Red Wings call up Veleno shines in loss to Maple Leafs.

On Saturday night the Detroit Red Wings suffered a hard fought loss at the hands of the Toronto Maple Leafs. That being said when you consider how close that game turned out to be and the fact that the Red Wings were missing a number of their regulars, including forward Tyler Bertuzzi who remains unable to travel to Canada, there were some positives to take away from the loss.

Near or perhaps even at the very top of that list was the play of Red Wings first round pick Joe Veleno. In spite of a solid showing in training camp. Veleno was not invited to be a part of the Red Wings main roster at the start of the season, and instead made his NHL debut on Saturday night due in large part to the aforementioned absences on the Red Wings roster. In spite of that Veleno was determined to showcase his skills as a late call up on Saturday, and he did exactly that.

After driving up to the game in a car alongside Red Wings general manager Steve Yzerman, the young Veleno played an inspired game of hockey for the Red Wings. 

Veleno's highlight of the game, at least in my opinion, came during the third period with the Red Wings staring down a two goal deficit. Veleno would seize the puck and danced around the Maple Leafs defense before setting up teammate Vladislav Namestnikov for a goal that would bring the Red Wings to within a goal.

Earlier in that very same period Veleno would pick up a goal of his own and once again it closed the gap for the Red Wings. Early in the third the Red Wings were down by two goals before Veleno was fed a puck in the slot and made it count, putting the Red Wings within a single goal after finding the back of the net.

There's no question that he earned that car ride up to the game from Steve Yzerman, the question now is will his two point night against the Maple Leafs be enough to earn him a longer shot at the NHL level?