Notes: Hronek still finding his way in preseason

DETROIT -- Four preseason games down, four to go before the tough decisions have to be made.
The battle for spots on the Detroit Red Wings blue line continues tonight in Chicago.

Joe Hicketts, Dennis Cholowski, Filip Hronek and Libor Sulak are all slated to play against the Blackhawks.
"Libor's been really good, Dennis has been really good. Hicketts probably has been the best of the group so far," Wings coach Jeff Blashill said Monday. "Certainly there's four more games left. I thought that was Hronek's best game (Sunday) night. He can produce offense, too, so I think it's a good thing those guys are all really pushing. I'd say it's still wide open and there's obviously a couple spots open with (Mike Green) out to start the year. We'll see where next two games take us."
Hronek, who was on the AHL's All-Rookie team last year, has one assist in two games but is still finding his way.
"It's hard a little bit," Hronek admitted after Tuesday's morning skate. "I don't feel great. I try to do my best. I didn't feel comfortable yet. It's still the start of the season."
Hronek, 20, was the Wings' second-round pick, 53rd overall, in the 2016 NHL Entry Draft.
Considered one of the favorites to make the Red Wings roster out of camp, the expectations might be weighing on him a bit.
"I need to get good timing and gap. It's taken a little bit, I think," he said. "If you don't have gap, it's harder than usually you do. It's harder to make some good plays or some easy breakout passes."
Blashill said confidence is important for every young player, not just the young ones trying to make the team.
"It's a huge factor in success," Blashill said. "Mental toughness is the difference between the guys that ultimately make it and the guys that don't. Everybody makes mistakes, everybody gets knocked down. Who keeps getting back up over and over again, those all go hand in hand. Andy Greene, the captain of New Jersey, told me that a long time ago when I was coaching still at Miami and he had left and just had made his way onto Jersey. He said the difference between him and a number of other guys wasn't a big discrepancy in talent. In the end, he was real mentally tough.
"So whether it's Fil or any of our other young players, they got to go out and they can't be afraid to make mistakes. They got to play, they got to listen to instruction and try to get better, but then go out and not let either a mistake or the coach getting on him or anything else get him down and just keep playing. I believe he's got that in him so hopefully he plays real well tonight."
One of Hronek's strengths has always been his ability to quarterback a power play but Blashill said he hasn't had enough opportunity yet to show what he can do this preseason.
Each of the four young defensemen has different abilities, but there is something they'll all have to prove they can do to make the team.
"I think breaking the puck out of pressure is probably the thing we need most from our group," Blashill said. "I think that's one of the things that bogged us down the most is we couldn't get ourselves out of our end under pressure. Cholo does it with a lot of poise. I would say Libor does it with his skating. I would say Hicks does it with his physicality and his competitiveness. Probably same with Hronek. Hronek's kind of got a combo of Cholo and Hicketts there. I think getting out of our end is probably the biggest thing."
HICKETTS BEING HICKETTS: Unlike Hronek, Hicketts has already settled in nicely, playing in three of the first four preseason games.
"It's good, as an athlete, you'd rather be playing games than practicing and I'm no different," Hicketts said. "It's nice going out there and getting looks and game reps. You can't replicate that in practice. For me, getting up to game speed and your timing back and everything, it's been really good so far."

