from Travis Yost of TSN,

Who is Filip Hronek?

Not in the literal sense. We have seen Hronek play in more than 300 games at this point of his career, with the 25-year-old blueliner spending five seasons with the Detroit Red Wings organization before being dealt to Vancouver at last year’s trade deadline.

Despite his looming restricted free agency status (his current three-year contract expires at the end of the 2023-24 regular season), the Canucks were aggressive in their pursuit, and ended up forking over a first- and second-round pick to add the defenceman. Perhaps for good reason: Hronek at his best is a fantastic puck carrier and transitional player, one who can ignite a team’s offence from the blueline. We saw flashes of it when he was with Detroit, even amidst a rebuilding lineup that was shallow on high-end talent.

But it hasn’t always been great with Hronek. On those same talent-weak teams, we saw him struggle from time to time defending the run of play. Video of the first few years of his career is ripe with turnovers against sustained defensive-zone pressure, and even when Hronek wasn’t giving the puck away, he was all too willing to chip the puck out of the zone or simply play it off the boards.

That style of play tends to run very counter to what teams expect from top-four puck movers in the modern era, as defencemen are increasingly tasked with driving offensive play.

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