The Hockey News’s Sam Stockton posted his morning-after-the-game notebook after the Red Wings’ 4-1 loss to the New York Rangers on Monday night, and this is going to get overlooked, so let’s explore it:
–Berggren’s Game Growing:
One positive, albeit a relatively marginal one, from Tuesday’s action for Detroit was Jonatan Berggren. With Christian Fischer unavailable, Berggren earned a promotion from the fourth line to the third and played a season-high 12:54. In and of itself, that’s not the most inspiring lift, but Berggren’s coach had positive things to say about his performance, perhaps previewing a path to a bigger role moving forward.
“He’s making plays, which is good. He made some plays on the rush, great offensive instincts. I appreciate that he’s starting to really work on his 200-foot game. A couple of wall battles that he won, trying to get to the inside a little more. A lot of positives with Berggy.”
As my colleague Connor Earegood has pointed out a few times, there is something of a square peg/round hole to using Berggren in a fourth line role. To this point, he’s yet to record a point this season, but his incisive passing has impressed on the power play, and if he can continue to build the non-scoring elements of his five-on-five game, there will be more ice time waiting for him on the other side.
Continued; Berggren’s still getting physically over-powered at times, but he’s earning some power play time, he’s slowly but surely gaining the coaches’ confidence as he plays better defensive hockey, and he’s clearly going to be bringing some scoring to either the Red Wings’ “identity line” of Rasmussen and Copp, or he, Joe Veleno and the hard-working Tyler Motte may end up bringing more offense to the mix as a checking line than anybody would have expected.
Long story long, there have been some lapses, but Berggren’s been a bottom-six bright spot.
