Frk It
Mo Seider Less Problems
- Jul 27, 2010
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Cholowski compares well to Hronek imo. Cholowski's strengths have been underrated and misinterpreted thus far in his career, and his weaknesses, I'm still not convinced are even weaknesses. It is a good thing for top-4 d-men to be passive defensively if they have good vision and scoring chance identification/iq.
Let's dive into this specifically, if we want to analyze his game in more detail.
It IS good to be passive defensively if you can sit back on your heels and be surgical with your poke check, like Lidstrom did. But has Cholowski exhibited a similar ability thus far in his career? Well, we had to pull him off his NCAA team because he wasn't getting minutes because he was only trusted in a sheltered role. He clearly couldn't handle playing bigger/stronger players. Then he went to Juniors, where playing against similarly/younger aged players he exhibited some 2 way ability and logged big minutes. He handled the jump pretty well to the AHL, but so far in NHL action he has gotten his doors blown in so far in his own end... again.
So we have seen this now over a large body of work where when he has to deal with bigger/faster/stronger players he has a propensity to look outmatched to the point where he gets removed from that situation. That is not a good thing. I think he has some good tools, I like his skating ability and his offensive game. But I think there have been some red flags so far that you just cannot simply ignore.
Hronek has been better every step of the way, and has shown a lot more push back and fight when he has faced adversity thus far. So I just don't really see how you could come to that conclusion personally. Seems like it is a really big reach at this point in time.