COMEBACK CHAOS & EARLY SEASON ANALYSIS ft. Prashanth Iyer – Winged Wheel Podcast – Oct. 26th, 2025
Welcome to the Wing Wheel Podcast, the number one source for news, analysis, and discussion on the Detroit Red Wings, the NHL, and all things hockey. Here are your hosts, Ryan Hannah, Brad Krisco, and Evan Lopsinger. Even though the morning episodes used to be Evan’s witching hour, Brad, I think something has changed fundamentally since Sullivan came around. There’s been a paradigm shift. Last episode, after it posted, the comments started to flow in and then I saw a few where it was like, “Is Evan asleep? Did Evan doze off?” Evan’s eyes are actually closed at like this time stamp and I was like, “Oh my god, no. There’s no way Evan fell asleep during this episode.” and neither of us clocked it. And I went back and looked and I can confirm two things. One, he was not actually asleep. And two, I do think he was speaking to us with his eyes intentionally closed trying to get rest. This is a new father. Again, for those of you who don’t know, Evan and his wife Katherine just brought home their son Sullivan. And the first, you know, what was it? 70 days he was in hospital cuz he came 10 weeks early. Yep. And so you you guys are just now experiencing life with a a newborn at home for the first time. And Evan’s Evan’s getting his ass kicked for sure. As a household that was routinely in bed around 1000 p.m. Our our sleep habits have changed dramatically. Oh yeah. You guys are you guys are like the platonic ideal of when to get to bed. Mel and I aspire to be Evan and Catherine like in bed at 10:30. Those days are long gone. as evidenced by the fact that you were giving us player analysis with your eyelids touching, man. Yeah, I have to be efficient now. There’s only so much energy I have. Now, now as the veteran dad on this podcast, I I would love to give Evan the like it gets better speech. It It just gets bad in different ways. I’ve I This is the I had a 3-day weekend and I was up before 5:30 twice. Evan, has a decade plus of doing this podcast covering the Detroit Red Wings taught you anything? Because I feel like that should be some level of preparedness for what Brad just described. If I can lock in 6 hours of sleep in a night, I will be extremely happy. All right, folks. Well, the good news is it’s not a morning episode. You’re going to get Evan alive and well. And Sully’s first Redmond game was during this stretch of games we’re about to talk about. No, not the Islanders game. Yes. No. Yes. I sent kind of picture while the game was happening. Like in the first period, I was like, “No pressure, but there’s a new listener.” That’s like a frat initiation right now. It’s just miserable beginning to end. But then once it’s over, you’re in. You hazed your newborn. He did what I wish I could have done and fallen asleep. I was I thought he just had a big blowout. Probably that, too. Welcome to the Winged Wheel podcast. Here to talk to you about all things Detroit Red Wings hockey, the world of the NHL, and lots more. I’m one of your hosts, Ryan Hannah. I’m Brad Krisco. And I’m Evan. This episode of the Wayne Wheel podcast is presented by Greenlight Lending. Red Lights are meant for lighting the lamp at the rink, not your home ownership goals. Head to go greenlightlanding.com today for creative mortgage solutions with flexible closing cost options. Licensed only in Michigan and MLS267-6683. An equal housing opportunity lender. On this episode of the Windheel Podcast, we have two extremely interesting Red Wings games to talk about. I don’t even know how to to prime these. Everyone knows what we’re talking about. The Islanders game and the the Blues game and just I think four periods of some god-awful hockey and then some weird stuff happened in a great way. We’re going to be talking about Red Wings news. We have a guest on this episode, Pashant Thyire from the Windheel Podcast Content Universe, host of Expected by Whom to talk early season analysis on the Red Wings. We are going to talk prospect updates, more news from the hockey town system, notes from across the league, and more. Before we get into overtime, very quickly, Wing Wheel podcast night at the LCA, Saturday, November 15th, winged wheelpodcast.com/readwings to get your tickets. Your tickets are discounted. You also get access to the pregame live recording of the Wing Wheel podcast at Little Caesars’s Arena featuring us, the host of the Wing Wheel Podcast, Ken Daniels, lead announcer of the Detroit Red Wings, Rob Ray, and other special guests. You also get a special co-branded Detroit Red Wings and Winged Wheel Podcast Centennial Themed Blanket. All of that and lots more. And every ticket purchased represents a donation to the Jamie Daniels Foundation. So again, wingwheelpodcast.com/redwings, the New York Islanders game. So we recorded the morning that game happened. So that game was in the evening of of Thursday. And then we recorded bright and early on Thursday morning because that was after the Sabres game. So, you know, whenever we do those episodes, we’re like, h, we don’t really like to to go between games, but just to get the episode out there, you know, we have to sometimes do it. Not the best. And after the Sabres game, which we discussed, we wanted that episode to be out of date cuz we talked about a terrible game. We’re like, you know, hopefully they they rebounding against the Islanders. 72 7-2 on Long Island. to the New York Islanders. I have like three actual show notes from that game. You know, keep track of everything as as I’m watching the game, covering it, and you know, recap and everything and make a list of notes for most games. And there’s three. And the first one for the Islanders game is just bad. I’ve ruminated on it. I have a lot more, you know, I think complex thoughts on it. But even if you are the most level-headed, calm, collected, patient hockey fan and Red Wings fan, and I think a lot of times, you know, sometimes people get mad at any one of us for for downplaying or overplaying a a specific facet of a Red Wings loss or whatever it might be. I don’t know how you can look at that game and not think that that was one of the worst efforts we have seen from the Detroit Red Wings since they started to have any good players again. You know the old joke about basically if you show up to the test and write your name you get at least 1%. The Red Wings misspelled their name. Yeah, there there was you show up to an NHL game and you give a 100% effort, you’ll at least have a reasonably close result, even if your execution is horrible. They were awful. They were awful in every sense of the word. I I don’t I genuinely don’t even want to get into detailed analysis on this because I don’t want to over complicate this. They were bad because they lacked intensity, because they lacked effort, because they lacked focus. I don’t give a crap about any of the individual things. Okay, this guy blew coverage here. This was a bad pass. Goalie should have saved that one. Don’t care. Oh, okay then. This will be a seven-hour podcast. We’re way different cuz I care. But go on. I I don’t because the fundamentals can be good and then the breakdowns happen outside of that. But if the fundamentals aren’t there, everything else doesn’t matter because you know they’re going to be bad. You know what I mean? So poor focus, poor effort. You don’t have that, you’re doomed from the moment the puck drops. And they were it was it was an extremely, you know, it was an extremely fast game where that got out of hand for the Red Wings. It it you know, by the time the score was actually out of hand, you’re like, “This game has felt over since the first period.” And Brad talked about, you know, mis coverage and turnovers and things like that. I agree actually the the intensity and the lack of compete, which Todd Mlullen talked about after that game and after the St. Louis game. Like what’s that about? Because it was missing. It was missing in the Buffalo game, missing in the Islanders game, and we’ll talk about it. Missing for a good portion of the Blues game where this team has an identity that they have shown that they can play to, and Mlullen talked about that. He’s like, “We have our game. We know we can play. We know it’s a winning game and it has served us this season, but we’re not doing it consistently and that’s the next step. So, yeah, 100% that’s first and foremost. That’s the foundation for why, you know, these two and a half games were so bad for the Red Wings. I will say what was causing me to pull out what little hair I have left on my head was the nature of how they were making these mistakes. Like yes, the the lack of intensity and compete and just being offkilter and you know, not skating for pucks, whatever. That’s the biggest part of it. But they were also turning the puck over and then just making every single mistake they could coming back where two different guys have the opportunity to pick up one single trailing man and they both do it. One of them a rookie, one of them a veteran. A rookie makes a terrible mistake, a sophomore player makes a terrible mistake, a veteran makes a terrible turnover. It was top to bottom just devastating self inflicted wounds over and over and over and that game was just a complete wash. I I like they they looked absolutely lost like shockingly lost. And I kept trying to pull myself away from the game and thinking this is what two straight losses on a backto-back on the road after five straight wins. you’re 5-1 coming into this little mini road trip. Are you that upset about it? And it’s like it’s not about the losses, it’s the juxiposition in performance was it doesn’t matter if that’s game 8 or game 58 of the season. Like that performance, you can’t can’t play like that as a team. Your lows, you’re going to have lows throughout the NHL season. Your lows cannot be that low if you’re to be a team of any success. I don’t know how to feel about a pretty big thing with the Red Wings right now because obviously, you know, the opening net against Montreal was bad and it was bad enough to the point where Mlullen decided to call them out right after the game and they responded, ripped off a fivegame heater. Then they go two and a half games of just tragic hockey. Mlullen calls a times out and just tears a strip off of them and they respond. I don’t know if I should be so encouraged that they respond when the coach challenges them or unbelievably discouraged that he’s had to do that twice nine games into the season. Like, and it’s it’s the same issue. Like, I I don’t mean to oversimplify this, but I coach a U7 hockey team, and the three words I preach to them over and over again to the point that they get sick of me are attitude, effort, and focus. If you have those three things dialed in, I don’t care what else you do. I can we can fix mistakes. We can I can teach you X, Y, and Z. But if you don’t have those three things, it doesn’t matter what I do. We’re in trouble. It feels like the professional athlete Detroit Red Wings lose sight of those three things pretty freaking routinely. And it’s not a problem to just this season. Well, I think you should be a little encouraged that they are responding because that’s that’s pretty new. That’s only been the last That is that is a nice development. Yeah. Well, that’s sort of the benefit of having Todd McClullen, a veteran coach, coaching this team. Like, the Red Wings are trotting out a rookie head coach. Again, I don’t think the response or the message would be delivered in such a fashion. So, yeah, I agree. It’s great that they’re responding to the messages, but it’s another thing to be like, why do this why does this have to keep being said? Yeah. And maybe that’s part of the growing pains of a team that’s trotting out a bunch of rookies