2023 Development Camp Jersey Numbers

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1 year ago

The Detroit Red Wings announced their 2023 Development Camp rosters on Saturday but, for the second consecutive year, didn’t include jersey numbers.

For a jersey geek like me, that won’t do, so, for the second year in a row, I started going through photos and videos posted to social media, and then George Malik saved me by posting his Day One notes and including names alongside numbers.

Jersey numbers in development camp are almost always meaningless but sometimes we see interesting patterns from them. This year, the somewhat remarkable thing is that only six returning players (Marco Kasper, Carter Mazur, Redmond Savage, Sam Stange, Tnias Mathurin, and Sebastian Cossa) kept the same number as last year. Of those, Mazur’s #43 had been reassigned to Mark Pysyk in the interim, while Savage’s #67 went to Joel L’Esperance in Detroit’s training camp last fall.

Another player, Amadeus Lombardi, is wearing a different number from last development camp but it’s the same number as he wore last fall in Detroit’s main camp, when he switched from #96 to #78 to accommodate Jake Walman’s switch to #96 last summer.

For the newest Detroit draftees, Nate Danielson was assigned the #29 that hasn’t been used since Thomas Greiss had it, Axel Sandin Pellikka got the #84 that was assigned to camp invitee Julien Anctil last year, Trey Augustine got the #80 worn in last year’s camp by invitee Pierce Charleson, Andrew Gibson got the #26 that was assigned to Pontus Andreasson in last fall’s training camp, Brady Cleveland took the departed Adam Erne’s #73, Noah Dower Nilsson got the #83 previously assigned to William Wallinder, Larry Keenan was given the #86 that had been worn by camp tryout Ivan Ivan, Jack Phelan got the #87 that was assigned to Jacob Mathieu in last fall’s training camp, Kevin Bicker got thew #89 that hasn’t been worn since Sam Gagner had it, Rudy Guimond was assigned the #68 worn in training camp by John Lethemon, and Emmitt Finnie got the #88 previously assigned to Liam Dower Nilsson, which will be worn this season by Daniel Sprong.

With Noah Dower Nilsson having taken his number, Wallinder switched to the #54 worn last year by Steven Kampfer. Meanwhile, Noah’s brother Liam moved to the #62 worn in the 2022 development camp by Theodor Niederbach (and in last fall’s training camp by Drew Worrad) to accommodate Finnie getting #88, with Niederbach switching to the #70 worn last season by Oskar Sundqvist.

Making his first appearance at a Detroit camp, Alexandre Doucet was given the #37 worn last year by Chase Bradley, while Bradley switched to the #58 worn last by camp invite Riley Piercey. Maximilian Kilpinen’s first appearance saw him assigned the #64 last worn by invitee A.J. Vanderbeck. Anton Johansson’s first camp with Detroit sees him assigned the #20 worn in last fall’s training camp by Albert Johansson, which is a little bit funny.

The only other players in their first camps with the Red Wings are free agent invitees, whose number assignments are usually even more meaningless than players the Wings hold the rights to. Sometimes development camp invitees even get assigned numbers that currently belong to players in the Detroit system. As such, Connor Punnett being assigned #3 could mean that Simon Edvinsson is switching to another number or it could mean absolutely nothing.

This leaves nine players returning to camp with Detroit assigned a new number. Brennan Ali gets the #56 previously worn by Pasquale Zito instead of his old #98. Kienan Draper is on to his third number, #34 (which had been assigned to Victor Brattstrom), after having previously lost #33 to Cossa and #21 to Austin Czarnik. Dylan James has switched to the #72 last worn in training camp by Trenton Bliss, with his previous #87 having been lost to Mathieu and then Phelan. Owen Mehlenbacher gets the #79 worn last fall by Kirill Tyutyayev, with his old #97 having been assigned to development camp invitee Michael Horth. Shia Buium is borrowing Matt Luff’s #22, with Lombardi having taken his old #78. Cooper Moore lost #81 to Dominik Kubalik, so he’s now wearing Brian Lashoff’s old #32. The #24 that Antti Tuomisto wore in development camp back in 2019 is available, with Puis Suter unsigned, but he’s switched to the #38 worn last season by Robert Haag. Jan Bednar’s old #60 went to camp invitee Luke Pavicich, with Bednar now wearing the #36 worn last year by free agent Owen Flores. Finally, having lost #35 to Ville Husso, Carter Gylander is now wearing the #31 last worn by try out Andrew Oke.

The full roster is as follows:

Forwards

Num.	Name
56	Brennan Ali
89	Kevin Bicker
58	Chase Bradley
29	Nate Danielson
61	Karsen Dorwart*
37	Alexandre Doucet
62	Liam Dower Nilsson
83	Noah Dower Nilsson
34	Kienan Draper
88	Emmitt Finnie
42	Nick Granowicz*
97	Michael Horth*
72	Dylan James
92	Marco Kasper
64	Maximilian Kilpinen
78	Amadeus Lombardi
15	Dean Loukus*
43	Carter Mazur
48	Liam McLinskey*
79	Owen Mehlenbacher
82	Isreal Mianscum*
70	Theodor Niederbach
67	Redmond Savage
46	Riley Sawchuk*
93	Nic Sima*
63	Sam Stange

Defensemen

Num.	Name
22	Shia Buium
73	Brady Cleveland
52	Jackson Desouza*
55	Sam Duerr*
26	Andrew Gibson
17	Finn Harding*
20	Anton Johansson
86	Larry Keenan
95	Tnias Mathurin
32	Cooper Moore
87	Jack Phelan
3	Connor Punnett*
84	Axel Sandin Pellikka
38	Antti Tuomisto
54	William Wallinder