Detroit Red Wings - Preseason Evaluation - Defense and Goalies

So as I was writing this up I realized it was gigantic so I decided to split it into 2 parts. You've already been able to check out the changes to the forwards and my thought process there, so now it is time to examine the rest of the line up. Defense and goal tending are basically in the same boat with the contract situations but those will be changed much sooner than the forwards will be, or so I hope. So here we go, the updated starting d-men.

So how did we get here? Previously I had five d-men as starters (Green, Kronner, DDK, Daley, and Ericsson) with one spot up for grabs. Those five players made it in mostly based on their pay alone, as they will in reality when the season opens up. I have given the 6th and final spot up to Nick Jensen not only based on his performance last season in the role, but because he is a right hand shot.

I place a pretty high value on having righty-lefty combos on the back end and as you can see I have both righty's playing on their off side. I know it is more difficult this way to pick the puck up off the boards, but the offensive upside cannot be understated. Stick and puck will stay the middle of the ice when handling, which personally for me, allows for greater vision when looking a head to make a breakout pass. And once we get into the offensive zone it sets players up to be in position for one timers far better. The players I have listed in the minors are set up the same way as well.

The players listed under minors are the ones I see most fit to make the jump at some point this season, and I have them somewhat in order as well. And obviously, Brian Lashoff make the big club as the 7th D-man. But why Lashoff, why not Hronek, why not Cholowski or Hicketts?! WHY!? Well because Lashoff will only be there for game time emergency replacement. If any of our defense men go down with a bigger injury other than missing a game or 2, expect a call up of our most productive defense man from Grand Rapids.

By the end of the season I would expect that we will have seen Hronek, Cholo, and Hicketts at least for a bit of an extended time, the young guys are going to leap frog over him so fast his head will spin. Expect too that they will be filling Kronwall's shoes more than anything, maybe Ericsson's' as well seeing that he tends to go down a bit these last few years as well. I don't expect that any of our veteran defense men will be trade bait at the deadline other than possibly Mike Green, but he would not be a rental player and with having had a neck injury last season it may be enough to scare some teams away.

I do not think that we will see a healthy Kronwall finish the season unfortunately. In his prime he was an absolute animal and deserves a better ending to his career, but at the same time warriors tend to go out on their shields, and he will too. My guess is that Hronek is 1st in line to fill the role, followed by Hicketts and then Cholowski. This thought is based on last seasons performance for both Hronek and Hicketts, where this is really going to be Cholowski's 1st year as a pro. I would still look for them all to get time in Detroit this season though. And one last prediction I have, more of a hope really, is that after this season is up, Ericsson will finally be bought out of his contract. Fingers crossed.

So with our defense set, lets talk goalies for a quick second here, as their isn't a lot to discuss, or is there? Our NHL Tandem is set in stone, no questions there. Howard will be the starter who is entering the last year of his contract. All the while Jonathan Bernier is coming into the organization as a free agent from Colorado signing a 3x3 deal. Bernier is a very capable back up and even a decent to good starting goalie when given the opportunity and the right players in front of him. He had a fast rise in Los Angels and just as fast as a fall when he went to Toronto and it didn't work out. But a rebirth in Anaheim and Colorado have help to rejuvenate his career as he enters into his 30's.

Depth seems to be the real issue at the moment though. Three of our main depth goalies at this time are all free agent additions as Jared Coreau and Tom McCollum have each moved on from the organization. This leaves us with 3 new comers, Rybar, Sateri, and Fulcher. The most notable player here is Fulcher who was signed last year as an undrafted player after all the development camps and training camp. He went on to win the OHL Championship last season and was named The Memorial Cups most outstanding goalie. The upside with Fulcher seems to be pretty legit, but it seem that management has the idea of starting him in Toledo with the chance to work his way up based on his play. A strategy very reminiscent of how they handled Petr Mrazek.

This leaves us with a very real training camp battle between Rybar and Sateri for the starting job in Grand Rapids. While Rybar is an undrafted player, Sateri was drafted in the 4th round back in 2008 by San Jose... the same year Detroit took McCollum in the 1st round. And after looking at both players histories a little bit I may have to give the starting nod to Sateri, mainly because he has actually seen some games in the NHL with the Florida Panthers. But really it is a toss up.

Eventually one of these 3 players will make there way to the Red Wings this season. And you're probably looking at about Mid-Late January for that to happen. I give you that time frame because it is almost inevitable that Jimmy Howard goes down with a groin injury, it's just about like clock work with him. I would wager that at that point your starter in Grand Rapids comes up to a back up role here and if Fulcher is still in Toledo he would move up and take over the starting role or split time with whomever is left in G.R.

Two more notable goalies I can personally talk a bit about are drafted players, yet unsigned at this point, in Petruzzelli and Larsson. I have been lucky enough working at USA Hockey with the NTDP to have been able to see both play live, Petruzzelli more than Larsson though. I've seen Petruzzelli 4 or 5 times as a member of the Muskegon Lumberjacks during his draft year (Andrei Svechnikov was also on that team, what a stud!) and Larsson in international exhibition games once or twice. Both seem to have a high ceiling for their potential and good size each. So our long term goaltender worries may not ever really be an issue.

Without further ado though, I present to you, along with the goalies, the entire depth chart covered in this and my previous post. Remember, this is my view of the team and not necessarily what the team will do. But if I were in charge, these are my lines and how changes would be made as the season tears along based on my thought process.

This has the makings of a team that could really begin to compete and be competitive down the stretch. There is a lot of room to grow and that will all depend on how much development this young core has gained as the weight now firmly rests on their shoulders now. There is a lot of size, speed, and talent on this roster with more to come in the following seasons. But heading into year two at Little Caesars Arena, the transition has officially been made where the younger players will truly be the new leaders on the Detroit Red Wings.