who are their some of their best players and a team that’s had some veteran turnover. They’re definitely still trying to find their identity, but you’d still need the foundational effort there every game. Some other takeaways from the game. Michael Bran Negard in the most heartbreaking fashion gets himself his first career NHL point. A secondary assist on Yin Barren’s goal. Credit to Bergrren and Confer who connected to get Detroit’s second goal of the game. Larkin actually scored on the power play from Finey and Debrink in the third period. That was to make it 5-1. Chris Paul with a I was literally going to make that exact joke. Yeah. And that actually extended Larkin’s point streak to to eight games. But yeah, that was that was all in terms of, you know, I’m not even going to call them silver linings. Those are just the only other notes where it wasn’t a completely devastating thing for the Redskins that game. Two other quick things I want to talk about. First, Elmer Soderblum, you can tell, is working on being a more physical player and you can tell that it is counter to to the way he likes to play the game. And we’ve talked about this, like that’s just not him, but that’s kind of he has to take on a little bit more of that role. He doesn’t have to be Tom Wilson. He doesn’t have to be, you know, Zado Charara or or just someone absolutely blowing guys up. He’s not Matt Rempy. But if you have that big of a body and you’re not, you know, putting up a ton of points, you got to use your frame a little bit. And that moment early in the game where he had Schaefer kind of dead to rights behind the net and it looked like he kind of half committed, half not on a hit. At first I was like, “Oh, you got to go full send on that.” But then I was like, “Oh, you know what?” Like if you’re not used to throwing those massive hits behind the net, I can understand how you’re like, is this going to be a high hit? Is this going to be, you know, am I going to get a major penalty because of this? Like what’s going to happen? You you can see this just not his game and not his element. But I do give him credit. Even though I would have loved to have seen him blow Schaefer up in that moment, I do give him some credit for starting to think about those things. I want to see him go further down that track. Can we have that same conversation with Michael Rasmmanson then? Well, no, because he didn’t play the next game. Hey, progress. Yeah, he not the only guy, but one of many guys and I would say probably the standout who had a shocker against the Islanders. Just the rookies like Johansson had I think a pretty bad game with some pretty terrible mistakes. But you’re like, you look at the rookies, look at the young guys. MBN is definitely struggling out there for sure, but the Rasmiss, you can’t you can’t have games like that at this point. The only other thing before we jump to the St. lose game cuz I’m tired of talking a game that’s, you know, went so badly for the Red Wings. Casey Sikas off the draw looked like he jumped two hand windup cross check over Rasmusen’s back. It looked like it was just above the pants. I don’t know how much protection Rasmusen had down there based on how far down his pads go. Broke his stick over Rasmuson’s back. The game was already a blowout at that point. And they called a two-minute minor. Do Hello. Am I am honestly I’m I’m the real question. Am I biased? Am I being biased? Is are these Red Wings colored glasses? I felt like that’s the easiest major a ref could ever call. No, I agree. Where the game was at the way things have been going? You’re right. Bad call. You have no idea how little I care about what the call is there. It wasn’t going to change the game. Every piece of me, a new boomer part of my brain unlocks again. I hate hate hate hate hate to relate everything back to the same team, but they are the golden standard. If Casey’s does that to Anton Lundell in Florida, he’s leaving that arena in a body bag. And yet, here we are again. You see see how the Islanders responded on a pretty like whatever hit on Schaefer at the end of the game. Yep. I’ll never I will never get off this hill. Just a terrible terrible night. Red Wings then had St. Louis at home on Saturday. Some things before that game. Patrick Kane was evaluated before the game. skated lightly, not really taken full team practices or anything, upper body injury, just, you know, skating to to stay skating, but was ruled out of the game. Hasn’t actually traveled with the team to St. Louis for this beginning of the upcoming road trip. They hope to have him on the later end of the road trip. So Kane is still out. They take out Sodor Blum. He is the, you know, one regular scratch for this one. They sit Michael Rasmmanson, which I I said after the Islanders game, I’m like, Rasmmanson has to sit at this point. like it can’t just be Baragin and Sodblum and you know whoever else like Rasmusson legitimately deserves to sit. He’s standing out. So they they sit Michael Rasmson and they actually bring in Travis Hamick as a seventh defenseman because Ben Sherro took a puck off the hand in the Islanders game and was playing banged up. So they run 11 and seven and oh boy that St. Louis game that was real close to being a nuclear episode. I I was horrified. I was like, there’s no way we’re recording the same episode twice here. No, there would be a lot more yelling on this one. A lot more. The Red Wings scored their first goal in the second 752 into the sec. So, halfway through that game, I was convinced that Sunday was just going to be scorched earth. Come over early, guys. It’s going to be a blood bath. We’re going to have to It’s going to be a 7-hour recording. I said 10 games after nine games. Screw it. Here’s my white board of Red Wings that need to be banished to Grand Rapids and or outer space. Like I I honestly I was like, is this going to be another seven spot against the Red Wings? Two straight games in this one at home. They were being booed off the ice after the first period. Good. They didn’t get booed loud enough for how bad that first period was. There should have been more. That effort was unacceptable against Buffalo. It was even more unacceptable against the Islanders. And then you come off that game in the Islanders and you have that first period. That was the most unacceptable period of hockey they have played this season. Like I try to not yell around children. My kids were home obviously as this game was going on. The self-control to not teach them new words in the middle of that period. Oh my god. It was like I was having like you know that you’re not just angry like there’s like a visceral reaction going on in your brain going I need to break something. Yeah. Like I I was fighting that urge. The inner caveman was ready to come out and it was Yeah. like missed defensive zone coverage. It felt like they were just not committing to the intensity of the game. Not like they weren’t competing. And when Tom McClone called that timeout after what was it the four nothing goal? Yes. And everyone has been asking the Redmonds, “What did Tom Mlullen say to you?” And they all just go, “Ah, well, uh, we’re gonna we’re going to keep that one in the room.” How many digits would be involved in the fine if a player just verb said verbatim what he said? It would offset the increase in the salary cap in the upcoming seasons. But whatever Todd said and he summarized it after the game like it’s it was all about you know the things that Brad talked about compete and attitude and effort. It’s like showing up as a team and playing our game that time it worked and boy did the Red Wings turn things around fast. First again, a lot of credit despite a lot of the criticism that has been levied his way or to both of these guys to Barren and Confer. They were two of the three goals in the second period for the Red Wings. Nice pass by Cop on that Barren goal cuz it was good to see he still got that in there. Yeah, Cop great pass to Barren. Barren bangs it in on the power play after the first unit was doing nothing on that power play if I remember correctly. They were there were points that power play unit looked fundamentally broken like missing 10-foot unobstructed passes. I don’t think it was a power play but that one backhand pass cider tried that led directly to a St. Louis breakaway. Like they they just fundamentally something was wrong. Like they could not complete a pass. They could not find a guy in coverage. They could not find a lane to shoot. Like everything was bad. Axel Sandine Pelica picks up his first career NHL assist. He made the bank pass to cop on the wall who then passed it out front and it got to bear. So that was 4-1 and it was like yeah signs of life. Not optimistic but that was a pulse for the Red Wings. EMTT Finny is officially registered now as an unassisted goal. It was originally a Dylan Larkin assist but they took it away. A puck made it out front. Blues player got a stick on it. Was it actually controlled to the point where I would take the assist off the board? Biased. I wanted Larkin’s nine-game point streak to count. Sure. I don’t know that I would have taken that assist off the board, but Finny continues to roll on. Second in NHL rookie scoring with eight points only behind Demid Dolph who has nine. But that again, I still think that should have been an assist for Larkin. But still, that made it 4-2. And that was huge because then it’s just a two-goal game in the second period. And I’d love to sit and dwell on that one, but what was it? 27 seconds later, JT Conffer scores from Hamik and Cop. And then you go into the the second intermission down just a goal. You get a goal. JT Conffer from Travis Hamnick and Andrew Cop. That was the moment I was certain they were winning that game. Oh, absolutely. ready to throw my TV through the window 25 minutes before then to we’re winning this game. And when they were like, you know what, when they were scoring it, it was funny like we kept saying, what’s happening? Like what is fundamentally different? I think a lot of it was just like it became one of those chaos games where everything was going in. It was intensity. Like sometimes you don’t need to overthink things. They gave a I would not be surprised genuinely if part of Mlullen’s rant was get your crap together or multiple of you are going to Grand Rapids tomorrow and so guys were playing like their job was on the line cuz they sure as hell look like they were playing like their job was on the line. They started winning races. They started winning battles. Like little things like that make a huge difference. I remember Max was talking to us a bit about a coaching conference he was at where one of the I forget who it was, but one of the more well-known coaches in the hockey world was basically saying hockey is just a series of races and battles. Like every 6 seconds you’re in a race or you’re in a battle. Win those, you’re probably going to win the game. Really, fundamentally, I think that’s the only thing that changed for the Red Wings after the speech. But what a difference it made. like it it’s you know sometimes we can sit here and like I mentioned it with the Islanders game where you can break down we blew coverage here that’s why this happened this was a bad pass should have made this read instead of that read led to a problem or they missed that or whatever most of the time though just try a little harder like again it’s I know it sounds overly simplistic but really that’s looked to my eye that looked like that was all that changed was just Okay, they’re playing with a little bit of fear in their game now. They’re playing with some intensity. They’re playing like their job tomorrow is not guaranteed. And night and day, they were still missing passes. They were, forget about the Brinks, Voodoo