The Left Wing Lock

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The Detroit Red Wings will host the 17th annual NHL Prospect Tournament at Centre Ice Arena in Traverse City, MI next month. This year’s tournament is scheduled from September 11 – 15 and will feature teams from Carolina, Columbus, Chicago, Minnesota, Dallas, St. Louis, New York and Detroit. This season will feature the return of the 2015 Stanley Cup Champions the Chicago Black Hawks after previously participating from 1998 – 2000.

Over the tournament’s history, 479 players have gone on to skate in at least one NHL game, including 22 who played … Continue Reading

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The Detroit Red Wings today released the schedule for their 2015 Development Camp, which will be held at Centre Ice Arena in Traverse City, Mich., from July 3-7. The camp kicks off on Friday, July 3 and features on-ice and off-ice workouts each day, including scrimmages on Saturday, July 4 and Tuesday, July 7.

The camp roster will be released following the 2015 NHL Entry Draft, held on Friday, June 26 and Saturday,  June 27 in Sunrise, Fla.

The camp will be split into two teams, Red and White, and will feature daily … Continue Reading

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Red Wings Training Camp organizers have announced a tentative ticket sale date for the 2015 TC NHL® Prospect Tournament and Detroit Red Wings training camp.  This is an in-person ticket sale only and will be held at Centre Ice Arena from 12 noon until 4 pm on July 5th, downstairs in the main lobby.  Tickets remaining after the in-person ticket sale will be available for purchase by FAX, which will begin at Noon on Tuesday, July 7 and continue until all tickets … Continue Reading

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Emma Poliquin Photography

The Detroit Red Wings and training camp event organizers in Traverse City announced today that the trophy awarded to the champion of the NHL Prospect Tournament has been renamed the Matthew Wuest Memorial Cup.

Matthew Wuest was best known for developing the website CapGeek.com, which tracked salary cap data for all 30 NHL teams in real time. The site was widely-used by scouts, general managers, media and fans before it ceased operations in January 2015.

Along with his work on CapGeek, Wuest also developed and maintained RedWingsCentral.com (RWC) … Continue Reading

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I never met Matthew Wuest in person, but he meant a lot to me. It wasn’t until he landed his first full time reporter job with the Metro Halifax that I even knew what he looked like.

A Virtual Partnership

We met on a hockey message board talking about Red Wings prospects while he was running the Detroit section for a website called hockeysfuture.com. The year was 1998 and after I posted that I was about to attend my first Red Wings training camp in Traverse City, MI he asked me to … Continue Reading

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The Chicago Blackhawks haven’t played in the NHL Prospect Tournament since the tournament began in 1998 with just a four team field. When the Buffalo Sabres dropped out this year, the Blackhawks management jumped at the chance to return to the tourney which has grown in both size and reputation over the past 17 years. Now featuring a field of eight NHL teams, the tourney showcases many of the top prospects across the NHL year in and year out and is a draw for fans and hockey scouts at every level. Much … Continue Reading

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The 2015 NHL Prospects tournament dates have been finalized. This years tournament, the 17th hosted by Centre I.C.E. Arena in Traverse City, MI will run September 11 – 15. Participating teams include Carolina, Chicago, Columbus, Dallas, Detroit, Minnesota, New York and St. Louis. The tournament, which began in 1998, has more than 440 alumni who have or are currently playing in the NHL for a total of nearly 70,000 NHL games played. The highest scoring alumni include Ilya Kovalchuk, Pavel Datsyuk, Dany Heatley, Henrik Zetterberg, David Legwand, Scott Hartnell, Martin Erat, Alexander Semin … Continue Reading

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Nick Jensen is one of several up and coming blueliners hoping to establish themselves during the NHL exhibition season. The former WCHA defensive player of the year isn’t mentioned as much as other prospects such as Alexey Marchenko, Ryan Sproul and Xavier Ouellet, but that is mostly due to his season being limited to 45 games after shoulder surgery.

“I feel really good,” Jensen said. “The shoulder is healthy and I can’t even tell there was an injury after the surgery and rehab. Everything is really good and I am feeling strong … Continue Reading

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Mitch Callahan wants to be known for how he plays the game and not the grisly photo he posted of himself on Twitter shortly after taking a Ryan Sproul slapshot to the mouth last spring. The 6-foot, 195 pound winger broke his jaw and lost multiple teeth, but wanted to post the photo to show friends and family he was alright despite the horrific injury.

“My mom– she was crying and I wanted to give her a visual and show her I was ok and not to worry about it,” Callahan said. … Continue Reading

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It was no surprise that at age 20, Xavier Ouellet became the youngest player to dress for the Red Wings last season. The 6-foot, 200 pound defenseman played four regular season games and one playoff game for Detroit.

“It was a big learning experience,” he said. “I felt like I was NHL ready to start the season but it is a coaches decision. Everytime they called me up to Detroit I was the happiest guy on the planet.”

Ouellet spent the bulk of the season in Grand Rapids playing 70 games picking up … Continue Reading