- Detroit Red Wings prospect Nate Danielson has been traded in the WHL, moving from the Brandon Wheat Kings to the Portland Winterhawks. In return, Brandon has received Nicholas Johnson, Rhett Ravndahl, two first-round picks, and a fifth-round pick. Johnson hasn’t played since December 10th, battling his way back from a lower-body injury. Danielson is one of only two players on the Brandon roster scoring at a point-per-game pace, managing 26 points in as many appearances. He led the team in scoring last year with 33 goals and 78 points in 68 games – a mark that was enough for Detroit to select him with the ninth-overall pick in the 2023 NHL Draft. He now moves to a Portland team that ranks second in the WHL’s Western Conference, with a 25-10-2 record.
Red Wings Rumors
Axel Sandin Pellikka Could Miss Time
Axel Sandin Pellikka, one of the Detroit Red Wings’ top prospects, played the gold medal game of the recent IIHF World Junior Championship through an injury. Additionally, Sandin Pellikka will at the very least miss this full next week as he awaits further information on the injury, which could have a “longer recovery period” according to Swedish outlet Sportbladet.
Red Wings Reassign Zach Aston-Reese
01/07/23: The Red Wings have now reassigned Aston-Reese back to Grand Rapids after six days on the NHL roster. He did not play at all during that time, his last actual game action coming December 31st with Grand Rapids. That’s now where he’ll return, still with just one NHL game played on his record so far this year. He’s scored 11 points in 26 games at the AHL level.
01/01/23: The Red Wings recalled forward Zach Aston-Reese from AHL Grand Rapids on Monday, per a team announcement. After assigning Jonatan Berggren and Austin Czarnik to Grand Rapids on Saturday, Detroit had two open spots on the active roster, so no corresponding transaction is needed.
Aston-Reese, 29, will serve as injury insurance as the Red Wings embark on a three-game road swing against the league’s California-based teams this week. There are currently no injuries to Detroit’s forward group that would necessitate him entering the lineup, and he will likely serve as a healthy scratch on Tuesday against the Sharks.
This season was Aston-Reese’s second straight year participating in training camp on a professional tryout. After earning a contract based on his performance with the Maple Leafs last season, his brief time in camp with the Carolina Hurricanes wasn’t as successful. The Hurricanes released him on October 6, four days before the start of the regular season.
It didn’t take Aston-Reese long to land on his feet, however. He signed a one-year, two-way deal with a $350K salary guarantee in Detroit two days later and promptly cleared waivers, allowing him to begin the season in Grand Rapids with potential for NHL recalls.
The shutdown winger has historically thrived in the defensive end, never receiving more than 40% of his zone starts in the offensive zone at even strength in a single season throughout his career. That’s remarkable for a forward and a testament to where his game shines the most. However, his once-spectacular advanced metrics have become slightly more average over the past two seasons, limiting his value at the NHL level without much to show for his 308-game career on the scoresheet.
That’s not to say Aston-Reese can’t put the puck in the net. He posted 1.66 points per game in his senior season at Northeastern and was a rather highly-touted undrafted free-agent signing out of school by the Penguins. However, he’s never cracked the 20-point mark at the NHL level and, as such, remains a decidedly fourth-line threat who can log time on the penalty kill.
The Red Wings have a deep forward core, though. Christian Fischer is the only one of their top 12 forwards producing less than 0.4 points per game. It’s made it more difficult for Aston-Reese to carve out a role in the NHL lineup, resulting in him playing 26 games for Grand Rapids this year – his most minor-league usage since suiting up in 41 contests for AHL Wilkes-Barre/Scranton in 2017-18.
His minor-league play hasn’t been convincing enough to award him another full-time NHL role, either. His five goals and 11 points are seventh and 12th on the team, respectively, verifying concerns that he’s now too much of an offensive liability to fit in with the skill players in the Red Wings’ bottom six. He’s also one of nine players on Grand Rapids with a minus rating, and although that’s likely more a testament to his assumed excessive defensive zone usage, not being able to dominate those minutes in goals-against suppression at a lower level doesn’t indicate that he’ll suddenly rebound to his former defensive prowess in the NHL.
This is his third recall of the season. He’s been on the NHL roster for five days and played in one game since clearing waivers back in October, meaning he can remain on Detroit’s roster for another 25 days and play nine games before needing waivers to head back to Grand Rapids again.
Aston-Reese has one appearance with the Red Wings, coming on December 11 in a 6-3 loss to the Stars. He logged just 6:21, recording two hits and no shots on goal. He will be an unrestricted free agent at the end of the season.