Most Improved Teams of the Off-Season.

This off-season has seen plenty of players joining new teams either via trade, free agency, and almost most importantly the draft. With all these players changing places most teams should have a different outlook coming into the season, for better or worse.  So, I'm going do a breakdown of a few teams I think have improved the most and not just on paper.  These teams I think are really going to have a significant improvement in the standings as opposed to last season.

Let’s start with the easy one, the Toronto Maple Leafs.  Are the most improved as a whole, probably not.  Defense was never really addressed here, but offense?  That's another story.  They landed arguably the biggest free agent available in the last 10 years by bringing in the home town kid in John Tavares.  They now have top-3 center depth reminiscent of the 2009 Penguins.

Penguins had Crosby, Malkin, and Jordan Staal at center the year they won the cup, now the Leafs have Matthews, Tavares, and Kadri!  This is scary, not think about Mitch Marner, William Nylander, and Patty Marleau on the wings.  That's a lot of high-end talent, each line just needs a gritty and physical guy to go in the corners and really help dig out that puck to get it into space, and these guys don’t need much. As far as D goes, not much happened, but look for Timothy Lilgren to crack the lineup. He was scary good last year when I saw him at USA Arena and thought he was NHL ready then, he definitely should be now.  Look for the Leafs to battle for top spot in the League this season.

On to the Buffalo Sabres.  Another easy choice, but on a deeper level than just picking up Rasmus Dahlin.  They have made some remarkable trades!  In the process they had to give up a bit, and even gave up one of the best centers in the league when he is on his game in Ryan O'Reilly, but they got back so much more the team is pretty fantastic on paper.

They have added Skinner, Thompson, Berglund, Sobotka, and Connor Sheary all via trade this off season,  On top of already having Eichel, Mittelstadt, and Okposo...thats a pretty formidable top-6 no matter how you put it together, and their 3rd line shouldn’t be too shabby either. On D they have Ristolainen, Dahlin, Bogo, and Scandella; which makes for a nice top4 set of D-men.  Now the worry is in goal, which isn’t much of a change from last season.  The question now is can Carter Hutton carry the load of being a number 1 goalie for the 1st time at 32 years old?  If he can look for the Sabre to battle anywhere from wild card to 2nd overall in the Atlantic Division.

In the west, we have the Arizona Coyotes up first. I don’t think that they had the biggest F.A. signings but they definitely locked up a good player in Grabner. He will be a good fit on the 2nd or 3rd line for them, bringing a little bit of size, but a hell of a lot of speed and some goal scoring ability.  He'll also be vital on the PK where he had 2 shorty’s and has had 15 so far in his career.  More importantly than signing Grabner, they were able to resign some key players in Raanta, Dvorak, and Hjalmarsson. When healthy last season Raanta was stellar in goal winning 21 of the teams 29 victories, with only 46 starts. Dvorak is a young player with a high ceiling that he began to show last season earning himself a substantial raise.  And Hjalmarsson is just a solid, hardworking defense man who has "been there and done that" and provides tremendous leadership to a young D-core.

The biggest move they made was trading, straight up, Max Domi for Alex Galchenyuk.  While Domi has a lot of upside, Galchenyuk is a bit bigger and a proven goal scorer who most would expect about 30 goals a season out of. Not to mention he has been great on the power play when he is on his game.  Combine that with a young and promising group of forward I would expect a solid top 9 and at least 3 20-goal scorers this season...could there be more or someone even to get 30 goals?  Only time will tell.  Goaltending is in good shape with Raanta as mentioned before, but how will the D-core perform? A pretty good top-4 led by OEL, but will it stay healthy and the depth players rise up?  We'll see but expect to Yotes to be in it till the end this year battling for a wild card spot.

And to finish things off we have the St. Louis Blues. An already solid team, though the just missed the playoffs, really shook things up this off season in a big way.  Most of all quite a lot was lost in the Ryan O'Reilly trade that was already talked about back up in the Sabres talk, so I'm going to leave that alone.  Other than that, they made some key free agency deals that should help to off-set the loss of a few players. Key signings made were of Bozak and Perron returning from Vegas...I think Perron has been moved from the team and came back now 3-4 times at this point, its nuts.  Bozak will now give the Blues solid top-3 center depth with O'Reilly and Schenn, who had his own breakout year last season.  Down the wings you have one of the best snipers in the game, Tarasenko, along with Steen, Fabri, and big Patty Marron. With a few younger players who'll be looking to make an impact we have another team with a very solid top-9.

The Defense of the Blues is the real key though, they have likely the 3rd, maybe 4th ,best D core in their division, yet it is still likely in the top 3rd of the league. The top-4 is about as solid as it comes being led by Pietrangelo and Parayko.  Though that don’t have much in the way of depth or prospects in the system it will be very important that they stay health and play well.  Back in goal they have Jake Allen so has been able to stand on his head often, and with the number one spot secured, it will be gravely important that he plays to his best especially late into the season.  In a stacked division they will need every victory they can get to make it into the playoffs, the west really looks like it will be the wild, wild, west again and I would expect the Blues to push for the 3rd place spot trying to avoid the wildcard.

I had 2 honorable mentions until today though...now I have 3.  I'm not going to go in depth at all, you can do the work and let your imagination run wild.  Number one, the Carolina Hurricanes, and no its not because of Mrazek (though it totally helps).  Second the Calgary Flames...funny I think these teams did some business this summer.  And Third as of about 2:30 EST this afternoon...the San Jose Sharks...Eric Karlsson, what more needs to be said.