2010-2011 Player Profiles: Niklas Kronwall...

Hey, kids, guess what? Hockey's almost here. That means it's time for me to get back into this whole blogging thing that I've neglected during the off-season. Since I lack the creativity to come up with a new gimmick, I decided to continue the Player Profiles series I did last year leading up to the season. I'll be taking a look at a different player (almost) every day between now and when hockey starts. By my count, there are 13 days until the Wings open the regular season. Get excited. Today's subject:

Niklas Kronwall

2009-2010 Regular Season: 48 GP, 7-15-22, +/- 5, 32 PIM

2010 Playoffs: 12 GP, 0-5-5, +/-2, 12 PIM

Season Highlight: This is a lame choice, but I remember loving this empty-netter he scored on Steve Yzerman night, largely because of the reaction of the crowd as it seemed to inch its way toward the goal. And also because it occurred on Steve Yzerman night. Everything that happened that night is remembered fondly.

Season Lowlight: The dirty knee-on-knee hit he took from Laraque.

Kronwall was having a fantastic start to the season last year. Then, thanks to a dirty hit from Georges Laraque, he spent several weeks out with a knee injury. Even when he returned to the lineup, he continued to have issues with it and never seemed quite right. He had minor surgery during the off-season that hopefully fixed whatever issues he had.

Now that he's been bumped up to the top line to play with Lidstrom, Kronner has a lot to live up to. He looked good in camp and seemed to be skating well throughout the week. He looked like he was re-energized and feeling good. On the top pairing, he should be able to return to the offensive pace he showed prior to getting hurt last season. The biggest question with Kronwall is always his ability to stay healthy. I swear that man is made of glass. If he can keep from getting hurt, he should have a good year.

What he needs to do to make me smile: Stay healthy.

Good News (Yes, You Read that Correctly)...

As I’m sure you know by now, Niklas Kronwall is slated for a return to the lineup tomorrow. This is huge for the Wings. His presence should have a trickle-down effect on all of the defensive pairings, as well as the offense. Having him in the lineup allows us to rid ourselves of either Lebda or Meech. My money’s on Meech sitting because Lebda occasionally has flashes of brilliance in which he appears to be a real, live NHL defenseman. Granted, they’re few and far between, but they do exist. Meech just goes out there and skates around and does…I don’t really know. He should be an evangelical preacher because every time he sets foot on the ice, a million Wings fans start praying. Stuart and Kronwall were dynamite together before Georges Laraque saw fit to remove him from the Wings’ lineup, and his presence may help settle Stuart down after a rough patch. He’s also been sorely missed on the powerplay over the last couple of months. I have no idea what the Wings’ percentage is since the beginning of November, but it has to be close to single digits. How excited are you for a powerplay unit that doesn’t feature Derek Meech?

I was also surprised to hear that Andreas Lilja is potentially nearing a return. A couple of days ago, Mickey Redmond mentioned that he was close to returning, but I think we fans universally wrote that off as crazy talk. This impression was confirmed when Ken Holland said that nothing had changed regarding Lilja’s status. Lo and behold today, though, Lilja said that he had gone 13 straight days without a headache. Should he reach that elusive 14-day mark, he could potentially be cleared to play. (On a side note, we’re coming up on 11 months since his concussion. Can you imagine how rotten of a mood you’d be in if you’d been having almost constant headaches for that long? I’m pretty sure even my dog would’ve stopped liking me by now.) This would be another huge step for the defense because it would mean that a) we would also be rid of Lebda and b) Jonathan Ericsson could be paired with a more experienced defenseman who he could potentially learn something (good) from. I’ve been a critic of Lilja in the past, but he was looking pretty solid last season before he broke his head, and at any rate, he has to be better than Lebda.

On top of all this, Jason Williams is nearing a return to the lineup, Tomas Holmstrom is hoping to be back soon, and Johan Franzen is considering a miraculous pre-Olympic break return. I’d probably prefer that he wait until after the break because it’s basically two weeks of free rehab for him and there’s no sense rushing him back. I have no idea what this means for the salary cap, but I'll leave that to smarter folks to figure out.

If I were a member of another Western Conference organization, I’d be looking over my shoulder right about now. The Wings have been hanging in there on the periphery of the playoff race like some kind of zombie that you just can’t kill. Now that they’re finally getting healthy, I can’t imagine that the other teams in the West are thrilled about the idea of the Wings creeping up behind them.

We have a little less than three weeks until the Olympic break. A lot can happen in that amount of time. Let’s hope they’re good things. Also, it’s unbelievably fun to be writing about happy news for a change. All this excitement has put me in a pretty good mood. I’m starting to feel a strange sensation that may in seasons past have been called optimism.

Random semi-hockey related quote of the day:
My dad, while assessing the swelling on my newly-sprained ankle: “Just be glad you’re not a hockey player so you don’t have to worry about fitting it into a skate so you can go back out and play.”

Kronwall Update...

Well, the news on Nik Kronwall’s injury is both good and bad. It’s good in the sense that looking at the hit and knowing Kronner’s past knee issues, I immediately assumed that he’d be setting a date with a knee surgeon in the near future. From that perspective, the current estimate of 4-8 weeks seems like an early Christmas present.

