The Malik Report
Red Wings overnight report: reverse-engineering Petr Mrazek
by George Malik on 07/16/12 at 05:34 AM ET
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Drafting and developing athletic goaltenders requires a bit of reverse engineering. Goalies who naturally play an instinctive game and employ acrobatic saves when fundamentals fail them tend to make stops on shots that leave more conventionally-trained goaltenders flummoxed…But as these goaltenders move up the professional ranks, the ones who decline to rein in their tendencies to flop, flail and turn themselves into pretzels often also tend to fatigue more easily and tend to suffer injuries on a frequent basis.
The Red Wings have drafted a remarkably athletic goaltender in Petr Mrazek, and his competitive instincts tend to yield highlight-reel saves, but as he’s turning pro, Detroit goalie coach Jim Bedard faces an uphill task in attempting to tame something of a wild stallion. The Free Press’s George Sipple spoke to Ottawa 67’s goalie coach Tom Dempsey about Mrazek, who idolized Dominik Hasek growing up, and while Mrazek’s competitive nature serves him very well…
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Red Wings afternoon news: Homer and TC volunteers on parade, Delvecchio’s short skate and Pulkkatalk
by George Malik on 07/15/12 at 06:02 PM ET
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Updated at 9:35 PM: The Red Wings’ website has posted a clip of Tomas Holmstrom taking part in the “Cherry Royale Parade” commemorating the conclusion of Traverse City’s Cherry Festival, and I would be remiss if I didn’t note that Ann Reeves, Pete Correia and all the fantastic volunteers from Centre Ice Arena walked in the parade behind the Holmstrom family.
Holmstrom earned his feting, and I hope it’s not the only time we see Holmstrom being treated like royalty over the next six months…
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Red Wings evening/overnight news: on prospects, free agency and Joey Kocur’s charity softball game
by George Malik on 07/14/12 at 10:28 PM ET
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Updated with enough stuff to make this an “overnight report” at 4:42 AM on Sunday morning: I made the trip from Traverse City back to South Lyon safely and soundly, and while the scenery in South Lyon isn’t nearly as lovely as it is in the Cherry Capital, it feels good to be home and to know that I won’t be getting up at 6 AM tomorrow. aside from a Saturday’s worth of varying reactions to what was apparently the NHL’s real first CBA proposal to the NHLPA yesterday—and as Citizen Weber suggests, yes, Gary Bettman does indeed think fans like you and I are stupid enough to believe the imminent line of BS he and the league will issue about finding themselves mired in a $3-plus-billion revenue-generating sinkhole—and a little queen’s waving from one Tomas Holmstrom...
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Red Wings early overnight report: summer development camp tailings and fighting the lockout’s power
by George Malik on 07/14/12 at 03:56 AM ET
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Updated with an excellent video from the Red Wings at 10:17 AM: I’‘ve got to lug myself 233 miles downstate to South Lyon later this morning (with a stop in Grayling to snag onion rings from the Lone Pine restaurant per the mom’s request), so I’m theoretically not allowed to be typing at this hour, but, “Wenn die Katze aus dem Haus ist, tanzen die Mäuse.” These Red Wings prospect stories popped up a little too late to fit into the evening report, but there’s no point in sitting on ‘em until morning, so:
The Detroit Free Press’s George Sipple took note of the fact that Trevor Parkes scored a hat trick in Friday’s final scrimmage at the Wings’ summer development camp, and as Sipple notes, the up-and-down power winger had a very bumpy outing during Tuesday’s affair, so he literally and figuratively rebounded in a big way:
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Red Wings evening news: on prospects, free agency, list making and alumni news
by George Malik on 07/13/12 at 11:00 PM ET
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Updated at 12:33 AM: I’ve had a week of actual hockey in July as a fine antidote to the lack of free agent insanity that seems to be giving the hockey world a case of believe-the-hype-itis, but I’m more than a little fried myself after wrapping up coverage of the Wings’ summer development camp, so you’ll have to excuse me for being a little punchy this evening.
