Watched him in Grand Rapids for 3 seasons and he was just an ordinary D-man here. Average PK player at best and had problems getting the puck out of our zone. When they put him on the PP unit, he could not hold the puck in the zone and he had problems deciding when to pinch in or back out of the play. He was very predictable, especially when he got the puck in his own zone. Teams would put 2 forecheckers on him and instead of passing the puck to an open man, or at least flipped it out of his zone, Nick would try to skate by them and it ended up trapping his forwards up ice and the puck would either be in the back of our net, or our goalie would have to bail him out. He had very little upside offensively. He was a good skater and he was a good "+" guy on the ice, but nothing that stood out enough for the Wings to give him a look.
With the Wings "D" this season with the injuries, inconsistent play, and the other rookies not developing fast enough, the Wings had no choice to put Jensen in and it was his one and only shot in the NHL to see if he was worth keeping around for next season or not. When he got the call up, fans here in GR were shocked as to what he did to where he played well enough to be not sent back down here for the upcoming playoffs, and ended up getting a 2 year deal from the Wings. The fans here in GR figured that Jensen would have become "Lashoff Jr" instead of Nick Jr. We are glad that Jensen took advantage of the Wings "D"emise on defense, made the most of it and got rewarded for his efforts. That is why the Griffins are here to develop what the Wings give us and make them into (hopefully) future Wings players.