Red Wings Game Day Notebook 10.4.23

Reviewing a loss in Chicago, looking ahead to Pittsburgh, Ben Chiarot's return, and a Carter Mazur update—here's what you need to know before Red Wings-Penguins tonight

Last night at the United Center on Chicago's Near West Side, the Red Wings dropped a 4-2 decision to a more robust Blackhawks line-up than the one they decimated two nights prior in Detroit.  The Red Wings now sit at 3-2-0 in preseason play.

With that defeat now in the rearview, the Red Wings will continue their run of three road games in three nights this evening in Pittsburgh for a date with the Penguins at PPG Paints Arena.

With the insertion of veterans like Taylor Hall, Nick Foligno, and Corey Perry into the line-up, the Blackhawks were bound to be a more formidable outfit than the AHL-heavy squad that fell 6-1 at Little Caesars Arena Sunday, and they played like it.

Chicago was on top of the Red Wings early, and it didn't take long to capitalize on a territorial advantage.  After Jason Dickinson drove hard to the net, the Red Wings were unable to tie up Perry's stick in the front, and the former Hart Trophy winner deposited the game's first goal past Ville Husso.

However, after conceding, Detroit seemed to find its skating legs as the period progressed.  The fourth line of Jonatan Berggren, Joe Veleno, and Klim Kostin showed promise in their offensive zone chemistry, with an incisive Berggren feed off the cycle for Veleno nearly pulling the Red Wings level.

One minute into the second, the Berggren-Veleno duo did connect and make Chicago pay, with the Swedish winger feeding his Quebecois centerman for a tidy goal off the rush.

The level score would hold for about 14 minutes, before Chicago defenseman Connor Murphy cleanly beat Michael Hutchinson (who relieved Husso at the game's mid-point, in keeping with Detroit's pattern of goaltender rotation throughout the preseason) from distance.  However, Hutchinson did find redemption by slamming the door on a Connor Bedard partial breakaway attempt.

At the 4:49 mark of the second, Veleno struck again.  This time collaborating with his other winger (Kostin) on a pretty two-man game in the offensive zone to hit paydirt.

Veleno showed impressive skills in puck protection in warding off Lukas Reichel, before dishing for Kostin and beating Reichel back to assume inside position and earn himself a premium chance from the slot.  Before the game, Veleno spoke about his desire to get to better areas of the offensive zone this season, and his second goal offered a nice picture of what that can look like.

"Joe Veleno's game I thought was really good," said Lalonde this morning, when asked what stood out most about the performance in Chicago.  "It's not even the two goals.  I thought he was sharp away from the puck, had some pop to his game."

However, a short-handed breakdown five minutes later left Perry wide open at the net front, where he tucked the go-ahead goal past a helpless Hutchinson.  Bedard would eventually seal the game with an empty netter.

Ben Chiarot made his preseason debut last night, and there was no easing back into action.  The 32-year-old led the Red Wings in ice time last night, playing 22:32 (close to 20 minutes of which came at even strength).

"I just think he needed those minutes," said Lalonde of the decision to throw the veteran straight into a robust workload.  "Missing most of camp, you need to get those reps, and I think he got a little bit of rhythm to his game.  Probably a little rusty early on, so more than anything, it was just important to get him those type of minutes, and he had some physical plays, which is what you need out of him...We just need him to be simple and hard to play against."

Before yesterday's game, Lalonde noted that Chiarot is "extremely valuable" to Red Wings, despite a public perception to the contrary.  "Even last year, I was fielding some questions on some of his underlying numbers and plus minus.  I think he's very valuable to us in a lot of ways."  In reference to those underlying numbers, Lalonde said "I think he was culpable for some of it.  A lot of it I think was a little circumstantial."

To put a finer point on some of those numbers, Chiarot was a -31 last year, with a 42.3 CorsiFor% at five-on-five, and a 43.9% expected goals for percentage at five-on-five (per MoneyPuck.com).  It doesn't take an analytical savant to grasp that those figures are sub-optimal, so where might the value Lalonde alludes to come from?

