This is an intriguing suggestion from Detroit Hockey Now’s Bob Duff, who weighs in on the Wings’ loss of faceoff specialist Luke Glendening to Dallas:
In fact, the Wings believe they have someone capable of filling Glendening’s skates already in their farm system. Center Chase Pearson has spent the past two seasons working as a checking center with Detroit’s AHL farm club in Grand Rapids and they believe he has the tool kit to be an effective fourth-line center at the NHL level.
Always a responsible two-way center, in his last NCAA season at Maine, the 6-foot-2, 200-pound Pearson was presented the Frank Jones Award as the best defensive forward by the New England Hockey Writers Association.
Selected 140th overall by Detroit in the 2015 NHL entry draft, Pearson played all four years at Maine. He’s posted successive 8-14-22 seasons with Grand Rapids. Interestingly, the first year, he did it in 59 games. Last season, it took him just 28 games to put up the same numbers. Pearson also improved from minus-3 to plus-9.
