Prospect camps are generally about the future, but for some of the players suiting up for the Detroit Red Wings during their NHL prospects tournament that got underway Friday, in Traverse City, Mich., the future could very well be now.

The club’s last three top draft picks, forwards Filip Zadina (2018) and Michael Rasmussen (2017) and defenseman Dennis Cholowski (2016) will be given every chance to make the big club this fall, and in fact it’s likely that Zadina and Rasmussen would likely need to encounter a disastrous training camp in order to fail to make the grade. As a rearguard, it might be asking a lot of Cholowski to make the jump directly from junior into the show.

“I think there’s a lot of different agendas at work in a tournament like this,” Detroit assistant GM Ryan Martin told Mlive.com. “Certainly, we’ve got players coming into this tournament that, starting at the top in terms of seniority, that have played one year in the American League and are looking to establish themselves to have a greater presence at least at that level and show perhaps they’re ready for more.

Like Vili Saarijarvi and Axel Holmstrom, we have two of those players in this year’s lineup. Tournament rules allow for four. Because we’ve had so many draft picks the last couple years, we’d rather play a lot of those younger players, so Vili and Axel would be two of the older players.

“And I would say there’s another group of players are looking to show they’re ready to push to make Detroit. Not to single out anyone in particular, but Zadina, Michael Rasmussen, David Pope coming out of college will be competing for a job in Detroit.

“Other players (like) Givani Smith is looking for show he wants to be an everyday American League player. He wants to impress coach Simon and let him know, assuming he’s in Grand Rapids, that he wants to be big part of that program down there. The same could be said of Dennis Cholowski. I put Dennis in the group with Michael Rasmussen and Zadina, looking to show he can make Detroit.”

Zablocki Out
Friday was the first day on the ice for the Wings prospects, but already, one of them is missing.

“(Forward) Lane Zablocki is not going to be playing,” Martin said. “He’s having an issue with his back so he won’t play in the tournament and maybe beyond that.”

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