Quick Hits: The All About the Red & White Edition

Winging It In Motown

Observations from the Red & White Game

Givani Smith scored a penalty shot and an empty-net goal in Team Red’s 4-2 victory over Dylan Larkin’s Team White. Cross Hanas got the game-winner and Jakub Vrana filled out the scoring for the team I’d call the underdog which erased two separate one-goal deficits. Dylan Larkin opened the scoring for White and Matt Luff was the other scorer.

I was mostly looking out for the kids and the newcomers but it was hard not to focus on the guys like Larkin, Zadina, Seider, Raymond and Vrana because it was real clear the skill.

For what I did see from the players I was looking to learn more about, here’s what I’ve got:

David Perron – Reports of a guy who gets his shot off quickly remain accurate, even if the one he rang off the crossbar lacked a bit of that. His passing from around the tops of the circles stood out to me.

Jonatan Berggren – Played with Larkin and Raymond a lot and he absolutely looked like he belonged with NHL-caliber players. Cool under pressure.

Simon Edvinsson – Damn the luck of the kid who high-sticked Givani Smith and accidentally knocked Robert Hägg out of the scrimmage with a shot that hit his fellow defenseman. He definitely looks like a kid that’s on-track. I’m looking forward to seeing more throughout preseason because he didn’t stand out like Seider did, but the only times he was made to look like a rookie was when he was playing against the full-time NHLers.

Dominik Kubalik – He was the one who made Edvinsson look like a rookie the most. He’s dogged on the puck. I don’t think he’s gong to put up 30 goals again, but I think he’s definitely going to make our bottom six harder to play against.

Eemil Viro – I really liked him. He was calm with the puck, knew where to move in space in the offensive zone to support the cycle without enabling counterattacks.

Ben Chiarot – Honestly, as-expected kinda play. There was a time in the first half where I thought for certain he’d have taken a holding penalty in a regular season game, but outside of that, it was mostly getting used to a guy wearing Jake Walman’s number who wasn’t Walman.

Austin Czarnik – This guy is going to be fighting with Taro Hirose for that emergency call-up kind of role as a guy who is probably too good to be in the AHL but not consistent enough to be with an NHL team. He’s a dogged forechecker.

Olli Määttä – Honestly not a single thing stuck out for me with him. That’s a good thing.


There wasn’t anything that was terribly concerning about what we saw. I liked how Rasmussen played with Zadina and Vrana. Adam Erne out there against some guys who aren’t even AHLers was a good reminder that I’m hard on his consistency in the NHL, but he definitely belongs at that level. Pius Suter looked fast but there were a couple times where he looked like the dog who didn’t know what to do with the car he finally caught.

For other takes:

Here is who stood out in the Red Wings’ intrasquad scrimmage – Ted Kulfan (Detroit News)

“I liked it structurally; some things we worked on whether it was the new neutral zone (coverages) or our defensive zone, there was a conscious effort to execute,” Lalonde said. “So we did a good job with that.

“Obviously, a ton of turnovers, which is kind of expected, but turnovers led to most of, if not all, of the offense. So it’s a good picture to paint for the guys starting tomorrow, cleaning up some of the puck play.

To be honest, the Lalonde quotes are the most-interesting thing from Kulfan’s take.

The good and the not-so-good from Detroit Red Wings’ camp scrimmage – Helene St. James (Freep)

TRAVERSE CITY — Newcomer Dominik Kubalik was among the Detroit Red Wings players who entertained during Sunday’s scrimmage that broke up the monotony of training camp.

That’s the most-insightful thing from Helene, who called Edvinsson “turnover prone” without including that this was a criticism from Lalonde.

Derek Lalonde pleased with first Red Wings camp despite turnovers – Ansar Khan (Mlive)

Lalonde said players dealing with day-to-day injuries (Bertuzzi, Oskar Sundqvist, Joe Veleno) should be available at some point in the preseason. Andrew Copp, coming off abdominal surgery, has been skating with the injured players but won’t be ready until the start of the regular season or shortly after.

Khan’s writeup is the best of the three main diggers’ as it has the most info.

Red Wings training camp observations Day 4: Jonatan Berggren gets big opportunity – Max Bultman (The Athletic – PAYWALLED)

Another storyline from the week that repeated itself in the scrimmage was the tone-setting physicality of Chiarot. Detroit went out and signed the 31-year-old in free agency this summer as it looks to become a tougher team to play against, and it’s already crystal clear how Chiarot will help that aim.

Impressions from the Red vs. White game at the Red Wings’ 2022 training camp – George Malik (The Malik Report)

I will readily say that the Red vs. White game was definitely sloppy. Both teams looked like they were shaking out the kinks from summer, never mind training camp, and that the Red Wings are very much so a team that’s incorporating about a third of a roster’s worth of new players. Add in the number of try-outs and turning-North-American-Pro European rookies, and the result was a mishmash of styles of play and perhaps not-surprisingly inconsistent play.

He’s not wrong, but I will say the way he describes that it’s a lot of mitigating circumstances deserves a second – despite that the chemistry wasn’t there, it didn’t look awful, just that the chemistry wasn’t there.

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