However, if he were to come back in exactly four weeks, the absolute best-case scenario for his return, he would still miss 14 games. That’s right: 14 games minimum of a third pairing that consists of Derek Meech and Brett Lebda, but it’ll probably be closer to 20 because, let’s face it, that’s how this season’s gone. This next stretch of the schedule is as densely packed as I’ve ever seen, with numerous back-to-back games and only a couple of two-day breaks between games.

Losing Kronwall hurts even more because he’s been having the best year of his career so far. He’s currently ranked third in team scoring behind only the Eurotwins, and had absolutely been on a tear for the last couple of weeks. (And the fact that it came against the Habs, for whom I have always harbored a semi-irrational hatred only makes it that much worse.)

The NHL has apparently decided to review the hit to potentially punish Laraque further. Which is nice, but not particularly likely to help fill the hole on the blue line he caused. Predictably, the league asked for a medical report on Kronner to factor into their decision. This is a perfect example of why the disciplinary process is such a joke. It shouldn’t matter if he’ll be out for four weeks or four days, if the hit itself was dirty, it should be punished. (The same goes for headshots.) A dirty hit is a dirty hit whether the player on the receiving end has his career ended or shakes it off and doesn’t miss a shift. But we all know that’s not how the league rolls.

Wings 3, Canadiens 2 (SO): Post Game Snipes...

• The first period was absolutely ridiculous. Every time I thought the Habs’ parade to the penalty box was over, they got whistled again. I know the Wings scored two powerplay goals, but I felt like they should’ve had more. Especially since they had two extended 5-on-3s.
• In one single shift of destruction, Georges Laraque managed to cut Darren Helm with a high stick and take out Nik Kronwall’s knee. I was still worrying about Helm as he was collecting himself behind the play when I saw Kronwall go down. At that point, I was no longer particularly concerned with Helm's facial well-being. For his efforts, Laraque got six minutes in the box.
• I’m still not sure how Laraque only got a two-minute minor for his knee-on-knee hit on Kronner. I mean he still took six minutes of penalties at once (something I don’t ever recall seeing without a fight or a game misconduct being involved), but it was a dirty hit and there’s no place for stuff like that in the game.
• There’s no official word on Kronwall’s injury yet, but I can’t imagine it’s going to be good news. Babcock said “it ain’t pretty” when asked if he might be out months. CBC’s HNIC intermission report mentioned that the team thinks he suffered some MCL damage, so things certainly aren’t looking good. However, the Freep is reporting that, while we can expect him to miss 2-3 weeks minimum, it might only be a sprain. I’m choosing to assume the worst-case scenario of him being out for months, so on the off chance that it’s not that bad I’ll find myself excited instead of having my spirit crushed.
• The Wings, predictably, went to sleep in the third period and let the Habs claw their way back into the game.
• I don’t think I noticed the fourth line out there once all game.
• I like Jonathan Ericsson much better on the powerplay than the penalty kill. However, with Kronwall’s injury, he’s now one of the Wings’ top four defensemen. I’m not looking forward to seeing their defensive lineup on Monday. At all.
• Matt from On the Wings tossed out the idea of bringing Chris Chelios back into the fold. Signing him to a two-way contract would not be the worst thing in the world.
• At one point while waiting to start the rush, Brad Stuart paused behind the net to adjust the foot guards he’s apparently recently taken to wearing. He even took his glove off to take a second try at fixing it. Meanwhile, Montreal just kind of stood around in the neutral zone and watched him. I’m pretty sure that this incident was the single best argument against using the neutral zone trap that I’ve ever seen.
• Nick Lidstrom had a very rough game by his lofty standards. The third period was one of the worst that I’ve seen him play. And by that I mean that it was one of the approximately three instances in his career when he hasn't been a vision of perfection.
• Is it just me or is the FSN crew getting loopier and loopier every game?
  

GP Answers:
1. About halfway through the game, I caught the first rounds of that stupid “Ole” song. I know it’s semi-irrational, but I cannot stand hearing that.
2. We got treated to good Jimmy today. He didn’t have a whole lot of work in the first period, but he made some big saves when the Wings went to sleep later on in the game.
3. The Wings definitely slowed down toward the end of the game. That may be partially due to having to cycle 5 defensemen after losing Kronwall early, but I’ll give this one to Montreal.
4. Over the last couple of games, Pav has made it clear that Todd Bertuzzi is out of his league on the first line. A lot has been made of Datsyuk’s slow start, but you have to look at how many glorious opportunities he’s set his linemates up for only to see them fire it wide or whiff on the shot. For his part, Pav scored for the second game in a row and added a ceremonial tally in the shootout.
5. They were still buzzing tonight, but slightly less noticeable than they were on Friday. No breakaways for Helm, unfortunately.
6. The UM loss was tough, but losing Kronwall hurts more.

Cookies and Cupcakes for Henrik Zetterberg and Pavel Datsyuk
They both buried their shots in the shootout to ensure that the Wings limped away with two points tonight. I was going to give this to Hank on account of using his, “the puck was not my friend,” quote as a tiebreaker, but then Pav went and said, “Now it’s known I be try to dangle,” when discussing his shootout strategy, thus returning them to a deadlock.

Ville Leino gets the Golden Facepalm
His turnover led to the Canadiens’ first goal a whopping nine seconds into the third period. You could pretty much tell from that point on, things were going to be a challenge.

What I learned:
That this season could, in fact, get more depressing.