point a game in the WHL. If he bulks up while continuing to post points at his present level and embraces the Wings’ suggestions regarding improving skating efficiency and stickhandling, the Wings could find themselves with a superb prospect on their hands in two seasons.

http://blog.mlive.com/snapshots/2010/07/red_wings_prospect_camp_assess.html 4 Ben Marshall Pluses: Everything I’m about to say needs to include two huge caveats: First, Marshall was playing in a limited-checking environment, and second, he hasn’t even completed his senior year of high school, so it’s entirely possible, if not probable, that the Wings will make their final decision about signing Marshall after he’s graduated from the University of Minnesota in 2015. And third (okay, three things), I watched him play for the first time last week. That being said, for a player optimistically listed at 5’9” and 160 lbs (try 5’6” and 140), never mind a 17-year-old, Marshall possessed absolutely fantastic hands in terms of his ability to pass the puck—and pass it on the tape while in traffic—lug the puck up ice, he had a rather hard shot, and his skating was nothing less than great bordering on fantastic, at least technically speaking. He possesses an absolutely elite skill set, maturity beyond his years, he worked hard, hustled during every drill, showed supremely strong on-ice vision and was able to head-man the rush, slither passes to forwards hustling up the ice, do a superb job as a power play defenseman and a penalty-killer, he played a mature game in general and, until he was injured, anyway, fit fantastically on a defensive pairing with Brendan Smith during scrimmages, eating up gobs of ice time while playing alongside players three to five years older than himself. His potential is sky-high. Minuses: See: he’s 5’6” and 140 lbs, even with his stocky build, and he is indeed quite physically weak. His skating made up for his strength issues at times as he possesses a nice combination of chippy strides to dig in and strong gliding ability, but he could only do so much in battle drills before his hustle, work ethic, and equally surprisingly good poke check gave way to physics. Potential “upside”: It’s easy to get carried away with a player like Marshall after seeing him for only a week and witnessing him play in a limited-checking environment which was meant to showcase skills for the purposes of further developing them, but he did hold his own, if not offer brief moments of brilliance, during drills. In half a decade he could be anything from Brett Lebda to Brian Rafalski, or anywhere in between.