Marco Kasper is back on the ice. The Detroit Red Wings center, who was on crutches this spring with a knee problem that kept him out of the IIHF World Championship for Austria, has resumed skating in his hometown of Klagenfurt, Bob Duff of Detroit Hockey Now reported Tuesday.
The workload suggests the knee is no longer a concern. Kasper has been putting in nine-hour training days at a high-level summer camp — roughly five hours on the ice and four off it — sharing the sessions with Boston forward JJ Peterka, another NHLer who spends his offseasons in central Europe. Kasper also plans to suit up in the Sunshine League, Austria’s popular summer circuit, playing for the Lendhaffen Sea Lions alongside Peterka and a handful of other pros.
For Detroit, the timing of the recovery is what matters. Kasper, the eighth pick of the 2022 draft, is one of the forwards Steve Yzerman’s rebuild is leaning on to grow into a top-six role rather than fill one on paper. He is entering the final season of his entry-level contract and will be a restricted free agent next summer, which makes 2026-27 the year the Red Wings need to see the version of Kasper who justifies a raise. A lingering knee issue heading into that stretch would have been a real complication. Instead, he is already logging the kind of summer volume teams hope to see from a young player trying to take a step, not one managing a setback.
None of this is a substitute for what happens once real camp opens, and the Red Wings will want their own medical staff to sign off before anyone declares the knee fully behind him. But there is a meaningful difference between a player easing back and a player grinding through nine-hour days in July. Kasper is doing the latter.
Detroit opens training camp in September. If Kasper arrives at the workload he is carrying now, the knee that shelved his spring should be a footnote.
In fantasy terms, Kasper is a hold-and-watch in keeper and dynasty formats rather than a standard-league lock. His value hinges on deployment: a healthy summer keeps him in the mix for a scoring-line and power-play role, and that is the swing factor for his goal and point ceiling. Track his line and man-advantage usage through camp before spending a pick on him.