Curse. There were a lot of guys who couldn’t hit the net on point chances. Like, they were not playing a clean game. They were not playing a refined game. They were not playing a highly skilled game, but they were winning races and they were winning battles. There’s two guys who made big comebacks from different positions in this game that I think helped seal it. And we’re going to get into the rest of the game coverage, but just to interject here. First is Simon Edmonson where the previous two games might have been the two worst games I’ve seen him play. Well, he said that. Yeah. Like he like that was terrible hockey, undisiplined hockey, like just constantly putting himself and his team in a bad position. It was like talk about shockers of a game. His his play was awful. And then he ends up with two goals in this game. And Alex Debrink who wasn’t playing the same kind of terrible, you know, god-awful hockey, but just could not score was, you know, yeah, missing opportunities. I think you have to call that out, but also just the unbelievable bad luck. Rich with the phenomenal stick save in the game prior and then Debrink had two posts in the first period. He two crossbars because I remember on the one he hit the crossbar. I think everybody including myself tweeted something along the lines of an Etsy witch cursed him. He needs to speak to a wish doctor. He’s got some voodoo curse going. And I sent I hit send on the same generic tweet I sent out and then a minute later he hit the crossbar again. It was unbelievable. Like almost one of those like out-of- body experiences. You’re like there’s no way that actually just happened in that timing. It got to the point where you’re laughing at it again. First it’s funny and then you’re like, “No, this is stupid.” And then it got funny again. He has 34 shots on net and his shooting percentage is 2.9. They put up a stat on the broadcast of league leaders and high danger scoring chances or something like that. And it was like, you know, five or six players, debrink in the middle of them. It’s like he sure had three goals. Then you look at everybody else, eight, six, seven, six, zero. Yeah. It’s like what the hell, man? He was the only one of that group to not score. And I don’t know if you saw it, Evan, but the gift of prophecy. I don’t know that it lives with you anymore. Oh god. Well, I am the universe isn’t speaking to me anymore. It is. You’re just too tired to hear it. That’s right. Yeah, that true. I’m intercepting the signal and I’m going to I’m going to treasure this for as long as I have it. But Alex Debrink scores his first the season at the exact perfect point. If there was ever a time in these first nine games for De Brinket to score, this was it. To make it a four-goal comeback, it was 4 nothing. Became 4-4. Dances into the zone, steps across the the slot area, and then just fires it past Bennington. And it was a perfect perfect moment for Dbrinka to for Elcato. That’s right. As Evan would call him, to to break his gold drought and finally get one through. I always was saying like just get him the empty net at this point, but that was substantially better of a way to do it finally. And now you have to hope that the floodgates just just open. So Debrink makes it 44. Simon Edmonson after that makes it 54 and also has the Philip Ronic style cruise missile 200 foot empty net to seal it. 64 Red Wings. Six unanswered in the most chaotic game I can remember the Red Wings playing in a long time. stupid but incredible. And you know, does game nine matter any more than the other games early in the season? Most of the time, no. But I actually think in terms of like the vibes and based on what the Red Wings are about to walk into, which is a a long road trip up ahead to come away with two regulation points in a win in this one was huge for their fortunes. Yeah. You know, when you’re battling Buffalo for a divisional seed, it’s every point matters. Is it not Montreal, Detroit, and Buffalo right now? As we all predicted, just like every single one of us predicted. I think Tampa’s bottom of the division. They were bottom in the East until their win yesterday, I believe. Ah, well, you know, how the mighty fall after that game, it was it was funny because Mlullen, as I mentioned, was saying like, you know, great that we got the win and the boys turned it on, but a lot of what Brad said, a lot of what was was written after the game, which was, is that a good sign that you have to keep waking them up? And I’ll tell you, based on what they have upcoming, they’re going to have their work cut out for them because the road has been rough for Detroit. those two games with Buffalo and New York where they lost and then even the Leafs game where they won but that was a game where they were vastly outplayed like the line matching works against them. They’re still going to be without Patrick Kane. They still have a very young team asked to shoulder a lot and coming up they have St. Louis, LA and Anaheim backto back and then San Jose and then Vegas. They don’t play at home again until November 7th. I think if they can go 500, I think that’s a a big success because we’ve seen in a short time that when other teams can line match the Red Wings, they have a heck of a tough time putting things together. Yeah. The Detroit and part of it is, you know, the lack of depth when there’s an injury. So, you hope Kane can be back as soon as possible. They’re calling it dayto-day. That’s that’s how you have to imagine they’re going to treat it. But, they even said like they already know he’s not going to be there for St. Louis. So they hope he can join them for the the California league. But you Patrick Kane strikes me as a LA California guy. I think you know like all right I’m feeling good now. You know I’m not St. Louis but I can do California. Yeah. Detroit has to not I don’t think just dig deep. They have to figure things out fundamentally about the way they have to play based on what Todd Mlullen said and based on you know what development they still have to do. A lot of what we talked about in the Buffalo game last episode, in the Islanders game and the first half of the St. Louis game, this episode still is baked into the volatility that you get when you bring in a young team. Brad and Evan both mentioned when you bring in these young players, there’s going to be turnovers, there’s going to be mistakes, and it might seem unfair that you give those guys that grace, but not like the Rasmusins and such, but I mean, we have expectations for the young guys. We’ve some of these veterans, it’s like, all right, you are what you are. you’re not going to be part of the long-term solution, whatever. I can’t continue to say the same things I’ve been saying about some of these guys forever. It’s like, and if you’re a veteran, you’re supposed to be covering for the mistakes for the Yeah, you shouldn’t be making rookie mistakes. But still, yeah, the the Red Wings are going to have to figure that out because they have the same group. They have the same cohort. And as of right now, you know, unless it’s Raymond getting a bit healthier as he’s playing, not much is going to change about this team. And this is going to be a the first big tough test that’s going to be like a a good indicator of where this team is really at. Other Red Wings notes before we go to break here. Fun fact, every single other team in the Atlantic division played last night other than just the Red Wings. Didn’t they all get points or something? Every single other team in the Atlantic won in regulation except for the Toronto Maple Leafs, who won in overtime, making it a three-point game. Their opponent, the Atlantic Division Buffalo Sabres. It was quite legitimately the most perfect or if you’re an Atlantic Division team, imperfect night possible. Detroit gained zero ground on their divisional foes, period. Well, I mean a point on Buffalo, but that was as you’re not really watching that stuff that intently, you know, under 10 games into the season, but I saw that I was like, are you kidding? All of your regulation wins as well. Good news is the Metro Division looks like it sucks. So, the Atlantic could have very legitimately two wild card spots. Could be. Would it be insane? All right, we’re going to go to a quick break here to hear from the sponsors of the Wing Wheel podcast. And when we’re back, we’re joined by Pashanty of Expected by Whom. Back after this. Celebrate a century of Red Wings hockey at Hockeytown Centennial FanFest November 6th to 9th at Motor City Casino Hotel. Experience the ultimate Redwing celebration packed with activities for fans of all ages. Meet and mingle with over 50 Red Wings legends and Hall of Famers, including Sergey Federov, Scotty Bowman, Nick Litstrom, Steve Eisman, Chris Chelios, and so many more. Exclusive merchandise, interactive experiences, skills challenges, autograph sessions, and more. You won’t want to miss this once in a-lifetime event. Tickets are going fast. Get yours now at detroit.com/fanfest. Now, just because you don’t hear him on Expected by Whom lately, doesn’t mean that Pashant Thy isn’t dedicated to the Winged Wheel podcast content universe. Cuz you are currently in a hotel room, my friend, after waiting all day to get that room, and you’re here recording this guest spot right now. If it wasn’t you asking me, I probably would have bailed. But you know what? That’s the commitment here. The commitment is I’m gonna be here for for the Wing World podcast content universe. And because of that, you are now I didn’t even plan this with you. You have now one of these earmarked for you, my friend, the the Red Wings JPY bottles, the uh the 10-year special edition just for you. Let’s Let’s hope that I can open that for a playoff run at some point. I think that would be nice. Uh I don’t want to wait too long, but you know. So, you say that we are now nine games into the Red Wings season. And I mean, you had some pretty interesting, you know, projections for the season that I thought you wrote beforehand, which I I thought were notable for a couple reasons. One, they had some positive outcomes for the Wings, and two, the data that you pulled up showed some potential positive outcomes for the Wings. So, talk a little bit about that and then what you’ve seen through the first nine games. Where you at on everything? Yeah. So, this is a really strange season. I think for starts, you know, when I went through my projections at the beginning of the year, I actually did project the Wings to land 91 points and ultimately secure that eighth spot in the East. Uh so, actually making the playoffs for the first time in in in a decade. But there was a handful of things that I was really curious to to pay attention to um that I think would dictate whether or not the Wings would actually be able to achieve that or potentially achieve a mark even better than that. Uh and it’s been very interesting to watch because over those nine games, I think those have been very critical things to pay attention to. Um and really I think one of the things you have to talk about when evaluating this team uh through nine games is the special teams performance. Um, and so coming into this season, over the last two years, the Wings have been one of the biggest beneficiaries of the referee whistle. Um, which may not be believable to a lot of Red Wings fans or to Mickey Redmond at times, but they have been the biggest beneficiary of, uh, the the the referee whistle. They were a plus 57 in penalty differential last year, plus 41 the year before. And so with that kind of potent power play that they had, it was kind of going to be one thing to pay attention to was would they be able to continue to draw penalties at this crazy differential. And again, through the early part of the season, even