Happy Wednesday, friends. Not much news on the wire this morning but we’ll get through a couple of quick items.
Men’s Worlds Update
Marco Kasper’s impressive showing in this tournament has Team Austria in the medal rounds. Great way for the 21-year-old to follow up a great rookie season. Seven points in seven games, with more on the way hopefully!
Moritz Seider and Team Germany, well that’s a different story. Germany lost to Denmark in a shootout yesterday, their fourth loss in a row after winning three straight. Frustrating end for Seider and his team.
Lucas Raymond and Team Sweden are awesome. That’s all I’ll say about that.
Here’s the Men’s Worlds quarterfinals schedule, all games are on Thursday:
USA vs Finland at 10:20 AM ET
Switzerland vs Austria at 10:20 AM ET
Sweden vs Czechia at 2:20 PM ET
Canada vs Denmark at 2:20 PM ET
Elsewhere, there’s a lot of buzz about Mitch Marner. The 28-year-old forward is coming off a career-best 102 points in the relay season. It seems highly unlikely that he will return to Toronto and will test the market in free agency. Marner will have plenty of interest, and he’ll be looking for a nice payday. How much will he ask for? You tell me… $12 million? $14 million? Less? More?
Obviously we Red Wings fans have a lot of interest in the guy. The team is in desperate need of, well, a lot of things, and a high-octane scorer is high up on the list. I’ve tried to convince myself that there’s a chance Detroit could snag him, but I just can’t put all the pieces together. There will be teams who will likely beat whatever Detroit offers, whether it’s monetary or a chance to actually win a Stanley Cup.. Feels like the odds that Mitch Marner becomes a Red Wings is slim. I hope I’m wrong, I just can’t see Steve Yzerman backing up the cash truck for him at this point in time. Not to say Detroit won’t be active and aggressive in free agency, it’s just a gut feeling, y’know?
There will be a lot of other interesting names on the market as well — we’ll just have to see how the rest of the postseason shakes out.
Finally, just mentioning it here for those interested — former Red Wings GM and new LA Kings GM Ken Holland joined Chris Osgood and John Keating on the new “Ozzy and Keats” podcast recently. Watch and listen to that here.
Have a good day!
