April 11, 2012; Nashville, TN, USA; Detroit Red Wings defenseman Jonathan Ericsson (52) skates to his bench during a time out against the Nashville Predators during the first period in game one of the 2012 Western Conference quarterfinals at Bridgestone Arena. The Predators beat the Red Wings 3-2. Mandatory Credit: Don McPeak-USA TODAY Sports

Jonathan Ericsson is the main player on the Detroit Red Wings that gets picked on by fans, no matter what he does (Kyle Quincey aside, of course). There’s always one in the bunch, and Ericsson has become the new Andreas Lilja and the new Brett Lebda. It’s been that way for a few seasons now.

Back in 2009, when he was consistently on the roster during the playoffs, he was pretty phenomenal. I remember thinking (and reading from quite a few other fans) about how he would be our salvation whenever Nicklas Lidstrom decided to leave. The poise, patience, and bit of grace with which he played during the playoffs many have come to see as his peak performance, and everything has been downhill since then. That’s true, to some extent.

Nowadays if you’re browsing through the internet and find Red Wings fans discussing Ericsson, his name is usually “S#%tbox,” and not, you know, Ericsson. If you use that nickname, pretty much every Red Wings fan will know to whom you are referring. That’s how much Ericsson has been turned into the black sheep.

That’s not to say it’s completely unwarranted, but since Lidstrom’s departure, Ericsson has stepped up. It’s simply masked by the fact that Lidstrom is no longer there, and the “replacements” have been, well, mediocre for what Red Wings fans are used to seeing.

If you could stand the NBC announcers during Sunday’s game against the Chicago Blackhawks for more than ten seconds at a time, you may have heard Eddie Olczyk reviewing several different defensive zone plays for the Red Wings, and how Ericsson was making smart play after smart play.

Go ahead, reread that last sentence. You read correctly. Jonathan Ericsson was making smart defensive plays.

Chicago may have had control in the Red Wings’ zone for minutes at a time. The Red Wings may have been backed into their own corner and unable to get many shots off through the first half of the game. But even with Chicago in the zone for so long, their shot output was not as much as it should have been. Credit it to blocked shots, smart defensive plays by forwards, but the defense is slowly – slowly – coming around. Ericsson is a central part of that, and not just because he’s one of the least-injured defensemen among the ranks.

In the second and third periods yesterday was when I noticed Eddie Olczyk reviewing several different defensive zone plays by Ericsson. One was a pass behind his back to the center of the ice where a Red Wings forward was waiting. And the zone was cleared. His breakout passes worked better than usual. Things seemed to be lining up for old Jonathan Ericsson.

And then, he had to succumb to that black sheep syndrome. With three and a half minutes to go, he took a bad delay of game penalty for shooting the puck over the glass on an attempt to clear the zone. Chicago scored on the resulting power play to keep their points streak alive and, in the end, won in a shootout.

Twitter exploded with rage after Patrick Kane‘s game-tying goal. Even I had some choice words for Ericsson, whom I had been praising earlier for playing a consistent game. Had he not taken that stupid penalty, there would have been less of a chance for the Blackhawks to score.

Regardless of who had taken the delay of game penalty, Twitter would have exploded in a rage anyway (especially when Niklas Kronwall did the same thing not even two minutes later). That it was Ericsson adds to his whole “Most hated defenseman” case, even with Quincey in the mix.

So why is it that Jonathan Ericsson can’t catch a break? It’s not only that the standards held for him are far too high (even with his immense height), but that he has taken his time turning into the defenseman the Red Wings need. He can’t catch a break because fans constantly focus on the bad, the mistakes, and the shortcomings of the Swede.

And that will not change anytime soon.

Jonathan Ericsson scored a stunning late goal after the Kings had also knotted up the game in the final minute, and Detroit goalie Jimmy Howard turned in his finest performance of 2013 as the Red Wings emerged with an improbable 3-2 win at Joe Louis Arena. L.A. peppered Howard with 47 shots, including 23 in the second period alone.

February 10, 2013; Detroit, MI, USA; Detroit Red Wings defenseman Jonathan Ericsson (52) receives congratulations from teammates after scoring in the third period against the Los Angeles Kings at Joe Louis Arena. Detroit won 3-2. Mandatory Credit: Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports

The visitors almost rewrote the story of Howard’s heroics with time running out in regulation. With their own goaltender Jonathan Quick off for an extra skater, the Kings kept the puck in the Red Wings zone and applied heavy pressure. That paid off when Alec Martinez was able to take advantage of a scramble in front of Howard to find the twine for his first goal of the season with 53 seconds left.

Amazingly, that still left enough time for one more goal. Following a face off in Kings territory, a clearing attempt by Drew Doughty its way back to Jonathan Ericsson, who had maintained his position just inside the blue line. His big slap shot hit Quick, but it kept going with enough momentum to trickle across the goal line with just 4.5 seconds showing on the clock.

For a while it appeared Damien Brunner‘s sixth goal of the year, a snap shot off a nice two-man play with Henrik Zetterberg, might be the game-winning goal. That came all the way back at the 17:28 mark of the first period, and though Anze Kopitar scored before the first intermission, it almost held up the rest of the way.

That was primarily due to Howard, who also got the win in Saturday’s victory over the Edmonton Oilers. But the Wings netminder was tested much more often by the Kings, particularly in a second period when the ice seemed titled toward the Detroit end. Howard made saves with every piece of his equipment in the middle frame, perhaps none better than the one he made to stone Dwight King on a shot from right in front of the crease after he made an initial stop on a shot coming from his left.

Along with out-shooting the Red Wings 47-31, the Kings also racked up more hits, won more faceoffs and forced more turnovers. The only edge Detroit had was in special teams, killing off all three L.A. power plays while scoring on one of their own on Pavel Datsyuk‘s first period marker.

As unlikely as it was, the Wings will gladly take their third straight win and rest their tired legs. They return to action for a big rivalry game on Wednesday at the Joe against the St. Louis Blues.

The game was over when…

Quick couldn’t find the handle on Ericsson’s blast. Last year’s all-everything goalie hasn’t looked quite the same in 2013, perhaps due to off-season surgery. There was a bit of a screen set up by Valtteri Filppula, but even so, the last shot he faced was one that Quick probably wished he had back.

The unsung Red Wings hero was…

Can I pick two in this game? It’s my segment, so I’m going to go for it. Both Tomas Tatar and Drew Miller made the most of their ice time, providing some energy in a game when Detroit was lacking it in big stretches. The Wings need their third and fourth lines to at least provide some semblance of a threat, and they did just enough against the Kings.