I’m not disputing the fact that the Red Wings need to add another defenseman to the mix, at the very least, to stabilize their roster going into the 2012-2013 season, but I had to smirk at the answer the Hockey News’s Adam Proteau gave to a reader from Sweden asking a question about the Wings’ defensive depth going forward:
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Wildly amusing: Dater ‘illustrates’ lack of sympathy for owners in CBA negotiations
by George Malik on 07/13/12 at 08:31 PM ET
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Strange times, folks, these are strange times. The Hockey News’s Adam Proteau tried very hard to explain to fans that the NHLPA’s members have every right to battle for their slice of the revenue pie, but in adding too many “they’re like movie stars and we don’t get angry at them for being paid what they pay” references, his article came off sounding too similar to the, “Here’s an analogy, fans, now buy my line.” So who makes the NHLPA seem like a sympathetic organization during a summer where the players have yet to suggest that Gary Bettman, Bill Daly and outside counsel Bill Batterman are being anything less than civil and polite?
The Denver Post’s Adrian Dater, in offering a simple set of quotes from someone who took his revenue-sharing and made a $198 million advance to Zach Parise and Ryan Suter at the expense of some of the teams will wind up subsidizing Parise and Suter’s salaries:
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Red Wings development camp, day 6: the ever-anticlimactic end
by George Malik on 07/13/12 at 05:34 PM ET
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I’ve hadn’t seen a shootout with 74 shooters until this morning, when the Red Wings’ prospects concluded their summer development camp with a 6-3 victory for Team Lidstrom over Team Zetterberg…and a 74-man shootout which took 20 minutes—and left fans confused as all hell get out—because we didn’t know that money was on the line.
The last day of the camp is always strange. The players go through a scrimmage that usually involves 2 30-minue periods of running time and a few odd-man situations. This one happened to involve stop time for the vast majority thereof as Jiri Fischer’s message didn’t get through to the timekeeper, and the various 4-on-4, 3-on-3 and power play situations provided offense and flow…But that disappeared during a 10-minute “dry scrape” that was more interpretive art than anything else and the bizarre shootout.
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Red Wings morning news: on the waiting game, prospect camp and the Wild’s Ilitch?
by George Malik on 07/13/12 at 09:43 AM ET
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You and I already know that the Red Wings are playing the free agency waiting game as the marketplace has slowed to a crawl, and just as importantly, the Wings’ management has chosen to wait for free agents’ asking prices to drop and/or teams’ asking prices for defensemen to slide back down from the stratosphere before adding a defenseman and possibly a goal-scoring forward to the roster. According to the Free Press’s Helene St. James, Wings GM Ken Holland has headed back to his hometown of Vernon, British Columbia as things slow down for the next month or so:
The Wings remain in contact with the agent for unrestricted free-agent forward Shane Doan, but Doan is talking to the Coyotes, too, and odds all along have been that he stays in Phoenix. Alexander Semin remains available, but teams are wary of a forward high on skill but low on production and lax in attitude.
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Red Wings development camp, day 5, afternoon session: wrapping up the last two-a-days day
by George Malik on 07/12/12 at 11:00 PM ET
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On what is day five of the Red Wings’ development camp, technically day six for the prospects thanks to a brief scrimmage on Saturday, and the fourth day over the past five that the players woke up at 6:50 and didn’t leave the rink until after 5 PM, engaging in grueling two-a-day sessions of on-ice skill development and drills alternated with off-ice training…
Either the morning group was a little too honest for its own good, or the afternoon group’s testosterone was talking, because a clearly tired group of young men insisted that they were not, more or less because this is their “last day of school.”
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Homer don’t play that: Tomas Holmstrom tells Ted Kulfan he’s a Red Wing for life
by George Malik on 07/12/12 at 10:47 PM ET
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Via RedWingsFeed, what, did you think that Tomas Holmstrom’s agent was doing anything more than blowing smoke? Seriously? Yeah, right. Tomas Holmstrom told the Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan that he will only wear Red Wings red and white, despite Howard Gourwitz’s claims to Expressen’s Oscar Brostrom:
“Not true at all,” Holmstrom said. “It’s playing in Detroit, or nowhere else.”
Holmstrom is training as he has the past 15 summers preparing for an NHL schedule. But he isn’t sure if he’s ready for the grind of another season.
“I appreciate Kenny giving me this time to think about things,” Holmstrom said. “I’m training, I’m working out. But a lot of it depends on my health, my knees.”
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About The Malik Report
The Malik Report is a destination for all things Red Wings-related. I offer biased, perhaps unprofessional-at-times and verbose coverage of my favorite team, their prospects and developmental affiliates. I've joined the Kukla's Korner family with five years of blogging under my belt, and I hope you'll find almost everything you need to follow your Red Wings at a place where all opinions are created equal and we're all friends, talking about hockey and the team we love to follow.
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