Red Wings Prospect Tournament Number Notes

The Detroit Red Wings announced their roster for the 2017 NHL Prospect Tournament on Friday and we’ve got some returning players who will be changing their jersey numbers.

Summer numbers can be somewhat volatile, so who knows what of these will stick for main camp.

Evgeny Svechnikov, who’s been wearing #37 with the Red Wings, is now shown wearing #77.  This matches the switch that he made with the Grand Rapids Griffins last season.  Dan Renouf had been assigned that number last season and is not appearing in the prospect tournament so we don’t know what change he might be making.

Dominic Turgeon has gone from #78 to #23.  This is somewhat interesting as veteran Brian Lashoff is still with the Red Wings’ organization and that number had been assigned to him.  Turgeon has traditionally worn #23 in honor of his sister.

Filip Hronek and Givani Smith, who wore numbers in the 80s in camp last summer, will wear #24 and #48, respectively.  Griffins captain Nathan Paetsch had worn #24 last year while Ryan Sproul abandoned #48 in his summer switch to #62.

Vili Saarijarvi, who lost his #28 to Luke Witkowski, switches to #29.  That will be his third camp number, having started with #71.

Axel Holmstrom, who had previously (and humorously) worn the #96 that formerly belong to Tomas Holmstrom, is now assigned #49.  Eric Tangradi had been assigned #49 so, like Lashoff, we’ll see if there’s a coming change there.

Dennis Cholowski is wearing #53 after wearing #2 at this summer’s development camp and #95 at last summer’s.  Jordan Sambrook, who had been wearing #95 after Cholowski, switches to #63.

Six 2017 draft picks will be appearing on the Red Wings’ tournament roster, with none of them keeping the numbers that they wore in July.  Michael Rasmussen switches from #37 to #27, taking the number that Joe Hicketts had been assigned.  Combined with Cholowski’s switch, I wonder if Hicketts will be assigned #2 in the main camp.  Lane Zablocki goes from #67 to the #46 worn in camp last year by Ben Street.  Reilly Webb switches from #84 to #50.  Zach Gallant goes from #73 to #64.  Brady Gilmour inverts #76 to #67.  Cole Fraser gets #74 instead of #85.