In Red Wings Land
Detroit Red Wings wary of coronavirus but say they ‘don’t live in fear’ | Freep
Coach Jeff Blashill said the Wings’ medical staff has been in contact with the NHL, but that for now, the emphasis is basic precautions including hand washing and using hand sanitizer. The NBA released a memo Sunday advising players to forego high-fives for fist bumps and carrying their own pens for signing autographs.
“We always try to be real smart about that, washing our hands all the time,” Blashill said. “If someone is sick, we’ve tried to have them stay at home. We’ve done that with the flu. Our locker room gets cleaned every day.
Glad the Red Wings are taking precautions with the current coronavirus outbreak. It’ll be interesting to see how the sports world will be impacted moving forward. Already it’s been announced that teams in Italy will be playing their games without fans in attendance. We should all do our best to be prepared. Wash your hands, folks!
Around the League
2020 NHL Draft Prospect Rankings: March | Sportsnet
Of note, the high-end part of this draft class features plenty of late-born 2001 players (Lafreniere, Rossi, Lundell, Schneider and Holloway, etc.) so plenty of scouting work has already been done on them. Of course, more viewings the better, especially in high-leverage situations, but those may also be limited based on the coronavirus outbreak.
Sportsnet’s top five:
- Alexis Lafrienere
- Quinton Byfield
- Tim Stutzle
- Alexander Holtz
- Marco Rossi
PROSPECT NEED TO KNOW: ALEX NEWHOOK LEADS THE SOARING EAGLES OF BOSTON COLLEGE | The Hockey News
DET – Here’s Boston University coach Albie O’Connell on freshman left winger Robert Mastrosimone: “In the first half he was pretty good, in the second half he really hit a better stride. He’s dangerous; he’s a good puck-hunter, always on it. Just a real high level of tracking and second efforts to get pucks back. On top of having a great shot and ability to make a play, he’s got some of the intangibles that you can’t teach a guy. He has that drive to win and get to the net and score.”
Mastrosimone was one of the Wings’ second round picks last year (54th overall).
NHL salary cap projected to rise next season | NHL.com
BOCA RATON, Fla. — The NHL salary cap for next season is projected to be between $84 million and $88.2 million, NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly told the general managers before they broke after three days of meetings Wednesday.
The salary cap for this season is $81.5 million.
Steve Yzerman will have plenty of cap space to work with this offseason.
