There’s been a lot of discussion amongst fans and media about Marco Kasper as he’s, to put it lightly, struggled heavily this season. The young center has faced a lot of adversity in his sophomore season, looking at times like he wasn’t sure what he was doing on the ice. Head coach Todd McLellan put him on just about every line with one combination of players or another in order to get the young center going, and keeping the faith has paid off.
Keeping Steady
While Kasper has been leading the team in hits for a while now, he’s struggled to find an impact on the scoresheet. However, he broke his nearly three month long scoring drought with a two point night and an empty net goal against the San Jose Sharks. He’s had three points since the start of the new year. As Coach McLellan put it, “He looks like a different player right now. I don’t know if he hit rock bottom and built himself back up, but he’s done a real good job. ”
The last time Kasper had a two point night was the Red Wings Oct. 30 shootout victory against the L.A. Kings, where he had two goals on the night against head coach Todd McLellan's last team (if he manages to get a two point game against the Edmonton Oilers at some point this season, Kasper will have completed the McLellan trifecta). Since that night, Kasper had been limited to just two assists in December after a disastrous November where he didn't post a single stat for the final scorebox outside of the penalty box and the hits marker.
Sending Kasper down to Grand Rapids might’ve looked like the right move from the outside, especially as the young Austrian has struggled immensely through long stretches of the season. But keeping him with a group of players that he’s familiar with and who have such a valuable wealth of knowledge to offer like Patrick Kane helped him keep a level head and show a maturity beyond his years. Not to mention he had fellow Red Wings Lucas Raymond and Dylan Larkin to look to.
After all, it wasn’t too long ago that the both of them had their sophomore slumps.