Every player headed into the Detroit Red Wings’ upcoming NHL Rookie Tournament has taken a different route to get there, and a few of those paths stand out immediately.
Justice Christensen is one of the more unusual names in the group. The defenseman signed an AHL contract with the Grand Rapids Griffins, and he was also in last year’s rookie series against the Dallas Stars as a free agent.
Christensen is already a hockey world champion, but the detail that makes that achievement pop is how he got there. In the summer of 2025, while playing defense for the WHL Prince Albert Raiders, he captained Canada to gold at the World U20 ball hockey championship.
He explained the sport this way in an interview on the Raiders’ Facebook page: “There’s similarities for sure,” Christensen said. “But it is a little bit slower and [you need] a little bit more patience waiting for those plays to open up, because you’re moving a little slower.”
There’s also a strange little Red Wings-to-Predators pipeline in this camp. Winger Jesse Kiiskinen and center Sutter Muzzatti both came to Detroit in separate trades with Nashville, and both were originally picked by the Predators in the 2023 NHL Entry Draft.
Nashville took Kiiskinen at No. 68, then added Muzzatti with the 143rd selection. Muzzatti, for what it’s worth, is the son of former Michigan State goalie Jason Muzzatti.
Trey Augustine, another former Michigan State goalie, is one of the two Detroit goalies in the tournament.
Then there’s Czech goalie Michal Orsulak, who was Christensen’s teammate with the WHL Raiders last season and was taken by the Red Wings with the 79th pick in the 2026 NHL Entry Draft. You’d assume a Czech netminder would grow up idolizing Dominik Hasek, the Czech legend and former Red Wings goaltender, but Orsulak pointed elsewhere. “I’m trying to like be [Toronto’s Sergei] Bobrovsky, but it’s like, it’s hard style, because he is, in my opinion, [the] best goalie,” Orsulak said on the CHL website.
Detroit’s family ties are showing up too. Kienan Draper and Noah Dower Nilsson both had Red Wings connections before they ever officially joined the organization.
Draper is the son of Kris Draper, the former Red Wings player who is now a Detroit assistant GM and the club’s director of amateur scouting. Dower Nilsson was drafted by Detroit in 2023, two years after his older brother Liam was also taken by the Red Wings.
And then there’s Myles Brosnan, whose story comes with a simple old saying attached to it: everybody in a pro camp arrives from a place where they were the best player. In Brosnan’s case, that’s not just talk. He’s got the hardware to back it up.
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