When Lalonde says that some of his statistical woes were "circumstantial," I don't think that's a crazy assertion.  Chiarot played 20 hard minutes a night for a team that struggled to break even a year ago; that's bound to result in some less than ideal underlying numbers.

Chiarot's strengths are his physicality and his skating, a combination that sometimes leads to chasing hits in the defensive zone rather than protecting premium areas of the ice.  However, I don't think it can be denied that there is a value to his physical brand of defense; it does discourage players from making inroads to the net, and it can be a useful tool in flipping possession under the right circumstances.

Of course, there is something of a balancing act here.  Chiarot is under contract through the '25-26 season at a $4.75 million AAV.  It's worth acknowledging that Chiarot can add value to the Red Wings defense corps without excelling in terms of his possession numbers.  However, whether he or circumstance are more responsible for those underlying numbers last year, it's hard to imagine the Red Wings taking a big step forward if once again he is operating at such a significant deficit in chance creation.

As expected, the Red Wings will rotate their game group again this evening from the one that played last night, sending a squad to Pittsburgh headlined by Dylan Larkin, Alex DeBrincat, and Moritz Seider.

Lalonde mentioned that he was tipped off by Pittsburgh's staff that the Penguins don't intend to deploy the typical veteran-laden line-up that home teams in the pre-season tend to adopt because of their recent trip to Nova Scotia to take on the Ottawa Senators.

He added that James Reimer will get the start this evening and that, for the first time this preseason, the plan is for a single goaltender to man the crease for the full 60 minutes.

In two preseason performances thus far, Reimer has stopped a combined 19 of the 21 shots he's faced, good for a .904 save percentage.  Lalonde has been complimentary of the veteran backstop since the Red & White game back in Traverse City, and Reimer would appear to have an edge over Alex Lyon for the back-up job behind Ville Husso.  Tonight's 60-minute effort in Pittsburgh may be Reimer's final chance to stake his claim to that role for the preseason, so he will be looking to make a strong closing impression.

Perhaps the biggest disappointment of the preseason is that a Prospects Tournament injury cost Carter Mazur a chance to state his case for opening the year at the NHL level.  After an outstanding development camp, the University of Denver product looked poised to push for an NHL roster spot this fall, but injuries got in the way.

"I do not expect him for camp, obviously that extends through Saturday," Lalonde said when asked for an update on Mazur's status.  "Then I think we'll kinda go from there.  I do foresee him getting some reps here, probably more into a week-to-week scenario, which is obviously a positive."

"Carter was a player that we've envisioned getting five games, pushing for a spot, we need that push from the bottom," Lalonde continued. "We thought we'd be sitting here hopefully making a very hard decision on Carter.  Obviously, the injury didn't make that happen.  It's the reality of it—get healthy.  Obviously, he'll start in Grand Rapids now because of the time frame of it, and he'll just need those reps and workload.  Hopefully, get back to game speed as quickly as possible."

Despite that disappointment, Lalonde was adamant that Mazur will still have the opportunity force Detroit into a hard decision from Grand Rapids once he's back healthy.  "We want those guys to push where they're forcing our hand," the second-year head coach said.  "That's what we want out of all those guys, anyone that leaves here this weekend or whenever we make those final cuts.  We want them to make it very hard on us."

The Red Wings announced that they were releasing veteran center Artem Anisimov from his PTO early this afternoon.  The move is none too surprising, given the crowded state of Detroit's forward group.

Just yesterday, Lalonde spoke to the difficulty of earning a roster spot from a PTO in the modern NHL, given the COVID-induced flat salary cap, noting that he believes just two PTO players ever signed full-time contracts at his last stop in Tampa.

There was perhaps a world where Anisimov could become a depth piece for the Griffins as a piece of injury insurance should one of Detroit's regular centers go down.  However, it appears the Red Wings will not pursue that for the time being.