Red Wings Assign Jonatan Berggren And Austin Czarnik To AHL
Earlier today, the Red Wings announced (Twitter link) that both Joe Veleno and Christian Fischer will return to the lineup tomorrow against Boston. With Fischer being on injured reserve, at least one player would likely be sent back down. Instead, Detroit has opted to send two players down in corresponding moves as CapFriendly reports (Twitter links) that both Jonatan Berggren and Austin Czarnik have been assigned to AHL Grand Rapids.
Berggren was a regular with Detroit for most of last season, getting into 67 games with the big club where he acquitted himself relatively well, notching 15 goals and 13 assists while logging 13:28 per game. But after GM Steve Yzerman added several pieces up front over the summer, Berggren found himself on the outside looking in at a regular roster spot and was assigned to Grand Rapids at the start of the season.
In the minors, the 23-year-old has been quite productive, picking up seven goals and 11 assists in just 19 contests. That has helped Berggren earn six separate recalls over the last two months which has resulted in nine appearances with the Red Wings. Despite limited playing time in those contests (just 10:08 per contest), he has been fairly productive, tallying a pair of goals along with three assists. He’ll likely be a top recall option when the next injury arises in Detroit.
As for Czarnik, the 31-year-old has played in 18 games with the Red Wings this season despite clearing waivers twice already. While he has typically been quite productive in the minors, that hasn’t carried over to the NHL this season as he has just one assist in those appearances. Meanwhile, in nine games with the Griffins, Czarnik has three goals and four assists.
Meanwhile, the return of Fischer from injured reserve tomorrow will be a welcome one. The 26-year-old has been a regular on Detroit’s fourth line this season, playing in 33 games where he has eight points and 39 hits while logging a little less than 11 minutes per night. He has been out since just before the holiday break with an undisclosed injury.
Red Wings Activate Alex Lyon, Assign Michael Hutchinson To AHL
While the three-goalie rotation still isn’t back yet with Ville Husso remaining on IR, the Red Wings did get their other injured netminder back. The team announced that they’ve activated Alex Lyon off IR; in a corresponding move, Michael Hutchinson was assigned to AHL Grand Rapids.
Lyon made a big impression down the stretch last season, briefly taking over as Florida’s starting netminder, including for a trio of playoff games. That allowed him to command a one-way deal in the summer, a nice raise for a player who had largely been a third-stringer before that. He signed a one-year deal with Detroit worth $900K and it seemed like he’d be destined to be with the Griffins and be called upon if and when injuries arose.
However, the Red Wings opted not to go that route, instead carrying three goalies on the roster for the whole season so far except for when one of them has been injured. As a result, playing time has been hard to come by for the 31-year-old who has made seven appearances so far. He has done quite well in those, posting a 2.14 GAA with a .932 SV%, and with James Reimer struggling at the moment, Lyon could now be in line for a bigger share of the workload.
As for Hutchinson, his season started on a PTO with the Griffins, a deal that was recently converted to a full-season agreement. But when Husso and Lyon both went down, Detroit upgraded it to an NHL deal, allowing him to serve as Reimer’s backup while making one start. He cleared waivers earlier today, paving the way for him to go back to Grand Rapids.
Tyson Jost, Michael Hutchinson Clear Waivers
Dec. 29: Jost and Hutchinson both passed through waivers unclaimed, per Friedman.
Dec. 28: According to Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman, forward Tyson Jost and goaltender Michael Hutchinson have been placed on waivers by the Buffalo Sabres and Detroit Red Wings, respectively.
Jost, 25, arrives on waivers in the midst of a difficult contract season in Buffalo. The pending unrestricted free agent is making $2MM against the cap but has not provided much return on investment for the Sabres. He’s scored just four points in 29 games this season and has seen his role on the team erode compared to last year.
Last season, Jost averaged 13:20 time-on-ice per game and saw over a minute of penalty-killing time per game as well.
So far this season, Jost has dropped under a minute short-handed and has seen his overall ice time drop dangerously close to the 10 minute plateau.
That decline in role has come alongside his significantly reduced production, and now he’ll be made available to all 31 other teams.
It’s a relatively quick turnaround for Jost, a player who just last night skated as the Sabres’ number-one center in the absence of Tage Thompson. But in a different sense, Jost’s return to the AHL (which seems likely as his $2MM cap hit makes claiming him a difficult prospect for most teams across the league) has been a long time coming. The former top prospect played well at the BCHL and NCAA levels but has struggled to make his mark on the NHL.
