panoo

Posted by Ansar Khan
July 16, 2007 06:00AM

One of the new rules the NHL adopted coming out of the lockout prohibited players from abusing opponents in front of the net. Nobody was happier about this than Tomas Holmstrom.

Since Holmstrom entered the NHL in 1996, nobody has absorbed more punishment around the crease. His willingness to pay the price has provided the Wings a dimension most other teams lack, particularly on the power play. And now that he doesn't have to worry about getting cross-checked in the back by a defenseman or slashed in the ankles by a goaltender, he's been that much more effective. He's scored 30 and 29 goals in each of the last two seasons, the most productive of his career.

But Holmstrom does more than just plop himself in front of the net. He works hard and has terrific hands, an uncanny ability to twist and turn his stick to get just the right touch on those blasts from the point, so they deflect on net most of the time. He also has an underrated wrist shot, though he doesn't get to use it much.

Holmstrom struggled the first 2½ months of the season last year, before having the good fortune of being placed on a line with Henrik Zetterberg and Pavel Datsyuk in mid-December. Holmstrom was an ideal complement to the two talented stars as they formed the hottest line in the NHL until Zetterberg was idled by a back injury on Feb. 26.

Holmstrom was fortunate to miss only three games after a nasty eye injury in Game 6 of the first round of the playoffs against Calgary. After a slow start in the postseason, he was starting to heat up, with five goals in six games, before Anaheim's Chris Pronger slammed his head into the glass in Game 3 of the Western Conference finals. Holmstrom wasn't the same after that, barely noticeable the final three games of the series.

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