though they’ve had a couple of games where they’ve given up a lot of power plays, they are still a plus four in penalty differential. Um, you know, with with 33 penalties drawn, 29 taken. Uh, and that’s that’s the sixth best mark in the league. And when we’re thinking about the Red Wings special teams performance and their their penalty kill to date, uh they’ve gotten outstanding in goalending on the penalty kill, they’ve been able to play significantly better than last year, which is not really saying a whole lot given they were approaching futility at times for the worst penalty kill in the in the history of the league. But that penalty kill looks a lot better. And while the power play doesn’t seem as potent, uh particularly with Patrick Kane out of the lineup, they’re still generating a lot of really good chances. And if the floodgates truly have broken open for Alex de Brinkat, this power play may be able to get back on track and be kind of in that 22 to 25% range. And if they’re going to draw those penalties the way they’re drawing them um at that differential, then watch out because that can really be the the biggest I think difference or the thing that makes up a gap in your five on five play is your ability to have a significant performance on special teams, particularly with how much the power play has become a critical part of a game over the last few seasons. I think that’s the biggest thing to watch. And so it’s it’s trending the right way for the Wings. it’ll just be up to them to continue to execute that way. So, the story of this season has been the rookies and almost surprisingly so. Like the there’s a shift from this year they have to make it because they’ve been so close and fans are tired to okay, they just graduated three guys all at the same time unexpectedly. So, we’re kind of more just watching their development and anything else is is gravy. What do you make of their their performances with Finny, MBN, and ASP through these first nine games? And what do you see moving forward? And not just restricted to them because they also have Danielson and Maser waiting in the wings. I think it’s absolutely incredible number one that they put all three of them in the opening lineup. I think I’m on record multiple times saying I I was finding some excuse to not have any of them in the lineup despite how well they had played in the preseason and through through camp. Uh, but you know, Todd Mlen and Steve Eisermanman and the rest of that front office decided that was the right move. And I think through nine games, EMTT Finny has just been unbelievable. He is a player that just does everything right. If you sat back and just did an ISO cam on Finny, he’s in the right position. He’s making the right reads on the forch check. He’s making for the most part the right reads on the transition passes through the neutral zone. And then he’s just always in the right spot for puck recoveries in the offensive zone. Uh you go and you look at that goal that he scored against the St. Louis Blues uh really to to get the wings kind of back on track after Barren had scored to to give them that first goal that he finds that soft spot of the ice. And while they ultimately stole Dylan Larin’s assist from him and said that the Blues player is the one who directed it, then he was right in that pocket of kind of free space that is very hard to find. he gets that fluttering shot in and he gets past Bennington and gets the wings on their way and that’s just been consistent. He’s been one of the biggest revelations. And I think if you go back and look at some of the conversations you and I have had or things that we’ve written uh or talked about over the last three or four years, one of the biggest things that was going to accelerate the Red Wings rebuild and really get them back into playoff contention was hitting on picks that were outside of the first round. And EMTT, there’s no better case of that than EMTT Finny. Uh we’re talking about a seventh round pick from 2023, a guy that is 20 years old. This is kind of unprecedented for the Red Wings to have someone of that pedigree uh being seventh round making the team this quickly. You know, a lot of the comparisons and stats have been drawn back to Henrik Zederberg, but remember Henrik Zedterberg had already represented team Sweden before he even joined the Detroit Red Wings roster in the O2 Olympics. So, this is a guy that is doing something different that we haven’t seen before and he’s been phenomenal as that puck retriever do everything on that top line and so he’s by far been the most impressive for me. I think Axel Sandine Pelica has shown really good flashes on the on the defensive side of the things. I really in I really like the way that he moves the puck. He’s his patience with the puck. I think he has a little bit more to go in terms of making the right reads, making them quicker, particularly in the neutral zone, being a little bit more aggressive, uh, when challenging shooters and challenging kind of guys rushing. I think from a gap perspective, he may give up a little bit too much space as he’s trying to read their speeds a little bit more. And I think we saw a little bit of that uh, in the road trip against Buffalo where he got kind of beat to the middle of the ice. And those are the things that you want to see get better. But by and large, I think you have to be really impressed with how he’s handled himself as a defenseman, which I think is arguably one of the tougher positions at his age um and size to step in and play. And then I think Michael Bransard, you know, at times has looked really good. I think in particular next to Andrew Cop and and JT Confer that line cycles the puck and I think plays the game the way that he likes to play the game which is a little bit more rugged cycling along the boards wheeling that puck around not necessarily attacking off the rush as much. But he’s also been I think a little bit unlucky. There’s been a handful of chances he’s had. Again, you go back to that St. Louis Blues game. There’s a puck that slides right into the slot. he gets a big opportunity to crack a one really a slap shot right off of that pug and Pareo is able to get in the way and block that shot and get it out of the get it out of the rink and so I think his chances will come. That being said, you know, we saw his minutes cut down to under seven minutes in the game against the Blues and so there’s a chance that that may be a bad omen for him and he is the only one of the rookies that is slide eligible with his entry- level contract. So that is another factor to consider. But overall, I think you have to be really happy with how each of the rookies has looked, but in particular, it’s Emtt Spain’s world. Yeah, that we were talking about it and it’s like you almost didn’t have to spend any of your second or third round capital to get that hit outside the first, if that makes sense. You still have all those guys and I mean we put out a post today about you know Brent Solomon in the USHL and Demetri Bachelnikov the second round pick over in Russia still like there’s a lot coming on the way and part of graduating all of these rookies is the volatility that comes in your play like certainly the the loss of the Islanders wasn’t all on the young guys but a lot of it had to do with with mistakes from either rookies or younger players veterans too unfortunately and that volatility you have to expect will be there for a little while. Do you see it as kind of a risk factor for this team to have short-term success in this season and a hopeful playoff push this year or would you continue on this path and graduate even more rookies as the year goes on if you’re Eiserman Mlullen? Yeah, it’s a it’s a really good question and when we’re thinking about rookies in particular, I think obviously we talk about the rookie wall a lot. So, a lot of the junior seasons tend to be shorter than the NHL season, even when you factor in playoff games. So, how well do they hold up throughout the course of the season? There’s obviously the adjustment period that we’re talking about in their first, you know, 10 games now picking up the speed, how quick they need to make decisions, what are the reads, the physicality uh of the game. And I think it’ll lead to some inconsistency that you’ll see from them uh throughout the season. I think that’s something that the front office clearly has said that they’re willing to live with and I think you should live with that even if it comes at the expense of losing some games you would ideally like to win. For example, that Buffalo game is not a game you want to lose uh to a divisional opponent, a team that you’re expecting to be better than um and had been better than to date. You don’t want to necessarily be giving up ground to a team like that. and that can be a sign of some of those inconsistencies um from not just rookie play but also from some of the veterans here. But when you have a makeup of a team like that and you’re leaning on some of these young guys as much as they are, you know, Axel Sandy Pelica getting 20 minutes a night, Finny playing on your top line, playing penalty kill minutes, uh it it’s going to come with some risk. I think if you’re the Red Wings, you have you have to put the best players in position now. And one thing that I think we’ve talked about over the years is at some point you have to start understanding what you have in these prospects uh before the time comes to either have to reup contracts, reup uh you know some of these RFA deals. It’s important to understand because I I don’t like to equate it to this because I don’t like using the term asset when you’re when you’re talking about a human being, but essentially if you think about the depreciating value of a car when you drive it off of a lot, um you have just bought a new car and at that moment that car is the most valuable it’s going to be and then it continues to decline unless you see some elements of you know performance that dictate things going another way. But by and large, that asset is kind of most valuable at the time you you’ve acquired it. And so when you’re thinking about players that haven’t necessarily appeared in the NHL or haven’t made the NHL consistently, there’s always some thought on, you know, how good they might be or how good they could be. But if you’re thinking about the player and they haven’t been in the league and now they’re getting to D+3, D plus4, D+5 in terms of years out from their draft, the likelihood that they’re actually going to make it and be something drops every single year. And so the sooner I think you have a better understanding of what these guys can offer, the better. And so if I’m in charge this year, I think the window is certainly open to get looks at Danielson and Maser. Uh we haven’t seen the veterans necessarily state strong claims to those spots particularly seeing the scratch of Michael Rasmusen this past game Elmer Soderblum they’ve all been scratched on occasion you have opportunities to take a look at these guys I think you absolutely should. So Simon Edmonson just came off a pretty shocking couple of games bounced back nicely with two goals against St. Louis gamewinner and then the empty neter to seal it and part of the St. Louis game saw him move and play a regular shift with Mo Cider and the defense has been like at first you’re like oh my god this is actually kind of working but you know as they went on that little mini road trip you saw a lot of holes and a lot of kind of devastating mistakes coming through. Do you see the side or Edmonson pairing working long term not just with those two but also what the Red Wings would have to configure around them? Yeah. Um it was nice to see when they were rolling seven defenseman uh against St. Louis that you got to see a