MLive’s Ansar Khan continues his series of player profiles this morning with a look at Jonathan Ericsson.
As Khan notes, the massive defender was banged up for a good portion of this past season, and Khan wonders whether Ericsson will be able to shake the injury bug:
2019-20 outlook: Ericsson was plagued by injuries at the start and end of the season and struggled with consistency once again. After a good start in the 2017-18 season, he has posted a minus-23 rating in his past 95 games.
Ericsson was a healthy scratch for back-to-back games on a couple of occasions, for the first time in his career. He’ll likely start the season alongside Trevor Daley as the third pairing (depending on the unit’s health), but unlike past seasons, Ericsson won’t have a guaranteed spot in the lineup. It’ll depend on his performance.
Defense continues to be the weak spot on this team, but coach Jeff Blashill will have other options for the third pairing (Danny DeKeyser, Mike Green, Patrik Nemeth and Filip Hronek are projected as the top four) – including Madison Bowey or Oliwer Kaski. Dennis Cholowski, who started strong last season before fading and being sent to Grand Rapids, also will be competing for a spot.
Ericsson is among the veteran defensemen the Red Wings will try to move at the trade deadline (along with Green and Daley, but he’ll need to be healthy and playing reasonably well to draw interest for a draft pick.
Continued; I don’t personally see much of a market for Ericsson, but I’m more curious as to whether Ericsson’s going to retire at the end of this season. He once told Norrkoping’s Tidningar that he would retire at 36, resting his always-sore hip, but I’m not sure that he’s done quite yet.
Ericsson will hang around simply because Green and Daley can’t stay healthy, while Cholowski clearly needs more time.
Imagine if we had drafted Quinn Hughes!! Still upset we picked another winger when our defense was total trash. We’d have Hughes and Hronek as puck-moving d-men on the top 2 pairs. Then add Seider and you start to have a very promising future back there.