Quick Hits: The Hit the Road Edition

Sep 27, 2022 - 12:00 PM

In Red Wings Land

Preseason Hockey!

Wings will send the sacrificial squad to Pittsburgh for the first of eight preseason games. Tomorrow we they have the Hawks at home. Traditionally teams tend to use more of their regulars for home games and send the hopefuls up against more NHLers on the road. I'll be interested to see what the roster breakdown is here.

The Penguins have already released their planned lineup, which includes Letang, Crosby and Malkin.

The Pens are also promising to stream locally and to have a radio feed.

Red Wings start preseason with jobs, roles on the line - MLive

Young players like defensemen Simon Edvinsson and forwards Elmer Soderblom and Jonatan Berggren are expected to see a lot of preseason action.

“Obviously, the vets don’t need to play six games,” Lalonde said. “Some of those young guys, Simon, Elmer, we target a lot of games for them.”

Around the League

Ranking the NHL’s 6 best defense pairings entering 2022-23 - The Score

Makar gets the bulk of the attention after he basically swept the NHL’s award season in 2021-22, but the underrated Toews enjoyed an eighth-place finish in Norris Trophy voting and is vital to the team in his own right. As a duo, Makar and Toews ranked within the top four in both GF% and xGF% amongst defense pairs to play at least 400 minutes together at five-on-five during their second season together.

Hard to argue. Can't wait until Seider/Edvinsson tops this list perpetually.