The joy on his face Wednesday afternoon wasn't quite as vibrant as it was on Tuesday night, when Filip Hronek, once and for all, wired a one-timer past John Gibson for his first goal of the season. Having beaten Gibson twice on the same shift before that, only to be denied by three (yep, three) posts, Hronek, whose head was tilted toward the rafters just seconds prior, rose on one leg and punched at the air in a moment of release. Then he grinned from ear to ear.
On Wednesday, surrounded by a small scrum of reporters at his locker, he lifted his gaze off the ground and smiled.
"I was happy for that," he said.
These are happy times for Hronek. And heady times for his team. The Red Wings watched the young defenseman elevate his game in the second half of last season, then take it a notch higher for the Czech Republic in the World Championship in May. Hronek led all defensemen with 11 points in 10 games and was named to the tournament's All-Star team. Hopes were accordingly high entering this season. Through three games, at least, Hronek looks ready to fulfill them.
Those hopes, distilled into one: that Hronek can become the true top-pair defenseman the Wings have been lacking since Nicklas Lidstrom retired and Niklas Kronwall's body began to break down.
That's all.
"How many teams win the Stanley Cup without a top-pair defenseman?" Detroit's director of amateur scouting Kris Draper said last week.
He spelled those out at the beginning of the season: "Get better every day, be consistent, play the right way."
If Hronek checks those boxes, well, you start to wonder. He already flashed his potential as a No. 1 defenseman in the final 20 games of last season, logging north of 22 minutes a night, playing in all situations and providing steady offense for a team that needed it. He finished the year third among rookie defensemen in points per game, behind only Rasmus Dahlin and Quinn Hughes. Along the way, and even more so now, his game called images of Doughty’s to mind.
There’s a reason Doughty’s approaching 500 points for his career. Okay, okay. There we go again.
Doughty is much more than an offensive defenseman, anyway. At his peak, when he finished in the top two of Norris voting three out of four years from 2014-18, he played 27:45 per game, second most in the NHL during this span. (Stick tap, Ryan Suter.) Doughty logged these minutes because he did everything well. He countered the opposition’s top line. He killed penalties and ran the power play. He played with physicality and finesse. He consistently titled the ice in the Kings’ direction. Doughty, who didn’t miss a single game over this stretch, helped his team across the finish line in every game it won.
That’s all.
At the risk of setting the bar too high, these are the challenges that await Hronek this season. He’s already seen his role expand in a big way. He has a chance to lead the Red Wings in ice time, and what a positive it will be for the organization if he does. When Hronek talks about playing the right way, he’s referring to his priorities. He needs to tend to his own zone first. This was where came up short at the start of last season and why he spent the majority of the first few months in the AHL. And it’s where he took significant strides when he returned in February.
He’s lengthening those strides now, looking more at home with each passing game.
“I feel more comfortable this year,” Hronek said Wednesday. “Obviously I know more guys here now and I’m not nervous like I was last year.”
Those nerves, he said, were “about everything you don’t know, what you’re supposed to expect from the league. Now I know at least a little bit, and that has helped.”
Hronek is still the quiet presence he was a year ago, soft-spoken and demure, a 22-year-old from half a world away trying to catch up with his new life. But there’s a growing ease about him, too, one that comes with success.
“He struggled at the beginning of last year,” said Jeff Blashill. “When you struggle and you’re young, you get your back up a little bit and you get a little defensive, and then it’s hard to look in the mirror. I’m not saying this is him in particular, just in general. I just think there’s a lot of those emotions that go (into it).
“Once you know you belong, boy, you’re way more confident, more comfortable in your own skin. I just think it makes you a way better teammate, player, person. And he has to know he belongs, just through his play, both the end of last year and throughout the World Championships until now.”
Hronek entered last offseason with a number of things to focus on, his decision-making on defense foremost among them. At the other end of the ice, Blashill and the Red Wings told him to start shooting more. Hronek was moving from the point to the off-flank on the power play, where he’d have an opportunity to unload one-timers from prime scoring position. So Hronek went to work on his shot all summer, firing rep after rep to make it stronger and more accurate.
“It looks harder to me,” Blashill said.
The first one against Gibson, a snap shot, caromed off the post, then off the cross bar. The second, a heat-seeking one-timer, clanged off the cross bar again. The third was an all-out bomb, Hronek smacking his stick on the ice for the pass, then winding up and following through with every fiber of his being. It shot out of the net as quickly as it went in, the building exploded and Hronek punched the air, and the vigor of the whole display recalled Doughty to mind. He throws himself into the game with the same guided abandon.
And so the Red Wings’ search for a No. 1 defenseman continues. Seider will be here soon. Dennis Cholowski should be here to stay. Both first-round draft picks are bursting with potential. And then there’s the second rounder who flew mostly under the radar until last season, when a strong finish and an even better encore at the World Championships put him squarely on the map. He’s not your blueline prototype. He’s smaller than you might like, maybe not as fluid, and doesn’t swallow up the ice like others at his position. But there’s an elegance to the way he handles the puck, an urgency to the way he moves, and a restlessness to his game that belies his poise. Hronek, at 6’0, stands out when he’s on the ice.
That’s all.