DetroitRedWings.com’s Dana Wakiji discusses Christoffer Ehn’s ascent from prospect to fourth-line wing/center, via Red Wings special assistant to the GM Kris Draper:
One of the main reasons Ehn earned a spot on the team was with his excellent defensive prowess paired with his skating ability.
Someone who knows a lot about being a contributor as a fourth-line player and penalty killer is Kris Draper, the assistant to general manager Ken Holland.
Draper spoke a little bit about the 6-foot-3, 181-pound Swedish center at the Detroit Sports Media’s Red Wings Day at Sinbad’s Restaurant on Wednesday.
“Even last year talking to (director of European scouting) Hakan Andersson, he was really high on him and high on his development, with getting a little bigger and stronger,” Draper said. “His skating, he’s an unbelievable skater. He’s a guy that’s going to get up and down the ice real fast. With the way the game is being played right now, it’s so important to be such an elite skater. That fourth line, I know Glendening is going to play with him. (Blashill is) going to have a lot of confidence in Christoffer Ehn and Glendening to play some shifts against the other teams’ top lines. They feel that there’s going to be the opportunity and the ability to create some offense. The one thing when you’re playing against another team’s top line, you want to try to make them play defense as much as possible. I think they’re going to have that mindset to be able to do that. I think it’s going to be a fun line, it’s going to be a line that Blash can trust and when you have trust in your players, as a player you feel that. I think that’s going to be something important for them.”