lot of different pairs and obviously last season we got a glimpse at the Cider Edmonson pair for a few games and that looked you know pretty good when it was together. Um, from my perspective, I don’t know that I would necessarily stick with that pairing long term. Uh, I think one of the advantages of having Cider and Edmonson when they’re both playing at the top of their game is you essentially have one of those guys on the ice for 40 to 45 minutes of the game. And that was a hallmark really of older Red Wings teams when you had Nicholstrom being able to be on the ice for 30 minutes and you also had whether it was Constantino that could be on the ice or you had Chris Chelios that could be on the ice or you had Nicholas Cromwell towards the end of his career. You always had two guys that could essentially chew up 80% of the game for you. And and I like that concept of being able to do that with both Cider and Edmonson. I think if you deploy them together, that’s certainly a dominant pair. But what’s asked of that pair then is a lot more challenging minutes, minutes that don’t necessarily maximize their abilities. Really puts them into tougher defensive spots. And I don’t necessarily think that’s Edmonson’s strength. Um, when he’s talking about having some of the worst games of his career, I think really a lot of the challenges were his indefensive zone decision-m. I think when we look at some of those things, he’s trying to challenge too high in the zone. He’s trying to force a turnover. He’s trying to make a play. It’s it feels felt a little bit like hero puck. Uh where, you know, you’re watching him maybe take an unnecessary risk to try and force a turnover to turn the tide. And that’s just that’s not the game that you want him playing. And so from my perspective, as he writes his game, I think you’re better off having him and Cider on separate pairings. Uh Sherro has been absolutely fine this year. Like yeah, he’s he’s generally been a whipping boy for for the team over the course of his contract, but he’s largely been fine. He’s blocking shots well. He’s moving the puck well. He’s making good reads. Um I think let him and Mo continue to be that top pair. And whether it’s axle sanding pelica with with Edmonson or you try some other combinations next to Edmonson. I I think that’s a critical thing is having those two separate. Another part of the Red Wing season so far is, you know, only three road games so far. They won one of them in Toronto, which was an absolute steal of a win, and then obviously the two tough games against Buffalo and the Islanders. And part of that was the Red Wings, aside from just not having the intensity and the energy, it looked like the line matching was working against them. And, you know, not having Kane for at least the first good portion of this road trip. Do you see this as something that could potentially be a long-term concern for the Red Wings in terms of how the the road splits work against them, or is this something that will kind of they’ll grow out of potentially as the younger players get more accustomed to the game? Yeah, I I don’t know that I would read too much into the the road splits in terms of the line matching. I mean, we’re talking about a relatively small sample at this point. Um, just three games. And one of the things that stood out to me was the wings really just struggled to stack shifts. And what I mean by that is when you’re forchecking the way the wings forch check, you want to be able to apply that forche pressure at the beginning of your shift. When you’re fresh, when you have the kind of the best ability to recover, the best ability to take away lanes, the best ability to make those gap reads, um the best ability to close as defensemen. And what was happening is the wings were struggling to do that at the beginning of their shift because they were spending so much time defending. But when you’re defending, as much as they were defending and having to chase and chase and chase, what ends up happening instead of a dump and chase for check, it’s really a dump and change for check. And then the wings end up on their heels. They’re having to spend the first part of every shift trying to recover that puck. And I think that’s really what happened is they came out flat in a lot of in really all of those road games. And I don’t think it had a ton to do with line matching. And I think really it was just a flat approach on the road for those games and one of them being off of a backto-back the game against the Islanders. So I I don’t know that I’m too concerned at this point in time. I think we’ll have to see and get a little bit more data on what about the road really is is causing them issues. I do think the line matching to some extent is is helpful for Todd when he’s at home particularly in freeing up uh the Larkin line to match really against whoever he wants to. So in the game against Edmonton getting them a lot against McDavid and Larkin actually being able to win those shifts I think was critical to winning that game. But this team is still capable of winning on the road without line matching. They just can’t come out flat the way that they did and and that’s been a problem. and they’ve done that three times on the road and they got lucky to win one of them and they got their butts kicked the other two times. So, we’ll see now going on the road against on this West Coast swing if they can continue to to play the way that we know they can play, which is aggressive for check, aggressive pinching, stacking those shifts, winning multiple shifts in a row, sustaining offensive zone pressure, generating those chances, drawing the penalties, and then putting their power play in a position to to help them take the lead. I think that’s that’s what we got to watch for now. You mentioned Larkin’s line and Dylan Larkin start to the season obviously can’t be overlooked as you said should have been a nineame point streak but eight officially and and a hot start for the captain and someone who has had questions around him. I kind of feel like every year we come into the season because he’s always good but there’s always something and and last season it was, you know, playing hurt after four nations and he really fell off for pretty much the rest of the season virtually and that was a big part of why the Red Wings, you know, kind of collapsed. Does Lurin’s start this season inspire you to think any differently about how his year can go or is it still too early to tell? For me, the realist is it’s too early to tell. I mean, Larkin has had hot starts to seasons in the past. He typically does start quite well. Um when you look back over the course of his career, he’s not really a slow starter to a season. Um and then typically we’ve seen his kind of game either slow due to injury or due to um kind of other challenges over the past few seasons. Um and so I think it’s a little early for me to say that that Larkin start is something that should be really read into a ton. I do think this is the best and most complete he’s looked on both the offensive and defensive side of the puck. And really what’s being asked of him right now is so much u he is being asked to essentially win every face off for this team. Uh in every situation where a faceoff is needed, he is the guy that is out there and you’re seeing it on the penalty kill where they’re asking him to win a face off and then change immediately. You’re seeing it on the power play. You’re seeing it at even strength. You’re seeing him matching against McDavid’s line. You’re seeing him out there to try and generate those goals and chances when the team is really struggling. He’s being asked to do everything and I think really more than he’s ever been asked to do before, particularly with a younger roster. And right now without Patrick Kane in the lineup, he is the unquestioned leader. And that is something that I do think we have to admire, like take a step back and admire the way he’s embraced that, handled that, and then performed. The biggest question this year will be, can he sustain that throughout the year? Can he stay free of injury? We’re already talking about him being a little banged up with having maintenance days, you know, in between these games recently. And Todd even alluded to it a little bit uh after one of the earlier games that you know Lurin was a little banged up but that was nothing to be concerned with. And then with the Olympics this year we know Lurin’s likely to be uh selected for team USA. Will he be able to sustain his performance through that after the Olympics and be able to lead this team on a critical playoff push in March where this team is definitely afraid of playing a hockey game. So, what else or what’s the one other major thing that you’re looking at, if anything, in terms of, you know, what to pay attention to for the Red Wings to see how you might think their season might go? Yeah, I I don’t want to be too much of a a pessimist in this. And so, one of the things I’ll I’ll point out is where we’ve seen them play nine games now, they’ve only gotten their butt kicked at five and five in one of those games. That was the St. Louis game. Uh the Islanders game looked like that on the score sheet and that’s really just because of a complete defensive collapse, but the Wings still had a handful of really good chances. Uh the St. Louis game was really the only game where through 30 minutes they had absolutely nothing outside of a couple of debt posts and St. Louis was getting everything that they wanted. And that’s the only game that on the final score sheet the Wings got their butts kicked at five on five. And that’s important because that’s what represents almost 75% to 80% of a hockey game is five on five play. And historically over the last couple of years, the Wings have not been that good of a five on five team. They’ve relied heavily on either really timely scoring, uh, otherworldly goalending or their power play to be that great equalizer for them. But right now, when they don’t have their power play being that great equalizer, it’s still good. and it’s just not clicking at the same effectiveness as it has been. They’re finding other ways to get it done. They’re finding ways to be better at five on five even though that St. Louis game did not look it. They’re still generating quality chances. They’re doing much better job of generating that in the offensive zone compared to previous years. What they really just got to clean up is the consistency. And I think that’s a double-edged sword when you’re thinking about both the optimism and maybe pessimism for how the season goes. is if this team can consistently bring that forche and stack shifts and win shift after shift, this is going to be a fun hockey team to watch. And they’re going to be a team that you don’t want to play in the playoffs because when they get in on you with that forche, and we talk about it with Carolina and Florida when we watch them in the playoffs, they’re just not a fun team to play against. And I think that can be the case with Detroit when that forch check is clicking, but it’s going to be can they consistently bring it? Can they consistently make those great reads? How does the team evolve and mature over the course of the season? How do those younger players continue to make and learn from those mistakes and and ultimately make better decisions consistently? If that leads to a more consistent performance from the Red Wings, then I think there’s every reason to be optimistic about this team because some of the the numbers, particularly at five on five, are more encouraging than what we saw in previous years to where even if the power play is not there, even if the goalending is not there, I mean, we still have to point out this team is the second worst five on five save