Helene St. James

Detroit Free Press

Jonathan Ericsson challenged himself to be better, and so far, he has been.

After an admittedly poor 2015-16, the big Detroit Red Wings defenseman has had a solid start to this season, earning special praise from his coach after a very good night against San Jose over the weekend.

That helped grow a winning streak to four games as the Wings next play Tuesday against Carolina. Justin Abdelkader missed the last game and didn’t practice Monday, but was not ruled out against the Hurricanes by Jeff Blashill.

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With Niklas Kronwall out indefinitely because of a bad knee (he skated with strength and conditioning coach Mike Kadar Monday, but not with the team), a better performance from Ericsson is crucial – which he knows.

Ericsson said he felt he needed to “come back and prove I can still play and be a lot better player than I left last season.”

He was a big part of Saturday’s penalty kill success against San Jose, and showed how effective he can be when his hustle led to a pass to Gustav Nyquist that became a goal.

“It’s something that I’m trying to work on, to move my feet more and not get standing still, making passes,” Ericsson said.

Ericsson is playing with hip impingement, but said “I improved a lot during the off-season with that, mobility wise, strength wise. It’s always going to be there, but it’s not a big issue.”

Better mobility has translated to better puck management.

“He’s done a real good job of taking the extra second when needed to make sure he is making the right decision with the puck,” Blashill said. “When you're a big man, you usually have a little more time than you think – even if you are under pressure, you can hold guys off with your body, and he’s done a real good job of holding guys off with his body and taking that extra second to make the right decision.

“He’s been physical, physical from a fighting standpoint, physical from just the playing standpoint – he’s won lots of battles. The Nyquist goal the other night, he won a battle in our own zone and that helped us exit out of the zone. So he’s been really good.”

Ericsson has been paired the past few games with Alexey Marchenko, who played much better Saturday after a rough opening week personally.

Third Star: Mike Green’s hat trick in the home opener and five points overall during the winning streak earned him the NHL’s third star, for the week ending Oct. 23.

Contact Helene St. James: hstjames@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @helenestjames.