Recalled/Assigned: Zadina and Hirose sent to GR

[Henkka]

That's how I do on my keeper leagues.

Why not guys on real life?

Somebody else brought that same thing up before me.

For me, Hronek is the better player, both on eye-test and statistically. Year ago the competition was quite open, but now it's quite easy to see. But they still like to pad those five lefties on the 1st unit, when it would need some righty forward on the left side and Hronek is better than any existing righty forward on this current mess (because there is nobody else than Glendening).

On contender-mode, on power-play, you should ice the best possible 1st unit, I'm behind that logic 100%. Not so much 5-on-5. There splitting the talent is still a thing.

But he'll be used as a shooter on the 2nd unit, which is much weaker than the 1st and usually gets only the last 40 seconds of the PP. That unit is clearly just to build to hurt his production. But I don't mind, it will only good thing for our future. Don't think it will anyhow hurt Hronek, other than financially. It's just - tank mode and Cholowski is as good as gone when the right trade will rise on the Yzerman's table.

I've been a big Cholowski fan, but it seems that there's just too much flaws on his game.

 

[Ghost of Ethan Hunt]

@Henkka , I agree with you that Hronek should be on PP1...found this on Dobber just now. Bolded part talks about Hronek's PP usage.

"As of Monday afternoon, Red Wings defenceman Filip Hronek was sitting with 14 points in 29 games, averaging over two shots per game, adding basically a hit and block per game along the way. For those in leagues with plus/minus, he’s sitting with a minus-13, and that hurts a lot. He probably will end up close to minus-30 this year, and that’s going to kills his value in those formats. Other than that, though, it’s not a bad season thus far.
Let’s keep in mind how bad Detroit is. Even with league goal scoring per game the highest it has been since 2005-06, the Wings are scoring just 2.12 per game, a distant last in the league. For a reference on how pathetic that is, the lowest scoring season in the NHL since that 05-06 season was 2015-16, and this year’s Wings teams would be last in that season as well. It’s truly an utterly embarrassing performance.
(Just a sidebar: this performance from the Wings this year is entirely predictable and intentional. They have a ton of cap space coming off the books, including Trevor Daley, Jimmy Howard, Mike Green, and Jonathan Ericsson. This season will also, presumably, produce one of Alexis Lafrenière and Quinton Byfield in June. This is an awful, awful team, but it’s with the intention of adding another gamebreaker while freeing up over $16M in cap space. That this was also the long-term vision of former general manager Ken Holland, though, is something Oilers fans should keep in mind).
Let’s review Hronek’s season so far, whether he can maintain this, what his ceiling might be, and what to do next year as the team’s rebuild really begins in earnest.
It’s easy to point to Hronek’s shooting percentage and assume regression. It’s a good bet, by the way, as he’s shooting over nine percent at all strengths and over eight percent at 5-on-5. Last year, only three defencemen shot over eight percent at 5-on-5, so Hronek doing it this year is unlikely. It’s not impossible, by the way, as guys like Matt Dumba and Shea Weber have been able to maintain high shooting percentages over multiple seasons. Whether Hronek ends up being a guy like that remains to be seen. We need many years of a defenceman performing in this manner to determine that they’re this kind of guy. The failure rate is just too high among blue liners, and Hronek’s expected goal rate is about average for regularly-used d-men. The elite are at the top as expected: Hamilton, Werenski, Josi, Carlson, and Trouba are the top-5. Hronek actually scoring as much as Trouba, then, is a problem for Hronek’s sustainability.
The problem for Hronek isn’t that he might end up with 11 goals this year instead of 15, it’s about what his team is doing around him. His on-ice goal rate is 1.84 per 60, which is, unsurprisingly, in the bottom-20 percent of the league. The team is shooting about six percent with him on the ice at 5-on-5, which is considerably lower than the 9.1 percent league average. If his team shooting at even a league-average rate, we could add four points to his current total, and close to 10 points in total by the end of the year. And that’s just at 5-on-5!
Then we move to the power play. Most of the year, Jeff Blashill has been using Dennis Cholowski on the top PP unit – Dylan Larkin has under 23 minutes at 5-on-4 with Hronek but over 67 minutes with Cholowski. Now, we have to say that Blashill has been correct in the usage here as the top PP unit has generated far more shots and goals per minute with Cholowski than it has with Hronek. That’s a serious problem for Hronek, though. It’s all well and good that he takes a lot of shots, but he has to do the things necessary to get other players scoring. He can’t be the focal point of the power play (which, to be fair, I understand given the lack of talent on the second PP unit), he has to enable others.
That’s been an ongoing concern for Hronek to this point of his young career. He has put up respectable-to-good numbers when it comes to limiting opposition shot quality – at least according to Evolving Wild’s RAPM charts – but hasn’t done much to drive offensive shot quality (or quantity, for that matter).
This is a case where certain numbers tell one story while others tell another. His offensive impact numbers are extremely poor (from Hockey Viz):

In a small sample, though, his shot-assist numbers – the rate at which he finds teammates for shots in the offensive zone – are high. It’s encouraging that he can do that, because that’s a skill that can transfer to the power play. Now, whether he can maintain that over a large sample is another matter, but at least there is a sign of encouragement.
At this point, there are still far too many moving parts here to make a determination on Hronek’s long-term value. This team, as currently constructed, is an affront to the hockey gods but is sure to get better in the next couple seasons. Will Hronek get better with them? He’s only 22 years old with less than a full NHL season under his belt. Considering that he might put up 40 points this year on this team is a glimpse into his future."