When the Red Wings open year seven under Steve Yzerman Thursday night, his draft picks will be all over the ice.
You'll see Lucas Raymond and Emmitt Finnie flanking the first line, Marco Kasper centering the second. You'll see Michael Brandsegg-Nygård and Elmer Soderblom on the wings of the third and fourth.
On the blue line, you'll see Moritz Seider anchoring the top pair and Simon Edvinsson propping up the second, quite possibly alongside Axel Sandin-Pellikka. And you'll see Albert Johannson on the third. This is how it should look at this juncture of Yzerman's tenure, of course, but it's still worth pausing to process on the eve of Opening Night.
Nine of Yzerman's draft picks and six of his first-rounders will have a significant say in whether the Red Wings can snap a franchise-worst nine-year playoff drought -- for which Yzerman, yes, is partly responsible.
"There certainly is (a youth movement), but that is not going to take us to the never-never land," head coach Todd McLellan said Wednesday on 97.1 The Ticket. "We’re going to need a lot from everybody on the team including the veterans, but the youth has come in and infected a bit of enthusiasm and energy and the older players have embraced them."
The biggest names of the aforementioned group are Seider and Raymond, alternate captains for the first time in Detroit. The hottest one might be Sandin-Pellikaa, the 20-year-old defenseman with major offensive upside. The most notable is Finnie, a seventh-round pick two years ago who spent most of last season in the WHL and forged his way onto the Red Wings' roster over the last month by playing with irresistible pace. On a team that wants to play fast.
Finnie, who turned 20 in June, will start the season as the complement to Detroit's one-two punch of Raymond and center Dylan Larkin. All three rookies on the roster are here because of their play, not their pedigree, a long-standing tenet of the Red Wings' organization.
"It wasn’t a token, 'Hey, we’re going with youth this year and we’re going to just play them and see what happens,'" said McLellan. "They earned their way onto the roster. Finnie is a speedster, I talk about him being fueled by nitro. He’s a guy that can really skate, he hunts the opposition down in all situations, he’s got some pretty good puck skills and a mind."
Brandsegg-Nygård, the 15th overall pick last year who turned 20 this month, is "more of a bully, heavier-set, more physical," said McLellan, "and definitely a shooter. He finds open ice and can shoot the puck." He will add some thump to the lineup that the Wings have been lacking.
Sandin-Pellikaa, the 17th overall pick in 2023 who turned 20 in March, plays "with tremendous vision and a great hockey mind" on the backend, said McLellan. "Very creative. A little undersized, but we think that we can help him with that." Listed at 5'11, Sandin-Pellika should help the Wings get up the ice with his deft passing ability and quarterback one of their power-play units.
McLelland and the Red Wings believe "all three (rookies) can be a factor" this season. They'll almost have to be for the team to take the step that it intends to.
"We’ll pair them with veteran players, we’ll have them spread out, but we’re going to have the courage to play them," said McLellan. "They’ve shown in exhibition that they’re very capable."
McLellan confirmed that Finnie will start with Larkin and Raymond, and Brandsegg-Nygård will play with veterans J.T. Compher and Andrew Copp. The Wings are still working through their defensive pairs, "but Axel will play with one of the vets we decide on," said McLellan. As a right-hand shot, he could get his first look with the left-handed Edvinsson or perhaps on the third pair with Johansson.
The message to the rookies from both the coaches and their teammates is clear: "We’re encouraging these players to go out and use and play to their strengths," McLellan said.
"We want Emmett Finnie to be skating. We want them to be fearless when it comes to mistakes. They’re going to make some, but if they go out there and play with the thought of, 'I don’t want to err,' we’re not going to see their real skillset come out. So we’ve encouraged them to play free. We want them to attack the game, not to play with their foot on the brake. And when they make mistakes we’ll help them, and hopefully they’ll feel comfortable real fast," said McLellan.
Speed will be the name of the game for these Red Wings, who have slowly, deliberately, almost obdurately rebuilt their roster under Yzerman. The aim in the locker room is to make the playoffs, no exceptions. The team played at about a 95-point pace last season after the coaching change from Derek Lalonde to McLellan, but collapsed for the third straight year in March. The difference this year is that "we've been able to put our structure in place and get around the players from Day 1," said McLellan. "We never had that luxury last year."
