Grigorenko Making Mark at Prospect Tournament
Grigorenko has gotten off to a fast start
Photo: David Guralnick - Detroit News
So far so good for the highly touted Russian forward. In the first two games he’s gotten onto the scoresheet, registering an assist in the first game while playing on a line with Jan Mursak and Evan McGrath. He improved upon that production in the second game, where he notched three assists; one of those assists came when he wasn’t even on the ice. So this guy is going to be unstoppable. Hell, even Mike Babcock isn’t going to be able to contain him by not putting him in the lineup. He’s got to be a Calder candidate with that kind of scoring ability.
The biggest surprise has to be the performance of Evan McGrath, who struggled last year in his first year in the A in Grand Rapids. He had a great game in the Red Wings prospects’ 3-1 win over Tampa Bay.
The 6-foot, 195-pound center had a goal and an assist on Saturday night at the NHL prospects tournament in Traverse City, Mich., leading Detroit Red Wings to a 3-1 victory over the Tampa Bay Lightning.
He’s got a goal, two assists, a plus-1 rating and seven shots in two games at the tournament and is showing signs of putting a forgettable American Hockey League rookie campaign behind him.
Bruce MacLeod has provided some solid coverage from the prospect tournament in Traverse City. He’s been impressed thus far with Jakub Kindl and Jonathan Ericsson. The hulking Swedish d-man has shown a nice scoring touch as he scored a goal on Saturday night on a coast to coast rush. Kindl has been very solid as well.
– Jakub Kindl is playing a very strong defensive game. Ericsson has been more noticeable, but Kindl has played very well positionally.
Bruce also has a nice article on Kindl and touches on how he nearly made the team last season.
“About a week before we did send him to juniors, we said that we were going to send him out,” said Detroit assistant general manager Jim Nill. “Then we played him a (preseason) game and he played very well. We said that we’d give him one more and then let him go back to juniors and he played better. He wound up playing about five games.”
With seven NHL-experienced defenseman on the team at training camp last fall, there was little chance that Kindl would wind up in Detroit.
This year, however, there will be no juniors. Kindl is no longer eligible and signed a three-year entry-level contract with the Red Wings. This year, Kindl might wind up with the Red Wings or more likely with the Grand Rapids Griffins. When the Griffins called him up for seven American Hockey League playoff games last spring, Kindl wound up on the first power-play unit.
The team appears to have some enviable depth on defense. That’s part of the reason why they haven’t seemed concerned about re-signing Danny Markov to a new contract. Rumors float around every couple weeks that Detroit might want to sign him to a new contract, but while they might want to have another proven top 4 d-man, the team has also suggested that the only way Kindl will make the Red Wings roster will be if he can secure a top 4 spot in Detroit. So the team might feel confident that this could be the year Kindl joins the big club.
Ansar Khan from MLIVE continues his scouting reports this morning with one on some bloke named Nicklas Lidstrom. Apparently Lidstrom is still a pretty serviceable rearguard.
Sopel might help replace Schneider on the power play
There are also rumors Brent Sopel could join the team. The suggestion is that the free agent defenseman will be invited to training camp and could subsequently earn a spot on the roster. The place where he’d have the biggest impact would be to replace Mathieu Schneider’s right-handed point shot on the power play. Sopel has a very good shot from the point, which is one of few things new Red Wing Brian Rafalski doesn’t really have. Sopel is actually fairly similar to Schneider, but he’s 8 years younger and hasn’t been as much of a scoring threat.
So at this point it looks like the competition for the fourth d-man slot will be between Andreas Lilja, Jakub Kindl and Brent Sopel. There’s no question Kindl has the highest ceiling of all three players. The question is whether he’s ready to play 15-20 minutes a night in Detroit.
The Central Division Preview kicks off today. Chris over at the Third Man In is going to preview the Blackhawks. So stop by later on today to see what he has to say about Denis Savard’s team.
Andreas Lilja brent sopel Igor Grigorenko Jakub Kindl Jonathan Ericsson Red Wings1 Comment(s)
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[…] Lilja, Ference and Sopel’s PK ability might give them the inside track on making the squad The big battle at Red Wings training camp appears to be for the three spots that are up for grabs on the blueline. You can all but pencil Lidstrom, Rafalski, Kronwall and Cheli into the top 5. I’ve made my case for why I think Brent Sopel has a solid chance to claim the #4 d-man spot and there’s even more support for this position when you look at the penalty kill. I think the penalty kill stats are going to give us some insight into how the sixth and seventh d-man spots are going to be filled. […]