Detroit Red Wings: Dennis Cholowski latest defender to the press box

The Detroit Red Wings suffered their second straight loss on their western Canadian road trip.  The Vancouver Canucks defeated the Wings yesterday 3-2.

The Detroit Red Wings played a substantial first two periods yesterday but played particularly well during the second frame.  They were able to storm back after surrendering the first goal of the contest to Canuck’s phenom, rookie Elias Pettersson.  It was his first game back after missing a couple of weeks with an injured knee.  It didn’t take him long to get back into the swing of things.

The second line was the unit for the Detroit Red Wings that was able to do all the damage.  Frans Nielsen was able to score his 8th goal of the season from Anthony Mantha and Thomas Vanek.  Speaking of Vanek, he added the second goal in the period, his 10th of the season.  Nielsen and Danny DeKeyser assisted on the marker.  The Wings recorded 18 shots on goal in the second period and outshot the Canucks 37-31 on the night.

It was nice to see Thomas Vanek bury a goal against his former team, his 10th of the season.  Vanek has an opportunity to chase down 20 goals once again this season.  After struggling for the better part of the season, he’s finally starting to heat up.

Vanek’s spike in recent success came at the same time as the return of Anthony Mantha.  Coincidence?  I don’t think so.  Mantha’s size and scoring abilities create a lot of space on that Wings second line.  The space has opened up room for Vanek to generate more scoring opportunities.

Bo Horvat who hadn’t scored since December 20th, 2018 buried his 18th goal of the season midway through the third period.  Leave it to the Detroit Red Wings to end a struggling goal scorers drought.  Fourth line veteran grinder Antoine Roussel and limited goal scorer scored the winning goal with about 7 minutes left in the third.

The biggest news of came pre-game for the Detroit Red Wings.  Head coach Jeff Blashill decided to dress rookie defenseman Filip Hronek after he’d been scratched since the return of Danny DeKeyser.  At the time Hronek was on a point streak, he’d recorded 5 points over five games and then saw himself sitting in the press box as an observer.

With the return of Hronek to the lineup, Dennis Cholowski happened to be the odd man out.  In an update provided by Helene St. James of Freep.com, Jeff Blashill explains his decision;

"“This isn’t a one-day decision,” Blashill said. “This has been coming for a while. Part of the learning process for any player is, at times, sitting. People talk about development and they think it’s playing, well, sometimes it’s sitting. Sometimes you have to learn both from a chance to take a breather and watch a game, but just as importantly to understand that you have to correct certain things.  “His defensive game, he’s had way too many times where we’ve been digging it out of the net and he has to continue to learn and get better at those things.”"

Although Dennis Cholowski has played exceptionally well on the power-play, he’s struggled more times than not during five on five play.  Earlier in the season, Cholowski was paired with Mike Green, and the pair often struggled with defensive zone coverage leading to way too many scoring chances.

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The coaching staff decided to move Cholowski down to the third pairing, primarily playing with Nick Jensen and at times Jonathan Ericsson.  Dennis Cholowski has recorded 7 goals and 16 points on the season thru 47 games this season.  Although that is pretty good for the rookie 9 of those 16 points, have come while the Detroit Red Wings have a man advantage.

His CF% is below average at 48.9%.  That means puck possession and total shots while he’s on the ice favors his opponents.  His -18 is also quite alarming.  People don’t look at plus/minus as they once did, but it’s never a good thing to be a minus player especially a minus -18.

Although his possession numbers are much better than a guy like Jonathan Ericsson, Cholowski starts 60% of his five on five shifts in the offensive zone, and the Wings still struggle to control the puck more than their opponents while he’s on the ice.

In case you were wondering, and for comparison purposes, Ericsson’s CF% is terrible, at 45%.  But 62% of Ericsson’s shifts start in the defensive zone.  Much different from Cholowski.  Small things like that make a difference.  As many shifts as Cholowski starts in the O-zone, Ericsson begins in his own end.  Ericsson who I’m always critical of is merely a minus -3 on the season.

In this case, it seems Jeff Blashill could be correct by sitting Dennis Cholowski down and allowing him to watch the game from afar.  This may give Cholowski an opportunity to hit the reset button and look to return after the all-star break and finish his rookie campaign strong.