Player Grades: Jonathan Ericsson

Player Profile

Name: Jonathan Ericsson

Born: Karlskrona, Sweden

Age: 33

Height/Weight: 6’4” / 220lbs

Position: D

Player Stats

GP: 51

G: 1

A: 8

PIM: 63

ATOI: 19:13

Jonathan Ericsson is an elite top-line defenseman, his experience makes him a great mentor for up and coming defenseman and he would be an asset to the Las Vegas Golden Knights, or any other NHL team that wants to win games. Please leave this page now and start preparing how to bring him to your team.

Ok, are they gone? Good.

Red Wings fans, hello.

Season Narrative

Before the season began, Ericsson revealed that he has been battling a hip ailment (hip impingement) that requires regular treatment but has not reached the point where he wants to have surgery. As a bonus, he also mentioned there is some arthritis and that he had trouble walking after some games. Whatever treatment regimen he settled on over the offseason seemed to have helped, as he appeared to be skating better than last season.

Ericsson was briefly sidelined due to back spasms in December, which may or may not have been related to his hip issue(s). If it was, I expect we will see this injury pop up again throughout the rest of his too long career.

Oh, and he got a little bit hit in the face by a puck in October.

The big injury came in February against Washington when he was hit from behind by Nicklas Backstrom and crashed awkwardly into the boards, fracturing his wrist. This injury had him sidelined for the rest of the season, opening the door for our younger defensemen to take on bigger roles down the stretch and gain very valuable experience.

So the season narrative other than injuries? Penalties.

Jonathan Ericsson started the season with two fights, which I’ll say he won. Then in early November he was hilariously dropped by Wayne Simmonds in one punch. The penalties he took were generally dumb, with him throwing elbows and various roughing penalties.

What He Did vs. Expectations

He took too many penalties, maybe exceeding expectations on the number of minutes and misconducts, but I certainly didn’t expect him to play responsibly. He averaged 3.86 PIM per game. To his credit, he had better mobility this year allowing him to have better positioning and contribute more on the penalty kill, except when he was in the box which was a lot.

He had 9 takeaways...and 27 giveaways. Not ideal for a defenseman. In fact I’d say it’s pretty terrible, considering he only played 51 games. That -18 ratio is good for 802nd best in the NHL, out of 983. So he wasn’t the absolute worst, and this is actually a big improvement over his last two seasons...hooray?

He’s on the decline and going downhill fast, so I guess he met expectations because if you were expecting him to positively contribute and actually play like a first liner than I admire your optimism but am also very concerned about you.

I’m not good with hockey stats, but even I can look at a chart and when the note says “good players have bubbles in the bottom right” and Ericsson’s bubbles are not in the bottom right, I can conclude that he is not good.

Blashill gives him a lot of credit for the “intangibles” blah blah nobody appreciates what he brings to the game blah blah blah he’s a big body *fart noise*. At the end of the day, we’re stuck with him unless we can find a way to trick someone else into taking him.

Final Grade: D

His season was incomplete, and it’s hard to say how he would have performed the rest of the way. On the scoresheet, he was actually on pace to have a decent season (for him), again except for the whole let’s take penalties every game thing. When he was handling the puck, he wasn’t making actively destructive plays, so I’ll give him a little extra credit for that.