After being out since the first game of the Traverse City Prospects Tournament, Carter Mazur has been activated and assigned to Grand Rapids

This afternoon, the Detroit Red Wings activated prospect Carter Mazur from the “Injured Non-Roster” list and assigned him to the Grand Rapids Griffins. 

The news comes as no major surprise, after Red Wings head coach Derek Lalonde said last week that he expected Mazur to begin practicing shortly. 

In the short term, there is not yet confirmation as to when Mazur will make his debut for the 2023-24 season, but the Griffins play tomorrow night in Cleveland against the Monsters, then again on Saturday against the Milwaukee Admirals. 

In a more macro sense, the news is exciting because by the end of development camp over the summer, Mazur appeared the Red Wing forward prospect closest to NHL ready.

At the time, Mazur said "I know I'm close to [playing in the NHL], but it's still far away.  I want to be a really good player in the NHL. I don't want to be someone that just sticks around for a couple of games and gets sent down. I want to be a player that has a reason and competes and just does everything. That's just my main focus right now and then just to learn from older guys."

In describing his game, Mazur said "I'm more of a hard worker I would say, and when I stick to that, then my skill comes out. I feel like if I can have an 'A' game, but my 'B' game is good. I wanna have a good 'B' game as well. But I feel like when I'm on my 'A' game, that's when most of the skill is happening, but as long as I'm a hard worker, I think everything takes care of itself."

The injury of course was a temporary stall on Mazur’s progress, and there is not exactly an abundance of vacancy in Detroit’s forward corps. Nonetheless, it will be exciting to track Mazur’s push for an NHL roster spot when the 2022 National Champion with the University of Denver does return to game action. 

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