“Him and I have talked about making sure that he eliminates any big minuses,” Blashill said. “So make sure on a consistent basis, night to night he’s doing a good job of not giving away any easy chances. And finding a way to push our power play to being better.
“It’s just growing as a player and he certainly has taken steps from when he first got here.”
The “in Detroit” is doing a lot of work here, but Hronek is still improving as a defenseman. What’s curious to me is how he seems to keep fading later in the season.
I just want this to end the discussion that you can’t possibly have a penalty AND a dive on the same play and that there should only ever be one called. This is absolutely both and I’d be incredibly surprised if Kucherov didn’t get a private warning for this reaction, since as far as I know the NHL standard for diving penalties still involves a secret warning before a public fine.