I think we\u2019ve seen the story all too often of a young player coming up from the AHL, being inserted on the fourth line and not making an impact.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not every story.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Some players have games that translate into a bottom-six role, despite playing higher in the lineup in the AHL. I look at an Andre Lee<\/a>, who scored 26 goals with the Ontario Reign last season but is able to find a role lower in the lineup with the Kings. Taylor Ward<\/a> has scored at a 28-goal pace in the AHL over the last two seasons, but has succeeded lower in the lineup in the NHL.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t think that Martin Chromiak<\/a> is one of those players. He\u2019s a player with speed, skill and a heck of a shot. At every level, where he has found success has been when he\u2019s been allowed and encouraged to play to his strengths. Chromiak played lower in the lineup at times in Ontario and there was some production but he really flourished when playing in a role tailored more to his game.\u00a0<\/p>\n So, when the Kings learned on Saturday morning that Adrian Kempe<\/a> would miss that day’s game, it was Chromiak who was selected to play, for his NHL debut. Often times before in these situations, we’ve seen players move up in the lineup with a young player slotting in behind. Yesterday, Chromiak was a 1-for-1 swap, skating on the top offensive line with Artemi Panarin<\/a> and Alex Laferriere<\/a>. On the power play, the Kings actually moved the pieces around a bit to slot Chromiak in, with Panarin playing more on the right side of the ice, allowing Chromiak to be a shooting threat on his preferred left circle.\u00a0<\/p>\n I think that\u2019s something that differs with Peter Laviolette and the current coaching staff. Chromiak, when in the lineup, was put into a place where his skillset could thrive. That was the plan and something Laviolette has tried to do in the past with similar players.<\/p>\n “When you recall people from the American Hockey League, my thought anyway is to try and place them in a position of success and then make adjustments from there,\u201d Laviolette said. \u201cI think there\u2019s either positives that come from that or you maybe have to look for something different, but he’s a guy who brings speed, he brings skill, he brings the ability to score goals. So, we\u2019re trying to slot him in a position where he can take advantage of that.\u201d<\/p>\n It’s not every day that a player gets to say the other winger on his line during his NHL debut was Artemi Panarin.<\/p>\n Not a bad way to be introduced to the league.\u00a0<\/p>\n Chromiak was certainly set up for success and I thought he looked the part in his first game. He probably had the best Los Angeles chance in the first period, on a quick-release shot off the rush with Alex Laferriere, a shot which was blockered away by Buffalo goaltender Ukka-Pekka Luukkonen. Later in the game, he took a pass from defenseman Brandt Clarke and used his speed to create a partial breakaway, thwarted only by an unbelievable defensive play in recovery by defenseman Owen Zellweger. He had a decent second-period look on a one-timer on the power play as well.\u00a0<\/p>\n In total, Chromiak finished with eight shot attempts and five scoring chances, per Natural Stat Trick, though only the power-play chance was recorded as a shot on goal. Maybe just as importantly, as a rookie, he not only didn\u2019t slow down Panarin and Laferriere, but it felt like he helped that line have a pretty dangerous night.<\/p>\n The trio played 11:34 together at 5-on-5, per Natural Stat Trick, and had a 23-12 on-ice advantage in shot attempts. Scoring chances were 15-8 in their favor. Any line driven by Panarin, especially with the way Laferriere is playing right now, will probably have their share of offensive-zone possession. It was nice, though, to see how seamlessly Chromiak was able to slot in.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cHe brought speed to the lineup and I thought that line was really good, they generated a lot of pucks at the net, they generated a lot of offensive-zone time,\u201d Laviolette said after the game. \u201cHe brings speed, he\u2019s got skill, he\u2019s got a release that could score goals. I thought he had chances where he could have had two or three goals tonight. For him, I thought it was a good debut. I thought that the line generated a lot tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I think we\u2019ve seen the story all too often of a young player coming up from the AHL,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":949746,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":["post-949745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/949745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=949745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/949745\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/949746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=949745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=949745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=949745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}