Trending: Veleno helps Wings rally in 5-4 overtime loss to Blackhawks

TRAVERSE CITY -- The Detroit Red Wings and Chicago Blackhawks are no longer Western Conference and Central Division rivals but that doesn't mean the animosity is gone.
Even with the two teams playing in the NHL Prospect Tournament at Centre Ice Arena in Traverse City, there was some rough play and some real physical battles.

The Wings spotted the Blackhawks a 4-1 lead before storming back to tie the game in the second period.
Although the Wings carried more of the play in the third, neither team scored, sending it to overtime.
The extra time did not last long as Brandon Hagel scored 43 seconds into overtime for the 5-4 victory.
Ryan Kuffner (power play), Jarid Lukosevicius (power play) and Joe Veleno (unassisted breakaway, power play) scored for the Wings.
Mikael Hakkarainen, Kirby Dach, MacKenzie Entwistle and Jack Ramsey were the other Blackhawks scorers.
Detroit goaltender Kaden Fulcher, starting in place of the injured Filip Larsson, had 19 saves.
Chicago goalkeeper Alexis Gravel had 27 saves.
The Wings play the St. Louis Blues Saturday at 3:30 p.m. while the Blackhawks take on Toronto at 3 p.m.
1. Joe Veleno: it is quite clear that Veleno's confidence has skyrocketed in a year's time. He had a successful first prospect tournament last year after being drafted in the first round, 30th overall, in the 2018 draft. Then he went on to have a truly elite season in his final year in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League, posting 42 goals and 62 assists in 59 games for the Drummondville Voltigeurs. All the while, he remained in contact with Shawn Horcoff, the Wings director of player development (and now also assistant director of player personnel), and Dan Cleary, assistant director of player development, who guided him toward his goal of becoming a more complete player. Veleno helped the Wings rally from their 4-1 deficit, scoring twice in the second period. His first goal came unassisted on a steal and breakaway and his second came on the power play. The power-play goal was assisted by Filip Zadina and Taro Hirose, his linemates throughout the game and with the man-advantage.

Quotable: "It was a good shift by the other guys. I just happened to come off the bench. They were pretty exhausted and I was forechecking and he coughed up the puck and I was able to put that in the net. It was a good overall effort by the other guys on the shift before that started. It felt really good. They're two unbelievable players who are going to be superstars eventually. They see the ice really well. Obviously, Z can shoot the puck and make plays and got good speed. Taro is just super-skilled smooth out there and is able to make plays not too many guys can make. Just a real good opportunity to play with those guys. It's a lot of fun." -- Veleno

Quotable II: "Obviously, scoring twice is great, but I thought he did a lot of good things away from the puck as well. He's pretty responsible defensively, was rewarded offensively. You can tell he's taking steps. He had a good summer. He put the time in, you can see it's translating here. It's just one game but if he can get some confidence going into this that'll be great to lead into camp and hopefully that springboards him to have a good camp." -- Ben Simon, Grand Rapids Griffins coach and Wings prospect tournament coach
Quotable III: "He's a great guy on the ice. He's unbelievable. Great skill. He can move the puck but I think way more important is his personality. We're pretty close friends. He was the first guy I had a pretty good relationship to. Definitely a great team guy." -- Moritz Seider

2. Moritz Seider: Although he is just 18 years old, Seider, the Wings' first-round pick, sixth overall, in the 2019 NHL Entry Draft, is a solidly built young defenseman at 6-foot-4, 207 pounds. Playing in his first prospect tournament game, Seider held his own, recording one assist, three shots, one penalty and finishing minus-1 in a significant amount of ice time. His ice time was similar to what Dennis Cholowski had in last year's tournament. Seider has spent a lot of time in metro Detroit working out with the other prospects this summer. Last year he played with men in the DEL with Addler Mannheim back home in Germany. Seider's fellow 2019 draftee, Chicago's Kirby Dach, hit him from the blindside at 4:16 of the second, forcing him out of the game briefly but Seider did not stay out long.
   Quotable: "It's really competitive I think. First of all, it was a great team effort today. We were down 4-1, came up 4-4. It was unbelievable, a great atmosphere on the bench. In the end, I think little things are game-changers. Most of all I'm pretty happy. First game in the books and we're looking forward to tomorrow. Obviously I think (Dach is) one of the greatest guys in our draft class. Maybe I have to be a little bit in his mind. I think we did a pretty good jump. He wasn't that pumped for the game anymore. We took him out pretty well." -- Seider

Quotable II: "He's a confident guy, he's got some skill, he can make plays. He was involved in a lot of plays tonight. For a first game I thought he did pretty well for himself. I think it's tough for any player to come over from a different country, to a different league. This is a quick tournament, four games in five nights. There's always going to be an acclimation period. He's making it pretty well right now. He's a great kid, he works hard and good things happen to hard-working people. There's a lot of upside to him. One game he did well, but it's just one game in a rookie tournament." -- Simon
Quotable III: "He's really confident with the puck. He's a big defenseman who's got some good skills. He sees the ice really well, skates well. You can already tell he's going to be a really good defenseman coming up." -- Veleno
3. Power play: In the first game of a short tournament, you wouldn't necessarily expect a team's power play to be ready to go out of the gate. But after the morning skate, Zadina said that it actually was working well in practice and seemed to be very good. He wasn't kidding as three of the Wings' four goals came with the man-advantage. Kuffner scored the first one, which was the first goal of the game, at 3:10 of the first period, assisted by Seider. The second helped kickstart the Detroit comeback as Lukosevicius cut Chicago's lead to 4-2 at 10:04 of the second period. Charle-Edouard D'Astous and Kuffner picked up the assists. Then Veleno's game-tying goal came from the left doorstep on a quick pass from Zadina at 18:47 of the second. Hirose got the second assist as he had a nice entry on the play. None of the Blackhawks goals came on the power play as they went 0-for-3. The Wings finished 3-for-5.

Quotable: "Power play was good. I thought our guys, for the amount of time we worked on it, they executed pretty well, got pucks to the net pretty well and obviously the results came." -- Simon
Quotable II: "We were moving the puck well, we were attacking the net when we had to and were able to capitalize. I thought we built a lot of chemistry for both units and got some big goals at key moments in the game." -- Veleno
Quotable III: "I think we're doing pretty well. It was the first time we're on the ice together and I think we're doing a pretty good job. Only some goals are missing. We're moving the puck well, having great movement there. Sooner or later, the goals will come." -- Seider