Detroit Red Wings youth movement

The Red Wings youth movement is in full swing after two regular season games. Pavel Datsyuk may be sidelined for awhile, but that won’t stop Detroit from making some noise in the Eastern Conference.

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Detroit’s offseason began with the departure of their long-time coach Mike Babcock who signed a lucrative deal in Toronto. Jeff Blashill was hired from within after several years of success down in Grand Rapids of the AHL. There’s actually only a couple current roster players that Blashill has never had the opportunity to coach.

GM Ken Holland has designed a masterful approach to developing players. It starts with excellent scouting. Year after year the Red Wings manage to find gems no matter their draft position. More importantly though, Detroit is a team known for letting its prospects over-simmer in the AHL.

Oct 10, 2015; Raleigh, NC, USA; Detroit Red Wings forward

Teemu Pulkkinen

(56) skates with the puck against the Carolina Hurricanes at PNC Arena. The Detroit Red Wings defeated the Carolina Hurricanes4-3. Mandatory Credit: James Guillory-USA TODAY Sports

Whether or not you like it, the “Detroit Model” is one that many teams have attempted to replicate. One must wonder who had more influence on the Red Wings patience with its prospects now that Mike Babcock has departed, and suddenly we’re seeing players that in the past would be forced to pay their dues in the minors.

Obviously we’re referring to 19-year-old Dylan Larkin who secured a spot on the top-line coming out of preseason. He was the youngest Red Wings player to score a goal since Steve Yzerman decades ago. It is still unclear where Larkin fits into the lineup upon return of Pavel Datsyuk, but he’s certainly done enough through training camp and the first two games of the season to warrant holding onto a top-six position. It does make you wonder if the Red Wings would have kept Dylan Larkin had Mike Babcock still been Detroit’s bench boss.

The youth movement in Detroit far expands the reaches of just one player. It sure makes life easy when you’ve got one or two new entry-level contracts to work with against the cap year-after-year. The other less talked about impact prospect is Teemu Pulkkinen. We had him pegged in an earlier article as a breakout candidate. Saturday night was his coming out party after he lit the lamp twice against Carolina. Pulkkinen appeared in 31 games for Detroit in 2014-15 producing 5 goals and 3 assists in the process. He’s a guy that dominated the AHL over the past couple seasons, and has come to that point when a player has done everything he can at the AHL level. A full season from Pulkkinen could yield 15-20 goals.

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A couple other names to keep an eye-on this season are Landon Ferraro and Riley Sheahan. Landon Ferraro is the son of ex NHLer Ray Ferraro. He’s been down in Grand Rapids for several years now and is another guy who has paid his dues and is ready to make an impact in the NHL on a bottom-six role.

Riley Sheahan is coming off his first full season with the Red Wings, in which he played 79 games and tallied 13 goals and 23 assists. Sheahan has earned a bigger role stepping into the 2015-16 NHL season & should see a spike in ice-time. He’s a natural center that should see extra playing time with Pavel Datsyuk sidelined. With other centers Brad Richards and Darren Helm still in the mix, Riley Sheahan may have to convert to the wing to continue to see extended ice-time when Datsyuk reutrns. Although it is conceivable any of those centers could be shifted to the wing.

There is one guarantee for certain. The Red Wings should continue to be competitive for the next decade. With players like Anthony Mantha, Evgeny Svechnikov, Ryan Sproul, and Xavier Ouellet likely to make strong cases for roster spots in 2016-17, the cap space should free up to lock down goaltender Petr Mrazek and keep Jimmy Howard‘s expensive contract as well.

Next: Jimmy Howard vs Petr Mrazek

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