D-fense! D-fense!
You know the chant, right?
Since the days of Nicklas Lidstrom, Brian Rafalski, Chris Chelios and the early days of Niklas Kronwall, it’s been more like “D-fense? D-fense?”
Here’s why the chant has changed its tune.
In 2013, former Detroit Red Wings general manager Ken Holland took forward Anthony Mantha. He followed that up with forward Dylan Larkin in 2014 and forward Evgeny Svechnikov in 2015 before selecting defenseman Dennis Cholowski in 2016.
More forwards followed with Michael Rasmussen in 2017 and the duo of Filip Zadina and Joseph Veleno in 2018 before he was wedged out of town by the savior, Steve Yzerman.