percentage in the league. And despite that, they’re still six and three. So, you’re still winning games where you’re not getting the goalending, and that’s not something we could have said in in past seasons. So, I think this is a lot of signs that are encouraging, but it does require some things to get better. Uh, some of which we expect like the power play when Patrick King comes back. Others will be that consistency piece, and that’s that’s what I’m watching for. You heard it from the man himself, our resident data analytics expert, host of Expected by Whom. And something else Pashant is a big part of is our initiative Wings Money on the Board in support of the Jamie Daniels Foundation. If you contributed last year, you’ll have received a message from us recently. Just as we’re doing another round of of giveaways and prizes to try to get a last minute collection of those pledges and then this upcoming season’s launch will be at Winged Wheel Podcast at the LCA Saturday, November 15th. So more there. Thank you all so very much for your support, Pashant. Thank you for jumping on the show and more from you soon. Looking forward to it. See you guys at Wing World podcast night. Welcome back. That was our conversation with Persant Thy. Always good to get him back on the show. Hope to hear more from him and Sean, unexpected by whom soon here. All right, more notes from the Red Wings world. Nate Danielson returns to play. Was activated, sent down to Grand Rapids, and Steve Eisman was in person to watch him make his season debut. two primary assists, a four nothing win. Sebastian Kosa a 30 safes shut out, and the Griffins go to 5-0 to start the season, I believe, is the best in franchise history. And good showing for for Danielson for not having played for for that long. Seems like he hasn’t missed a beat. I if things continue the way they are, I imagine it’s only a matter of time before the Red Wings come calling. it just not everything will be fixed, but if Nate Danielson can come in and be a sufficient center in your depth, then that just opens up so much more for you. You get Kane back, the top six normalizes, and then you can throw call it JVR, Danielson, Appleton changes the outlook in a very positive way. Appleton on the first line right now. I should mention we should also note in the the St. Louis game, I forgot to mention this. Cider and Edmonson partway through that game started getting a regular shift together as the lines jumbled there. And if they can make that work and have that stick, that would be absolutely thrilling to see those two end up together and see how things shake out. Sherrot again playing banged up. So, we’ll see how long things persist. But I think that would be extremely cool. I mean, good for Edmonson as well. Obviously, his game turned around against St. Louis compared to prior. So, we’ll see if those two stick together. All right, other notes from the Red Wings world. If you follow us on any socials, Twitter, Instagram, anything else, check out the Red Wings prospect update we just posted and gives you a good overview of some updates from Red Wings prospects over I mean throughout the entire pipeline across the world. And there’s the you know the Carter Mazers and the Sebastian Kosas and the Jesse Kiskanins which everyone knows about. And then there’s also other guys like Max Plant who we’ve been talking about, Demetri Bachelnikov, who everyone’s, you know, always keeping a close eye on. And then you look at Brent Solomon in the USHL, fourth round pick from last season, and he is tearing it up. It’s the USHL. I know it’s it’s not the A or anything like that, but he leads the league in points. I believe he’s second in goal scoring through 11 games played, 15 points. Brett and Solomon could be one to to watch out with Sou Falls. If EMTT Finny has taught us anything, you just never know, man. Yeah, that is a national story now. EMTT Finny, like it is everywhere. Biz can’t stop talking about him. Dangle tweeted about him recently. Like there’s national coverage, there’s major coverage from other markets. People are noticing EMTT Finny. And I mean, he’s in the mix. He’s only behind Demi Dovin points right now. And he’s earning it. like there’s there’s very few consistent Red Wings bright spots over these past few games barring the comeback with St. Louis, but he is one of them. Like he had what is it four straight games with a point, something like that. Like he has been I wonder how how long he’s going to go into this Calder race, if you want to call it that, this early into the season. Like he’s winning it, so I would assume all the way. And you’re not wrong. like the seventh round story line is going to that’s going to be worth something with it would be a great great debate if it keeps up the way it is where you’re debating first overall Schaefer seventh round Phiney like that would be fascinating incredible scenes. All right, let’s get into some NHL news here. The Nordik’s jerseys versus the Whalers jerseys. Was everything legitimately that much better back then? Yes, it was. This is the the moment or the the call for more color in team uniforms. And this is what sort of the third jersey, the the retro jersey nights are for. It’s to do something different. It’s, you know, get some more color on the on the screen. I feel horrible for both of the former franchises who had to watch that, but yeah, it was unbelievable. That was where I like Yeah. Gorgeous. absolutely gorgeous. Those Nordics jerseys especially, I’m like, my god, are those incredible on screen. And then the Whalers logo is I think one of the best of all time. And I just thought of, okay, yeah, you know, Hartford fans are probably really sad, but that’s I don’t know about that as a market necessarily, but Quebec City fans, man, that’s got to be torture. like to see the team that took your team away trotting out. It feels like grave dancing and trotting out your jersey which everyone loves and they’re fawning over and you know you would accept an NHL team and be ready for one right now but you will never get one back because it’s not creating new fans and you’re not a a major metro area in North America so they’re the NHL is just not going to go there and you’re just have to sit and watch it. That’s got to be absolute torture. I don’t know if I could bear it. If I was If they weren’t French, I would feel so much worse. I thought you would you would subscribe to a intra Quebec rivalry. Oh man, sign me up. Yeah, I have no connections to to Quebec City. Awesome city to visit, but no connections otherwise. So, I enjoyed the the matchup, but I was like, “Oh god, that’s got to be a gut punch for them.” It’s been 30 years. They’re fine. Yeah, they they get over things very quickly. Yes. famous for not holding a grudge. Yeah. I I would never let it go if if my team ever lost its its franchise. And they’re always and every year people in Quebec are like, “We have an NHL ready stadium. You’ll have a 10-year wait list for season tickets. We are ready.” And they’re like, “You know what? How about Arizona for the seventh time? How about Arizona again?” Like, I I feel for him. I truly do. Well, what? But if we get Atlanta back and we get those baby blue Atlanta jerseys. Sorry, Quebec. That’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make. The one shoulder. Oh, yeah. That’s Let’s Let’s bring it all back. Everything was better back then. Did you see the Kempy celebration in Dallas? The horns down? No. So, Kempy wins it in overtime and hits the Dallas fans with the horns down, which honestly was really funny. I was like, I love any kind of personality from players that way. Someone pointed out, they’re like, yeah, okay, so the Longhorns are in Austin. That was Dallas. Not quite the mark that you were looking to hit. And I have to say from someone far detached from that conference and in those teams in that rivalry. I thought it was funny. Just be like Andrew Ference and just flip them off. Just keep it oldfashioned. No, his glove his glove got stuck. Yeah. Malf a malfunction. Of course. Wardrobe malfunction. You know who hasn’t? Fence Janet. Happens to the best of us. Do you guys make anything of Samos and Cadri? those names being out there in terms of guys who could be available based on how their seasons and their times with their respective teams could be going because if Calgary completely implodes, Cadri would be a guy who’d get a lot of attention and Stamos and Nashville haven’t exactly worked out as a a fit so far. Nope. Love both players. Wouldn’t touch either of them. That’s one of those ones. Good players. You’d think that maybe if everything goes right it’ll be great ads, but you look at the ages, you look at the contracts, you look at where the Red Wings are at right now. That’s even when I squint, that’s a tough one to see raising it because I think those names are going to come up a lot. So I think in general you’re like does that answer the questions that the regulars have? Not necessarily based on yeah where they’re at and what you would need to give up and what those teams would be looking for, but just starting to to raise the questions now because I think those are going to be popular around the league. Okay, we’re going to go to one more quick break and when we’re back, the final segment on this episode of the Window Podcast back after this. You’re invited to a night at the Fox Theater celebrating 100 years of Hockey Town on November 8th hosted by Ken Daniels and Mickey Redmond. Hear stories from legends like Eisermanman, Federov, Litstrom, Zedterberg, and Bowman. Plus, alumni meet and greets. Enjoy music, video, and live storytelling for one spectacular night. Get your tickets at detroit.com/foxvent. We’re going to Overtime. Overtime is brought to you by our Patreon supporters. patreon.com/wingelpodcast. If you want to support the show, you get access to benefits like our bonus overtime episodes, which record right after these main ones. We let loose. We have fun. We get thoughts with Evan, which I think are getting more coherent than they ever have. You just life is coming at you fast and hard. It’s It’s a good time. You also get access to our Patreon exclusive Discord, which is a fantastic community. And you’re automatically entered into all of our giveaways. You can also enter to be eligible for a giveaway for two tickets to every Detroit Red Wings home game in season. So, we have those. We give them directly to our Patreon supporters. So again, patreon.com/wingedwheelpodcast. Some questions from our patrons. Dallas Drake says, “What is your take on Lucas Raymond playing through an obvious injury? Wouldn’t he heal up faster by not playing? He isn’t very effective. Might the Red Wings be a better team with him resting right now?” Long-term maybe, but in the short term, absolutely not. It’s It’s one of those things where it’s like, yeah, the Red Wings just don’t have a lot to work with, right? Like, has MBN been fantastic or even good? I mean, I I wager a lot of the times over the last three games, I’ve seen a player who could use time in the AHL with NBN, but their other options aren’t strong. And so, you kind of have to go through it. Like, you have MBN playing seven minutes last night or something like that. Like, not the end of the world. Other guys got, you know, low minutes, too. JVR finds himself riding the pine a lot of times depending on the moments. They scratched Rasmod last game. Like I’m not saying it’s the end of the world, but the the team just doesn’t have a lot, which is why I think they’re not being more conservative with that one. And it also depends on the injury, right? Like there’s certain injuries where doctor be like, “Look, you can play, you won’t worsen it. It’s just going to hurt. If you can play through that, then great.” There’s