Winging It In Motown

The Wings welcomed the Washington Capitals to the Little Caesars Arena for the first time on Friday night looking to end a two-game losing streak at the hands of division rivals by taking it out on a struggling conference rival with explosive offensive capabilities and an iffy defense (sound familiar?) Box Score at NHL.com Natural Stat Trick Game Stats Corsica Game Stats 1st Period Well the first 39 seconds of the game was nothing but the Caps buzzing around the zone so wheeeee! (The next shift with Larkin’s line did the same thing in return so also wheeee!) Then later Jonathan Ericsson...

LGRW

You may have heard the numerous reports today, but amid a contract negotiation impasse, the Red Wings have finally come to terms with forward Andreas Athanasiou on a one-year deal, as per TSN’s Bob McKenzie. DET and RFA forward Andreas Athanasiou have agreed to terms on a one-year contract worth $1.387M.— Bob McKenzie (@TSNBobMcKenzie) October 20, 2017 Of course, it’s not that easy because of the cap situation. McKenzie continues: Contract can't be signed/filed with league yet as DET would not be cap compliant so expect a move or two to come in near future.— Bob McKenzie...

No surprises on defense from this morning #RedWings defense pairs:Ericsson-DaleyKronwall-GreenOuellet-JensenDeKeyser (lower body injury) skating but not ready to play.— Ansar Khan (@AnsarKhanMLive) October 20, 2017 The forward lines are also as-expected, but both Booth and Witkowski were taking rushes, so we’ll wait on an update on which of those guys will get in. In terms of how the Howard pull in Toronto might have affected the plan for Mrazek to start this game, Khan reported that Petr was in the starter’s net at the skate, although Gregg Krupa listed Howard. We’ll go with...

After months of tense back-and-forth dragging Red Wings fans through the reality of dealing with a league structure that unfairly limits the earnings of young players across the board and one player’s attempts to push back at such a structure, we finally look to have a break in the Andreas Athanasiou impasse: Signs the DET/Athanasiou stalemate is coming to an end. 1 year deal most likely— Elliotte Friedman (@FriedgeHNIC) October 20, 2017 Athanasiou’s one-year deal would leave him as a restricted free agent still and potentially dealing with a similar situation again, but the huge...

7:30p ET, Little Caesars Arena Detroit, MI TV: FS-D Radio: 97.1 FM The Ticket // 1270 AM CBS Sports Radio Capitals Blog: Japer's Rink A big week early on for the Red Wings has not been kind if not predictable. Against both Tampa Bay and Toronto, the two teams many believe will be the ones sitting on top of the Atlantic Division at the end of the season, the Wings fell behind early in the first period before rallying to within a goal in the second period but ultimately failing to complete the comeback and losing. The final game of the week for the Red Wings sees them welcome...

In Red Wings Land Evgeny Svechnikov more than ready for season debut with Griffins | Peter J. Wallner Mlive.com On the one hand, the headline makes me think “no duh, because he is NHL ready,” but the article does elaborate on how he is feeling fresh off recovering from injury. Around the League Canucks’ Gudbranson to have hearing for boarding Bruins’ Vatrano | Flip Livingston TheScore.com Not a whole lot of substance to this article, but that hit is textbook dirty. That’s gotta be worth a game or better, right?

Young gun Evgeny Svechnikov should be healthy and ready to play for the Griffins immediately. GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — The Red Wings have announced they have re-assigned forward Evgeny Svechnikov to the Grand Rapids Griffins, the team confirmed Thursday. Svechnikov has missed significant time due to a neck injury. He did not play in the final three games of the preseason, and has yet to play in the AHL or NHL this season. This, of course, is great news for both the Griffins and Red Wings. The AHL club will get one of their best young scorers back, and the Red Wings will gain some extremely...

In Red Wings Land Goal scorers have Red Wings seeing star | Ted Kulfan DetroitNews.com Jonathan Ericsson is quoted heavily in this piece about defending against high firepower lineups like Tampa and Dallas. Before you make any jokes about Ericsson’s authority to discuss this topic, read the article. If nothing else, he comes across as thoughtful and well-spoken, and his language oozes the culture that the Red Wings love. The rise, fall, and stalled rebuild of the Detroit Red Wings | Tom Perkins DetroitMetroNews.com This is a wonderfully insightful article about the current state of the...

The parts where Detroit scored goals were much more fun than the parts where Toronto scored goals. Oh boy, that game was a doozy. Talk about a tour from terrible town to cautiously optimistic city to desperation central. Here’s how the Wings’ game against the Leafs went down. First Period The rivalry matchup started out with the ice tilting in favor of the Red Wings. Through the first four minutes of play the Red Wings crashed the Leafs in their zone, but play started to shift when Toronto began employing the stretch pass the move through the neutral zone and beat Detroit’s aggressive...

We’re going with what we know now because it’s going to be just before gametime before we know more: Optional skate for #RedWings this morning so lines tonight during warmups.— Dana Wakiji (@Dwakiji) October 18, 2017 DeKeyser skating this morning at morning skate— Ted Kulfan (@tkulfan) October 18, 2017 Don’t read into that, as the optional skate just gave him space for a workout. Helene’s report yesterday that he’ll be out another week and possibly two is still the standing instruction on DK. Larkin, Green, and Jensen were also out there this morning, according to...

7:30p ET, Air Canada Centre Toronto, Ontario TV: FS-D+ Radio: 97.1 FM The Ticket // 1270 AM CBS Sports Radio Maple Leafs Blog: Pension Plan Puppets The first of three tough games this week for the Red Wings looked quite familiar as Tyler Johnson and Nikita Kucherov did what they always do to the Red Wings, score big goals, as the Lightning handed the Red Wings their first loss in Little Caesers Arena 3-2. It is back on the road again for the Wings though as they take the quick trip north of the border to take on the other preseason favorite to win the Atlantic, the Toronto...

Welcome to the newest edition of WIIM Radio! This time we’ve got me, Kyle, and Lauren joined by first-timer Mike Bremer with us! Let’s break in the new guy. Here’s what we got up to: The Red Wings so Far - The team’s performance to this point versus expectations for them are pretty much falling right in line with what you can get in small sample sizes. The defense is still a tire-fire, but the forwards are showing the kind of promise we’ve been loving. Around the World/League - A lot of talk about how we’re all ready for the Athanasiou situation to un-Datsyuk itself and for us...

In Red Wings Land Red Wings F Dylan Larkin finding his edge with special teams play | Helene St. James Freep.com Dylan Larkin is such an everydayer that his calendar is eight days long. Seriously though, it’s heartening to read this. Detroit’s last generation of bests spent a lot of time on both the power play and penalty kill, and when a player can do both well it spells good things for the future. Around the League, but also in Red Wings Land Team WHL roster announced for 2017 CIBC Canada Russia Series | Western Hockey League WHL.ca Dennis Cholowski and Michael Rasmussen have both...

Welcome to another WIIM Radio mailbag! We’ll be recording our newest episode tonight with the plan of having it out for your listening pleasure first thing in the morning. So far the lineup has me, Kyle, and Lauren hopping on to talk all things Wings. Here’s the rundown: The Wings so Far - A 4-2 record with some promise and also some concerns, but nothing really surprising so far at this point. Would be more fun to be all giddy about a win over the Lightning, but that wasn’t in the cards. Perhaps a dose of reality can be just as fun though? lol of course not. We’ll go over...