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The state of hockey is in flux. Overseas leagues are continually revising schedules as they open and close due to COVID outbreaks. Moritz Seider has been both blessed and cursed by the outbreak. He’s getting reps in the Swedish league, but due to travel restrictions cannot represent Germany this year. A steady stream of players continue to look for overseas gigs with the signing market freezing up. Mike Hoffman was offered multiple deals for 1 year at less than he made last year. If he’s getting offers of 4.5 mil with two 30 goal seasons, it’s going to be rough sledding for some of the others.
And now, to the article title. In my younger years, my parents worked for Guardian Glass in Carleton, MI. You may not be familiar with the company, but the owner was Bill Davidson. He owned the Detroit Pistons for a while, and Isaiah Thomas went through the plant a few times (after championship wins). The heyday of Detroit had Guardian supplying for several automotive manufacturers. I loved going to see the plant. From a mile away you could see big beautiful shimmering piles of Culite, or broken glass. Ironically, the biggest material in making glass is from breaking glass. Piles of blue, green and clear glass that looked magical to a kid. Ironically, I worked for a landscape company that got the contract for Guardian. I wore shorts, bad idea. Picking glass out of my shins for a week.
So what on earth does any of this have to do with a Red Wings blog? Well, as broken glass is to glass, so broken hockey is to Detroit. Both the season, and the players. If I had Gergeswillems on speed dial, I’d ask for the quote from “The Sixth Sense” in GIF form. “The children called me Mr Glass”. Instead of seeing Samuel Jackson, you would see Svechnikov, or Mantha, Dekeyser and now, Jared McIsaac.
McIsaac is on the shelf , again, this time for 5 - 6 months. The young defenseman shows promise, when healthy, but that hasn’t been nearly enough. Mantha has shown impressive flashes as well, and with some more regularity. Svechnikov has had much of his young career relegated to IR. It’s painful (literally and metaphorically) and seems to be the bane of Detroit’s development.
Mantha’s last injury came from a nasty slew foot, so there is still hope he can be a regular. When you look at Dekeyser, it’s really tough to tell how much he can be a part of the team. How many times have we seen Deke healthy and in good form? The same for Svechnikov. We really don’t know what type of player we’re dealing with. McIsaac hasn’t seen any action outside of jr. we don’t know how much he will translate into a pro career. For all of the bumps and bruises, I’m referring to the oft injured as the “Culite crew”.
injuries are part of what make the development model so tricky. When Yzerman remarked that a good draft will get you 1 to 3 NHLers, it seemed pessimistic. The more we watch, the more it is clear that the journey to the pro level is fraught with injury, burnout, bad experiences, family troubles and many other things that thin the herd. Getting through jr or college or Europe and rising to the level to standout is not easy. It seems like undrafted free agents come out of nowhere by outworking their competition. Being drafted is just a ticket to work harder than you ever have in your life.
It’s not worth fretting over. Surprise picks like Hronek and Bertuzzi find their way. Jonathan Berggren is getting a lot of attention overseas. He may surpass Veleno at some point, which would be good news for the club. We need players to take jobs, and not wait around with some sense of being “in” based on draft position or relationships. The glassworks is piling up, and it’s yet to be seen if the incredibly long layoff will be beneficial or detrimental to players in the system.
If anything, I’ve learned not to get too high or low on prospects. Some players never translate their scoring touch from jr. Some don’t get up to speed quick enough to be effective at the highest levels. You don’t know how much you really have until they get there. And once they get there, can they stay there? Rasmussen and Cholowski have both had good “looks”, but not enough to maintain a spot. When a player falls of, it feels like back to square one. It’s easy to get hooked on the draft picks, follow their careers and get overexcited about their potential. There seems to be a glut of those guys in the minors or playing bottom 6 minutes throughout the league now.
At this point, internally, I’m not “counting on” McIsaac to break through. If he does, that will be fantastic! We need strong left side D. Once the injury bug hits this many times, it seems inevitable that it will be the premature end to a once promising career. It’s a shame, but on the road to glory the streets are paved with culite.
Detroit Red Wings Blogger • 
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