Maroon knows his role and steps in after superstar Connor Bedard takes a big hit.
Maroon knows his role and steps in after superstar Connor Bedard takes a big hit.
Pat Maroon was brought in this off-season to do a job and he has already shown that's exactly what he's going to do.
Maroon has been the same type of player his entire career. He hits, fights, and can chip in offensively. After signing in Chicago to play on the fourth line and do more of the first two than the third, it only took six minutes into the second game of the season to defend superstar Connor Bedard after he took a big hip check by Neal Pionk.
While the hit was clean, that doesn't seem to matter and it definitely doesn't matter in the eyes of a tough guy who was brought in to do a job. Not only did Maroon try to defend Bedard, he's no guarantee to be in the lineup every night and has to make an impact when he is on the ice and has opportunities like that.
Ultimately, Pionk got a talking to by Maroon who was standing up for his teammate, but didn't take that tradeoff. Pionk is the number two defenseman on the Winnipeg Jets and Maroon is a fourth liner.
Through two games, Maroon has 12 penalty minutes, four hits, three shots, and one assist. That's solid for what is expected of him and for the minutes he plays. He's 36 years old now and has never had the foot speed, but the part of his game that Maroon has to keep up is the physical element.
He's difficult to move from the front of the net, will fight and defend any one of his teammates, and has surprisingly good hands for a big guy focused on the more gritty part of hockey.
While Maroon happened to be on the ice with Bedard at the time the big hip check happened, the 19-year-old has also come into the season with a nastiness in his game to show that he won't be pushed around. This was shown in the pre-season, but as Bedard is the superstar, head coach Luke Richardson wants him to stay out of the scrums as much as possible since he's more useful on the ice than now.
Maroon has shown nothing but the ability to play the role he was brought in to do and that's not expected to change.
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