certain injuries where they’re like, “Yeah, you absolutely have to rest this.” So, I don’t know that the Red Wings are putting Raymond out there if they are worried about long-term damage really. Chunkas Duncas says, “Is Todd the one to break this team’s roller coaster tendencies or is it going to be a season where I should look into some blood pressure medications?” Why can’t it be both? I think you’d be definitely the latter for sure. I think he’ll break some of their tendencies as we’ve seen so far, but it’s a young team, man. If it keeps going like this, he might actually break some of their bones. That might have been the threat in that timeout. That honestly might have been it. He He’s got He’s got work ahead of him. He has a lot of work ahead of him. Hopefully fewer massively impactful timeouts are needed, but just every other game or maybe every two games. I would take that. Yeah. Two games on, three games off kind of thing. I I’ll I’ll It’s not like you can bank the timeouts. Use them. Yell at somebody. I mean, we all remember what the other side of that looks like. Jack’s dad’s and your second favorite patron have similar questions. I’ll read them here. Compare and contrast Finny and MBN. Seems Finny has exceeded expectations. While MBN isn’t much of a needle mover yet, might be a bit of an unfair comparison given where they’re playing and where Finny was drafted. And while doubtful, do you think Eman would consider moving MBN to Grand Rapids to give Maser and Danielson when ready a look and avoid MBN’s ELC to kick in? Your second favorite patron says, “Do we think andor should MBN go down to Grand Rapids for a bit? Time on ice for the game against St. Louis is the lowest of all players. Adam, yeah, 6 minutes 37 seconds. Why not give Maser Danielson the opportunity instead?” I think it’s probably building up to that. I think that’s the most likely scenario is he’ll get some time in Grand Rapids to get things right. And and really the difference between the two of them right now is just pace. Yeah, MBN just looks slow at this level. And it’s not that he’s doing the wrong things or or any of that stuff. It’s just he can’t skate fast enough or do it quick enough to be effective. Whereas Finny, that’s his strength. He’s a burner. Yeah. The Red Wings have slow, ineffective players in in spades. So, they may as well he could spend some time in Grand Rapids and build up the foot speed and the confidence. Like, you can see why he was a first round pick. It’s just some of the the little things right now just aren’t quite there. Yeah, I will say I think it I don’t think it’s just that Finny is skating faster. I do think he is playing better. They also have very different games too in what they’re asked to do as well. So, well, there’s a difference between skating fast and playing fast. Finn is doing both. Finny is absolutely doing both. And that’s what I mean. Like the Yeah, the decision-m, the execution, those are all happening better and at speed. You have to call out better linemates than what MBN has had. But yeah, I don’t think your assessment is wrong. Like everyone’s kind of noticing the the game is going around MBN in terms of pace right now. You see moments for sure, but and I still wonder, do you bring up Maser andor Danielson and it’s not MBN that goes down, but if he goes down, it’s not the end of the world whatsoever. AJ Voss says, “Recently snapped cold streak aside. Do you think it will be a big priority to resign Debrink this summer when he’s eligible to extend his contract on July 1st or is that going to be more of a 26 27 season or a June 2027 kind of thing? What do you think his next contract will look like? Eerman does not and has not been the guy to extend a year out. He seems to like to go down to the wire. Well, I don’t know. he might want to extend, but it’s it’s players and agents who are taking it further, right? Like, we don’t know that. Again, it’s likely, but how many contracts have we seen over the last few years where teams sign their guys a year out, went down to the wire with Raymond, went down to the wire with Larkin, went down to the wire with Cider, Edmonson doesn’t have his extension yet, Casper doesn’t have his extension yet. He he doesn’t have I can’t think off the top of my head a guy where he signed him a year out. That’s a pattern at that point. So De Brinka would be a guy who I think if someone was going to buck the trend and this is with the assumption that the players are the ones who want to push this further. Dinka knows he wants to stay in Detroit. Like that is a foregone conclusion. Like it’s important. This is family. He forced his way there. Yeah. So I could see him saying, “Yeah, let’s get this done.” I know goal scorers get big numbers in this league and I know the cap is going up by a lot but I don’t think debrink’s going to be capriovving not that he would make that much money but you know what I mean trying to squeeze the team for every dollar that he can get. I just don’t get that impression. Neither do I. But I think he’ll sign sometime between New Year’s and the trade deadline if that’s going to happen of that fourth season on the contract. That’s fair enough. Yeah, we’ll see how it plays out. Spirit of Red Wing’s future says, “Hey guys, is it just me or does it seem like there’s something up with Simon Edmonson? just seems like he hasn’t been his stellar self the last two games and has been burnt a few times now. Hope he snaps out of it soon. This is his second NHL season. There are going to be slumps. Casper’s looked really off too lately. Like it’s going to happen. It’s the nature of the beast. Yeah, I I think And do you mean a different pairing as well and what he’s tasked with doing? At moments look good, but at other times it’s like is that too much of a lift for him to to offset a rookie NHLD partner. Just some bad decision making, looking frazzled at times too, taking bad penalties. It’s all part of the learning curve, but you’d think for a guy who just is so smooth and so confident that some of these things would would not be so in your face. Yeah. Like, yes. But I I do kind of tend towards what Brad said where it’s like he’s going to he’s going to go through that no matter what. And Oh, I agree. But some of them are just headscratchingly Oh, yeah. not good. Some of the penalties are just like Simon gets walked by a fourth liner. It’s like, man, you are one of the most confident guys on the ice. Like, shouldn’t happen. I know it did. It does. Everybody gets walked at some point or multiple times. Yeah, just the past two games have been rough. Yeah, he if anyone needed a twogoal comeback performance. Yes. Noted minute muncher Joey Jojo Shabadu says Bearrren had a nice game against St. Lewis. And with Kane’s absence, I’ve noticed Todd has elevated his role a bit. What would Bear Grren’s next 10 games need to look like for you to change your perspective on trading him? Honestly, more of what we’ve seen the last couple games of just showing up and, you know, cleaning up plays and opportunities that come in depth minutes, being the the guy to clean up on the second power play unit, converting a little bit. Like, that’s what Barren brings to the ice. Like, there have been and there will continue to be frustrations in terms of like responsibility up and down the ice. and you know missing coverage whatever but what does bear bring his offense and so if he can bring that offense in his depth role he’s not necessarily given the most to work with in terms of the centerman down there but at the same time like he consider game and it’s not going to be on the Larkin line but if he can just stick with some reasonable amount of offense there’s not a lot of competition for the last couple forward spots right now for the Red Wings if he’s better than than you know Rasmusen and Silver Blum. That’s pretty much all you need at this moment. And we’ve seen it from Barren. He can be that kind of cleanup crew in front of the net. Finn’s hot and I’m ready. Says, “First time patron here. Longtime listener. Thank you so much for the support. Welcome to the Dubdub Club. Hell of a name.” Says, “When should we start being worried about our road home splits? Even though we won in Toronto, all of our road games have looked pretty bad so far this year. Also, Evan, congratulations on the baby and condolences on the sleep. Just know it could be worse. We had twins three years ago and they knew how to dump and change all night. Much better than a lot of the wings bottom six. Anyways, you’ll get through it. Cheers, boys. One of my good good friends had twins. Their first birthday party was the day before Catherine went into labor actually. So, I I messaged him maybe last week when I was like at my my lowest of lows and I’m like, I have no idea how you two did it. I was like, I don’t know. Oh, I thought you were going to say he died. He survived. He replied to me. So I I pres I’m supposed to see him Tuesday, but I presume he’s alive. That’s never really confirmation that you’re alive or dead is if you reply. No. Yeah. Yeah. The the road home splits are real. We talked about it. Like it’s going to be especially with Kane out. This road trip is going to be a big indicator. I am admittedly already concerned. I haven’t seen a lot to inspire confidence so far. Yeah. So, you have to just hope that it’s early season growing pains with the young roster. But other than that, we’ll see when we get back to Detroit on November 7th and what record the Red Wings are coming back home with to the LCA. All right, on that note, we’re going to wrap up this episode of the Wind Wheel Podcast. Thank you also very much for tuning in. Thank you to Pashantire for jumping on this episode and thank you to all of our Patreon supporters for for making the entire Windell podcast happen. patreon.com/wingodcast. If you want to support the show and if you want to help us out but you’re not really into doing the whole Patreon thing, that is totally okay. 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Evan gave me a concussion after he headbutted me. Matt Keeler, Linda Hull, last name Trickle. First name Richard Connor Leighton. As good as it gets. What’s that? Great driver. As good as it gets. Jeremiah Adobo, Josh Yelton, Brad Simmons, Darren Fick, Becks, The Hodag, Baseball, Basketball, Wiener Dog, Short Short Sports, Commander, Ben Baron, and the Cheeseback Space Force, Sandine, Pelica’s Pet Pelican, Griffy Boy, JM Rapsy, Frank Stanley, Rosie Posie, Oilia, That Other Guy, Pucking, Puck, Puck, Carl Tames, The Hat, 123, Trent Thorough, Steven, Aon, Cory, Pria, All Motor, No Hands, Jean Sullivan, Roy Mudbutt, Big Cheese, James Pridemore, Euprenadian, Drop the puck. Eric Nance and Stannisloski, Jim Bellia, Massiballs, Wings, Fan and St. Louis, Scott, Johnny Paige, Lucas Raymond, Cops, Bubba, Gump, Lip, Grepsky, Evan Beckner, The Return of Jambo, CE, Hayes, Finny to the Rafters, Jacob Marsh, Faulniss 91 in the Raptors, and I’m still stranded in Arkansas, Fight Night at the Joe, Andrew Shaw, Axel’s Sandy Pelican, and your second favorite patron. Thank you all so very much. We’ll talk to you midweek. Thanks for tuning in to the Wingwheel Podcast. Be sure to visit wingwheelpodcast.com where you’ll find links to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcast, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. You’ll also find ways to support the show like Patreon, official podcast merchandise, and more. And don’t forget to follow us on X at Wingwheel Pod, at Ryan Hannah WWP, at Brad Krisco, and at HockeyTown Evan, as well as Wing Wheel Podcast on Instagram. This message is brought to you by Greenlight Lending. 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WHAT A COMEBACK IN HOCKEYTOWN! The Detroit Red Wings have been nothing short of a rollercoaster.
