Khan’s latest scouting report looks at Andreas Lilja
Ansar Khan thinks that Andreas Lilja’s play in last season’s playoffs might have earned him a shot in the top 4 amongst Detroit’s rotation of defensemen.
Lilja was the odd-man out often times in the regular season and wasn’t happy about it. Unless the Wings bring back Danny Markov or acquire somebody else of note (not likely), Lilja should head into the season in the top four. It’ll be interesting to see who coach Mike Babcock pairs with Nicklas Lidstrom, but it shouldn’t be Lilja, who’d be much better off on the second pairing (with Brian Rafalski?), playing against opponents’ second lines most of the time.
One pairing several Red Wings fans have wanted to see is Nick Lidstrom and Nik Kronwall. That could happen but I get the sense that Lidstrom could be paired with with Rafalski. That would be a great tandem for Detroit’s puck possession style of play. If that ended up being the top pairing they could eat up 25-30 minutes per game. Then you could pair up Nik Kronwall with Lilja. They are both physical defensemen but Kronner is a little undersized. So long as Lilja continues to use his size and play the way he did in the playoffs he shouldn’t have any problem getting 10+ minutes a night.
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