From The Silky Mitten State: Chiarot's excellent form, veteran presence, and OT juju paying dividends for the Red Wings
Ben Chiarot has been a polarizing figure since he signed a four-year, $19 million deal with the Red Wings on July 13th, 2022. To the more old school fan, he is fast and physical, requiring little justification for his presence in the lineup. To the analytically inclined, his poor underlying numbers suggest a player who spends entirely too much time in his own end to be of use.
What's undeniable at the moment is that Chiarot is in excellent form, manifesting most obviously in his role in consecutive OT winners against Seattle and Colorado, for which he dubbed himself an "overtime assassin." However, it's also on display in the steady reliability of his play beside Jeff Petry on the Red Wings' second defense pair.
On the most recent episode of The Silky Mitten State, my co-host Connor Earegood and I discussed Chiarot's strong start to 2024. We touched on his chemistry with Petry (stretching back to their shared days in Montreal), the importance of assertiveness (both offensively and defensively) to that pair's success, as well as some of the discourse around Chiarot's analytic profile and contract. Regardless of what you may think of his underlying numbers, it's clear at the moment that Chiarot (with Petry beside him) fits into a schema on the Detroit blue line that amounts to a winning formula.
You can watch an excerpt of that conversation below:
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