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Hirose's Hockey Smarts Shining Through |
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Taro Hirose hasn’t taken long to show everyone exactly how high his hockey IQ grades out. The college free-agent signed from Michigan State has posted assists in each of his first two NHL games with the Detroit Red Wings.
“He’s a smart player,” Wings forward Thomas Vanek told Detroitredwings.com. “Playing with him is actually real easy. The poise he has, it’s fun to play with a guy like that who thinks the game at a high level.
“And he’s not afraid to make plays, cut to the middle and hold on to pucks. I’m really impressed so far with him. He adjusts really quickly. Anything we talk to him about, he goes out there the next shift and does it.”
Wings coach Jeff Blashill took note of that last aspect of Hirose’s hockey smarts in Thursday’s 5-2 loss to the St. Louis Blues.
“Early in the first, he got squeezed off right away in the first period in the corner in the O zone.” Blashill explained. “We made a comment to him about spreading the zone and right away the next shift, he goes out and he spreads the zone.”
At 5-10 and 160 pounds, Hirose needs to think the game well in order to survive.
“When you’re a little guy especially, you have to be one step ahead,” Blashill said. “You gotta know what you’re doing with the puck before you get it. If you get in one-on-one muscle situations, you’re not winning them.
“He seems to have some of that same escapability. It looks like he wants to make a play every time he has the puck. He seems to be fairly slippery.”
Wings Recall Puempel
Veteran forward Matt Puempel was called up from AHL Grand Rapids on Friday and should make his Detroit debut Saturday against Vegas.
Puempel, 26, a 2011 first-round draft pick of the Ottawa Senators, grew up a Wings fan in nearby Essex, Ont. and recalled attending Detroit’s 1997 and 1998 Stanley Cup parades as a youngster.
One of the 10 goals he’s scored during his 79-game NHL career with the Senators and New York Rangers was a game-winner for Ottawa at Joe Louis Arena against Jimmy Howard in a 3-1 win over the Wings on Oct. 30, 2015.
Puempel has posted back-to-back 20-goal campaigns for the AHL Grand Rapids Griffins and Blashill indicated earlier this week that the team would utilize the remaining games of the NHL season to try and reward some of the Griffins who’ve played well.
“One of the things we’ve tried to do is have a really good minor-league system where our young guys go in there and it’s a great environment,” Blashill said. “With the injuries, the trades, all that, it gives us certainly opportunities to look at different people at each the forward and the D position.”
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