Red Wings Game Day Notebook 10.24.23 & Where to Watch

This evening, the Detroit Red Wings will look to extend their five-game win streak against the Seattle Kraken.

Today is a special occasion on the NHL calendar, with all 32 teams in action and ESPN airing a "Frozen Frenzy" special whipping around between the 16 games in an NFL Redzone-style viewing experience.

The NHL has staggered teams' start times to feed this production, and Kraken-Red Wings is not scheduled to begin until 8:15.

Red Wings head coach Derek Lalonde did not mince words when asked about the late start, describing it as "absolutely awful."  

"I get it on the big picture, but I don't know why our fans, who are as loyal and as passionate as can be, have to come for the rink for an 8:23 start," he added, noting that his family won't make it out to Little Caesars Arena tonight for the late start and that he imagines other Red Wing fans are in the same boat.

Alex DeBrincat had a slightly different perception after this morning's skate, joking that the only real difference for him will be a longer-than-normal midday nap before the game.

Here are a few updates on the state of the Red Wings heading into tonight's late contest.

On the injury front, Jeff Petry did not participate in morning skate, having missed Sunday's game in what Lalonde described at the time as a "maintenance day."  Lalonde clarified that Petry "is dealing with something upper body."

"He's on a day-to-day, probably similar to Klim [Kostin]," Lalonde added.  "We're at 12 and six, we'll get through tonight, and if we don't expect either or both of them back by Thursday, we might look for someone from GR."

For tonight, that means the Red Wings will stick with their 12 forward/six defensemen alignment, as they rolled with against the Flames Sunday.

As training camp opened, Steve Yzerman cited the Kraken as something of a model for his Red Wings—pointing to their depth of scoring, intensity, and team play as approaches worth emulating.

To Lalonde, the depth in particular is a key parallel.  "It's just the reality of not getting much luck on the lottery, and it's not whining I wasn't even here," he said this morning. "It's the reality of it. When you don't have those top three picks or top picks, those generational-type players, it's gonna look a little different."

The Kraken have gotten out of the gates at 1-4-1, but Lalonde still sees a formidable opponent.

"I know they're not off to a great start, but just watching them back, they're still sixth in the league with generating chances for," the second-year head coach said. "That's a top team. That's a playoff team that's just been unlucky. It's four lines, everyone contributes, it's depth. They play north, they play fast, they play hard, and they've been a little unlucky. So it's gonna turn soon. It's up to us for it not to be tonight."

One Red Wing who knows a thing or two about the similarities between Seattle and Detroit is Daniel Sprong, who joined the Kraken midway through the '21-22 season and potted 21 goals for them last year on their unlikely march to the postseason and an upset win over the Colorado Avalanche in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

"I was at dinner with the guys [from the Kraken] last night, and I told them this team reminds me a lot of last year's team," said Sprong. "We have four lines that can play, six really good D—seven, and really good goaltending. We play a fast game and we're hard to play against up and down the line-up."

In both cases, Sprong sees his teams drawing motivation from the negative perceptions around their upside from outside the locker room.

"We're playing as a team and that was what you saw last year in Seattle," he explains. "No one expected us last year in Seattle to make playoffs or even do well. I remember we played Colorado, and everyone picked us to lose in four, five games. It's fun proving the media wrong. It's a sh**y thing to say, but it's a good feeling. We knew what we had in that locker room, and we know what we have in this locker room as well."

When asked whether Detroit's hot start was at all surprising within the dressing room, Sprong responded, "maybe to the media it is, but not to us."

Like his head coach, Sprong doesn't see the Kraken's poor record to open the year as cause to doubt the challenge of playing them.  "If you look at their games, they've played well," he notes. "They're a good team. They're fast. They just haven't scored. If you're not scoring in this league, you're not winning many games...We know they're gonna come out hard tonight."

Meanwhile, the Amsterdam born winger also observes that he harbors no ill will toward his old team—lauding the team's coaching staff and facilities, though he does acknowledge there is a certain motivation that comes with taking on your former employer.

"Some teams you come in with a bit more motivation or anger towards them, but I think Washington [his stop before the Kraken] and Seattle, I loved it there," Sprong said. "I remember getting traded to Seattle, and I wasn't happy about it, kind of emotional. And then, this year in free agency, I kind of knew I was not coming back because I wanted a different opportunity. There was no bad blood there, but you always want to play well against your old teams."

If goaltending was a question mark for Detroit entering the season, the early returns are positive.  Both Ville Husso (who is expected to start this evening against Seattle) and James Reimer have delivered sound performances throughout Detroit's current winning streak.

As Derek Lalonde explained this morning, internally, the Red Wings are less concerned with outcomes than they are with the notion of "quality starts."

"We don't really look at wins and losses," he says.  "We look at quality starts.  I don't know if we got that in our first two games, even though we went 1-1.  Our last four games have been quality starts giving us that opportunity, which has been a big part of our success."

He notes that the goaltending coaches have their own metrics for evaluating "quality starts," while Lalonde himself likes to keep things simple.  It doesn't have to be about spectacular saves, but he doesn't want squeakers getting through.

"For me, I don't want soft goals," Lalonde says.  "When you get bad goaltending, it's easy to say, 'well, hey, he only gave up one bad goal.'  But I'm telling ya, on a bad goal, you lose your team for the next four, five, six minutes.  You get two or three in a game, you might give up a period."

So far, Husso and Reimer have avoided those key lapses, which has made the road for third goaltender Alex Lyon a bit more complicated.

"We want to get Alex in," Lalonde says. "Things have probably changed a little bit with the rhythm of our team, and how well Reimer's played."

Like the Red Wings' abundance of options on the blue line, too many credible options in net is a good problem to have.

Despite the unusual start time (8:15, or as Lalonde rightly pointed out, 8:23 to be precise about puck drop), the game will be broadcast, as usual, on Bally Sports Detroit.  It is also available via BSD+ for cord cutters or ESPN+ for out of market fans.