"There’s an excitement around the team, not just because of the youth but because of the group itself," he said. "I think our team is constructed to play fast and when we do play fast, a high-tempo, a high-paced game, that allows us to be on top of teams and we’re playing better. When we slip to that turtle pace it really doesn’t do much for us and we receive the game. So if you want to talk identity, that should be part of it."
Other highlights from McLellan's interview on 97.1 The Ticket
On the evolution of Lucas Raymond and Moritz Seider: "No doubt they’re not young guys anymore. From an age perspective they may still be considered that, but from an experience perspective they’ve been around long enough they’ve been through many games and seen all different situations. They know the league well and we expect a lot from both of them. Obviously a lot is made about Dylan Larkin being the captain and so be it -- he’s a really good captain, he does a real good job -- but he needs help and those two are his lieutenants, the first line of support. But it doesn’t end there. We’ve got a lot of guys with a lot of experience. Alex DeBrincat, Patrick Kane, I think of the teams they played on in Chicago and the situations they were put in. There’s a lot of guys that can offer, and a lot of guys that need to be leaned on, when it comes to leadership."
On making the playoffs: "That’s obviously the goal coming into the season. I was lucky enough to be part of teams that made it here every year (as an assistant coach). It was automatic. You were that good and that strong and believed in it. That’s obviously gotten away from us for a number of different reasons, but we’ve got to find a way to bring that belief system back in the locker room. Now, that’s a long-term goal. We’re not quite in that mode yet. We’ll have some short-term focus to begin with and we've got to find some consistency in our game. Last year from Christmas on, we had some real good spells and then there were some ugly ones. We've got to solve those problems and then that might give us a chance to reach that long-term goal."
On the difficult schedule out of the gate: "Everybody talks about the start. Is that one game, three games, five games? We’re going to get challenged right off the bat. Obviously we want to put points up and we want to win as much as we can, but when you look at our group, we didn’t handle adversity well last year. When it didn’t go well, we took water on and it took us a while to get the boat back up. Over the first 20 games we’ll be looking to see if our group can handle the ups and downs, if we’ve grown up a little bit and become mentally stronger.
"The physicality part of it, can we be a heavier, harder team as well to play against? Is our goaltending better? Where is our penalty kill at? It was awful last year, so that has to get better. But during that first 20 games there’s going to be ups and downs and the big thing is, how are we going to handle it and are we pushing ourselves to get out of it or are we just going to wallow in it?"
Everybody talks about the start, is that one game, three games, five games, we’re going to get challenged right off the bat and obv we want to put points up and we want to win as much as we can but when you look at our group we were mentally, we didn’t handle adversity well last year, when it didn’t go well we took water on and it took us a while to get the boat back up and over the first 20 games we’ll be looking to see if our group can handle the ups and downs, if we’ve grown up a little bit and become mentally stronger, the physicality part of it, can we be a heavier, harder time as well to play against, is our goaltending better where is our penalty kill at, it was awful last year, so that has to get better but during that first 20 games there’s going to be ups and downs and the big thing is, how are we going to handle it and are we pushing ourselves to get out of it or are we just going to wallow in it?
On building a team that won't fade down the stretch: "We hope the work that we put in from day one prepares us for that situation a little bit better. It’s hard when you’re dealing with what's between the ears. The physical part, the structure part on the ice where guys have to be in position, we can help them with that. But we have to push them and them through it as coaches, they have to help each other, they have to encouraging, but they also have to hold each other accountable for moments in the game. And game-management skills also come in. How do we play with a two-goal lead? How do we play with three or four minutes left in a game where things are intense? Those are all situations that we have to get better at. So simply, it’s just improving, but also the mental aspect of it, we gotta get harder in between the ears, if you will."
On the addition of goaltender John Gibson: "Gibby’s been real good. Since he got to training camp he seems to be revitalized a little bit, excited about being in a new situation. His whole career was spent in Anaheim and things were going a little stale there for him. He’s here now, he’s had a real good camp, he fits the team real well, he’s performed well. We’re confident in him and we’re certainly confident in Cam Talbot. He's had a tremendous camp, and we feel we have two guys that we can play. Like the forwards and the defensemen, we’re going to expect a lot from the goaltending, but overall it’s going to be a team game. There’s no way that we can individually play our way through a season and get to where we want to go."