Blashill has said that what Hicketts needs to do is eliminate the big mistakes from his game, which is something he's diligently working on.
"I think defensively I have been really responsible and that's the one thing I wanted to do coming into camp I wanted to make sure physically and mentally I was ready to battle and compete, coming in that was a focus of mine," Hicketts said. "If it's blocking shots, hitting, getting pins, working on getting the puck out as fast as I can. In the first three games that I've played I had limited D-zone time, which has been a factor in how I've been playing."
Hicketts feels he is ready for the NHL at this point in his career, which he may have wanted before but not felt as confident.
"Obviously, preseason (last year) I was close to earning a job, I knew I could potentially do it, but the five games I played at the end when teams were making their playoff push, I played New Jersey, Pittsburgh, Columbus, teams that were battling for position and I thought I didn't look out of place," Hicketts said. "When you can play at that level at that time of year it does wonders for confidence. It gave me a baseline to go into the summer with. It was knowing what to work on skating-wise, strength, speed-wise, I think I took that and ran with it."
VELENO GONE, NOT FORGOTTEN: For his first NHL camp, Joe Veleno did everything he needed to do.
The Red Wings returned Veleno to his junior team, the QMJHL's Drummondville Voltigeurs, on Monday after the young center had appeared in three preseason games, getting two assists.
"I thought he showed real well," Blashill said. "In the prospects tournament, we talked about him getting better as it went along there. But in the end, we felt as a group, certainly best for him to go back and build upon the confidence he's built here in camp. Hopefully he's taken a couple of things home with him. We told him a couple things he's got to go back and try to really work on in junior. It's hard sometimes because he can get away with stuff in junior, it's hard to get yourself to do some of that stuff. He looks like a real good prospect."
Blashill admitted that Veleno could be on the fast track to Detroit if things work out.
"We told him, have a focus of trying to make the team next year," Blashill said. "Now he's got to go have a great year. It starts by going and having a great year. Ken talked about that. We talked about more speed from the top of the circle to the top of the circle. He's got to get going so he doesn't get caught by the track. Then, like any player, he could probably get away with a bunch of stuff defensively in that league that he's not going to get away with at our level and you got to have the coaches' trust in order to play. If he does those things and has a great summer, then he puts himself in a position to compete for a spot a year from now."
Blashill said the experience Veleno got from playing against the likes of Pittsburgh's Evgeni Malkin and Derick Brassard can't be underestimated.
"I think us telling him is one thing, him understanding it for real because he's played against real competition with real players, is a great thing," Blashill said. "So I think he'll go back and be a better player for the time spent in camp."
Although there are things that players can get away with in junior hockey that they can't at the NHL level, Blashill said there are still things Veleno can do to get better.
"I think you have to make a real mental decision that you're not just going to be real good for that level, you're going to do all the things it's going to take to allow you to be great at the next level," Blashill said. "Lots of guys don't do that. But at least he has the awareness and now it's his choice to make. To skate hard from the top of the circle to the top of the circle, without the puck. Getting used to three hard strides as hard as he can with the puck isn't something that he would be incapable of doing at that level. He's got lots of craftiness but he wants to go into what I call the tripod too quick instead of exploding with three strides right away. He can get better at that, he can get better for sure at building that body into an NHL body, that's one thing that's easy to do at any other level.
"The defensive side of things, I think just the consciousness. My understanding is Team Canada wants him to make sure he's great defensively if he wants to make the world junior team so it's good for us. It goes hand in hand."
INJURY UPDATE: Although he is not ready to return to practice, it sounds like Mike Green (virus) is improving.
"The hard part with that in terms of putting weeks on it is you don't know when he first got it and how deep he was into at the onset," Blashill said. "I would say if anything, he's ahead of schedule."
Both Jonathan Ericsson and Danny DeKeyser (upper body) returned to practice, but aren't expected to play Wednesday. Blashill is hoping to have them play this weekend.
"It's just my finger a little bit, kind of bruised up or whatever," DeKeyser said. "Nothing too serious. It felt a little better today."
Meanwhile, Trevor Daley is now out with a lower-body injury.
"Daley won't be available tomorrow for sure," Blashill said. "If it's beyond that, I don't know. I don't think it's a months-type thing but whether he'll be available for this weekend, I'm not sure. He wants to play one more game, he just told me. But our focus would be to try to make sure he's ready for Columbus. I don't think it'd be longer than that."
Blashill said goaltender Jonathan Bernier, who has been out with a lower-body injury, should be ready to play Wednesday in Boston.