Tune in as we start by analyzing the terrible 7-2 loss by the Red Wings on Long Island to Matthew Schaefer and the Islanders, including tough games from Rasmussen, Edvinsson, Johansson, and plenty more from Todd McLellan’s squad, the Cizikas cross-check, Larkin & Finnie continuing to mesh, Berggren & Compher doing what they could, & more as Detroit struggles without Patrick Kane & with Lucas Raymond still hurt. Next, the chaotic comeback win over Binnington and the St. Louis Blues in Hockeytown, including Berggren & Compher providing the pulse, McLellan’s pivotal timeout, Finnie’s continued surge and Larkin’s stolen assist, Alex DeBrincat breaking his goal drought, Simon Edvinsson redeeming himself, Moritz Seider and Simon Edvinsson playing together as Sandin-Pellikka is moved around, Brandsegg-Nygard not playing much, a long road trip ahead, & more.
We’re then joined by Prashanth Iyer, host of Expected by Whom & resident analytics expert to talk Detroit Red Wings by the numbers, what the special teams say about Yzerman’s team’s future, how Emmitt Finnie & Co. have changed the game, playoff hopes, Larkin’s surge, & more.
After that, Red Wings prospect notes including Nate Danielson returning to the ice for the Grand Rapids Griffins, Sebastian Cossa’s shutout win, Mazur’s points racking up, Brent Solomon tearing up the USHL, Buchelnikov in Russia, & more, before we jump into some NHL notes & take your questions and comments in our Overtime segment – enjoy!
Intro: 00:00
NYI Game Recap: 4:50
STL Game Recap: 17:15
Early Season Red Wings Analysis: 33:00
Red Wings News & NHL Notes: 59:20
Overtime: 1:08:25
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34 comments
First
As great as that comeback was, I'd rather see a FULL 60
I’m first
El Gato broke the dam, hopefully he gets rolling
The heart attack squad strikes again in Detroit. Down by four….no problem.
Anyone else wait on Sunday nights until this drops? Also, my twins were born a year ago on Friday and spent a few weeks in the NICU so totally understand that feeling when they come home.
The fellas are showing they can flip the switch in tough moments.
It’d be nice if that switch could stay on more often, but it’s good to know it’s there to be flipped at least.
This team is still horrible in their own end. Puck luck won that game Saturday night.
Travelled from east coast of Canada to watch them play the isles. Brutal.
there are three top 10 picks on this team that aren't producing enough, and quite frankly the lack of production from Marco Kasper is downright inexcusable
You mentioned Buchelnikov coming up for the Wings. I looked at his team scoring and i couldn't believe who was leading the team scoring and it wasn't Buchelnikov. It was a former Red Wing named Daniel Sprong. Now I knd of question how good Buchelnikov might be if Sprong who couldn't make an NHL team is the point leader on a KHL team.
evan you better put those ankles away or im gonna blow my fun dust.
I’m sorry this is so pathetic. We are the Red Wings we deserve a playoff team. It’s bullcrap that we are in the longest playoff droughts in the league. I’m so sad and angry. Yzerman wouldn’t been left in the dust by now if he wouldn’t have played for us.
Watching Rasmussen play makes me want to change the channel.
That stiff gets a stick broke over his back down 5 goals and he don’t do anything. That SUCKS TO WATCH.
Soderblom shying away from flooring Schafer is a perfect example of how soft Yzermans draft picks are.
Major for a cross check are you guys serious. Rasmussen is suppose to police that but he is a big wimp and Yzerman resigns him pathetic. Rasmussen don’t score don’t check and don’t fight so what was Stevie wonders thinking 🤔
Edvinsson pulled a perfect Jekyll and Hyde home and away this week. Still think he is our best defenseman and wish he could stay paired with Seider like he was last game.
I feel like MBN is better served in Grand Rapids if he's only getting 7 mins a night. Maybe pulling up Mazur and Danielson and sending him down with a vet.
As of 8:19a central, Simon Edvinsson is tied for first overall in goals from defensemen.
I have three kids and they've all slept through the night since two months old
This Red Wings team is a copy of the 23-24 team that missed the playoffs by a tie breaker. That year they just simply tried to outscore their problems and early in this season they are trying to do the same. We hoped that a more solid goaltending tandem would help level them out, but so far that hasn't been the case. The goaltending needs to be more dependable. The team needs to clean up the odd man rushes and back door tap-ins. The PK needs to remain solid; it's been wavering lately.
Had a good betting day on the blues game. Took blues to win first period, cat goal and wings moneyline.
Expected by whom listed somewhere other than YouTube now? I hear them plug it from time to time, but every time I check the YT page it’s been inactive for a long while.
Finnie is just a gamer. Not flashy, but smart and effective. His skating and hockey sense will help in fit in almost anywhere and not drag a line down IMO.
MBN could use some time in GR to fine tune his game. As stated, seems like he is slightly behind the play. I wouldn’t mind swapping him out with Mazur/Danielson depending on the team’s wishes.
I was pretty sure Berggren was on his way out, but he has picked up his play. If he could be a Robbie Fabbri level of offense guy (15-20 goals) that would be huge. Especially if the D play from him gets better. Still not sure of his fitting long term as MBN, Mazur, Danielson, Buchelnikov, Bear, Plante come up soon. But, so far, I would put him a tier above Soderblom and Rasmussen at this point.
Ras seems so tentative. Don’t know if having seen Franzen’s long term outcomes from concussions has him playing very conservative or what. Either way, I am done and he is what he is. Nothing personal, just as someone taking a roster spot.
39:30. It's unprecedented for most of the league. Last time someone in the 7th made their team at 20 was Erat 24 years ago.
Plenty of Longhorns in Dallas. Lived there for over a decade.
A thing a lot of people forget about expansion is, they can't just "give" a team to a city. Someone has to own it and have investors to help pay for things. QC doesn't have that. Hartford doesn't have that. Currently, Houston has at least one group and Atlanta has at least two groups, with investors, working to bring the NHL to town. Until someone in QC or Hartford can attract investors, the nostalgia cities just aren't coming.
The Red wings has been a frustrating team to watch the last two-three years because they're so good SOMETIMES or in SOME areas but rarely all at once and never consistently. When the top lines are producing there's no depth and vice versa, when goaltending is great there's no defence, when defence is working there's no offence, when the rookies play well the veterans screw up etc etc. There's always something missing or not working. Just figure it out already
Was gonna watch then saw Iyer as a guest no thanks lol
No enough mention of goaltending by Prashanth Iyer. This team has a save percentage of .880.
Can we send 27 to waste in vancouver
MBN has been sent to Grand Rapids.
Prashanth consistently dropping the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Such a great guest and articulate guy.
Damn. Prashanth is so good.
Its gonna be a looooong season if we keep playing down to teams we should beat.