Jost’s ability to play a two-way game meant that earlier in his career, Jost could be trusted to play in a bottom-six role at the NHL level. As a result, he never got to play in the AHL on any sort of extended basis. That meant that he never got the chance to learn how to score on a consistent basis as a professional, and his offensive game never quite took off.
Now he’ll likely land with the Sabres’ AHL affiliate, the Rochester Americans, and get the chance to potentially play in a starring offensive role that he never received in the NHL. For the Sabres, sending him to the AHL would save the team some cap space and would also clear a roster spot to be used on a different player.
As for Hutchinson, he’s already cleared waivers this season (for his original assignment to the AHL) and has been through the process numerous times before in his career as a third goalie.
As an established veteran netminder in a league perpetually in need of quality goaltending, there is a chance Hutchinson gets claimed. His league-minimum cap hit is easy for most teams to fit into their financial picture, although his AHL performance (5-7-1 .895 save percentage) is not hugely encouraging.
Photos courtesy of USA Today Sports Images
Detroit Red Wings Reassign Simon Edvinsson
The Detroit Red Wings have announced that defenseman Simon Edvinsson has been sent back down to the AHL’s Grand Rapids Griffins.
Whereas Edvinsson had been sent down earlier in a paper transaction, this move appears to be more lasting as it comes just as veteran blueliners Jeff Petry and Olli Määttä return to the Red Wings’ lineup.
The sixth overall pick at the 2021 draft, Edvinsson will return to a Grand Rapids team that he has starred for so far this season. In 25 games there he has scored six goals and 16 points, and he has paired that strong offensive production with refinements to his defensive game.
At the NHL level, Edvinsson played a sheltered role as the Red Wings sought to ease him into his first NHL games. He recorded his first point in last night’s loss to the Minnesota Wild, and could very well end up back in Detroit as the team’s first call-up whenever injury trouble strikes again, or if the Red Wings elect to move on from one of their established defensemen.
While there are likely Red Wings fans who would like to see Edvinsson remain in the NHL at the cost of regular ice time to a player like Määttä or Petry, it’s hardly a developmental setback for Edvinsson to play a heavy dose of minutes for a well-established AHL franchise.
Red Wings Place Christian Fischer On IR, Recall Three Players
The Detroit Red Wings have announced that they’ve placed forward Christian Fischer on the injured reserve retroactive to December 23rd. The 26-year-old was hurt in Saturday’s game against the New Jersey Devils and will miss the next two games with the injury, making this upcoming Saturday the earliest he can return.
Fischer has dressed in 33 games and has two goals and six assists in his first season in the Motor City. It’s been a disappointing campaign so far for both Fischer and the Red Wings as both sides likely expected more when the Chicago, Illinois native was signed to a one-year deal back on July 2nd. Fischer had become an unrestricted free agent after he was non-tendered by the Arizona Coyotes.
In a trio of other roster moves the Red Wings recalled three players from their AHL affiliate the Grand Rapids Griffins. Detroit has brought up forward Jonatan Berggren, center Austin Czarnik and defenseman Simon Edvinsson under emergency conditions.
Czarnik and Edvinsson were sent down just two days ago, and their recall is a paper transaction. Berggren on the other hand hasn’t played with Detroit since December 14th. During his most recent recall, the former second-round pick had a good showing as he posted two goals and an assist in three games, despite averaging less than ten minutes of ice time per game. In seven games this season with Detroit, Berggren has two goals and two assists.
Detroit is back in action tomorrow night against the Minnesota Wild and currently sits three points out of a wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference.
Hutchinson Had Been Hoping To Go Back To Winnipeg
- While Michael Hutchinson wound up inking a two-way deal with the Red Wings earlier this week following a stint with their farm team, he acknowledged to Ken Wiebe and Mike McIntyre of the Winnipeg Free Press that his preference was to go back to Winnipeg, the franchise he has had the most success with over an 11-year NHL career. Hutchinson noted that he did hold contract talks with the Jets but they ultimately opted to go with Collin Delia as their third-string option. Meanwhile, with Detroit missing both Ville Husso and Alex Lyon at the moment, the 33-year-old finds himself back at the top level for the time being so it’s safe to say that things wound up working out well for him after all.
Simon Edvinsson And Austin Czarnik Sent To Grand Rapids
- The Red Wings re-assigned center Austin Czarnik and defenseman Simon Edvinsson back to AHL Grand Rapids. Czarnik has been shuffled back and forth frequently this month and has one assist in 16 games with Detroit while Edvinsson, who was only brought up Saturday, made his season debut last night.