NEWARK, N.J. — Anton Frondell could never have imagined how much everything was going to change for him on and off the ice when he recently joined the Chicago Blackhawks.

In his seventh day in the NHL, the 18-year-old Frondell ran down all the differences from what he experienced back home in Sweden.

“So much different,” Frondell said after the morning skate Sunday. “Flying your own planes between cities, staying at those luxury hotels, so good food, good meals whatever we get. The game, faster. It goes so much faster. Everyone is so good. It’s also all English, which is also a difference. It feels like a new world in the hockey. Yeah, I love it.”

Also different: his new teammates trying out new nicknames for him. In Sweden, he was called Frondy or Frodo. In Chicago, they’ve tried some different variations.

“Now, they’re doing some Frondizi, Fronzi,” Frondell said. “I don’t know, everything works. It’s just fun.”

Blackhawks coach Jeff Blashill added to the pile of newness for Frondell on Sunday against the New Jersey Devils by moving him to center after he played his first three NHL games at wing on Connor Bedard’s line. Frondell played some center earlier in the season with Djurgården in the Swedish Hockey League, but he mostly played on the wing because Djurgården’s coaching staff thought he became too focused on being defensively reliable and played less to his offensive strengths.

Blashill watched Frondell throughout this season and found himself wondering whether Frondell’s future might be at center for the Blackhawks. It was something Blashill wanted to look at at some point.

“As I said to Anton, he hasn’t played center all year, so it’s probably not the easiest position to put him in — I recognize that,” Blashill said. “But he’s played center a lot in his life, and I think he’s got traits to be a really good 200-foot winning center. And I’d like to get a look at it this year rather than at the beginning of next year, so that if that’s the way we go, we can hit the ground running with whatever might be. It’s going to put a lot on his shoulders, and it might affect his game a little bit until he gets real comfortable, but I want to look at it anyways.”

Frondell thought he might need a refresher course on his responsibilities at center before hitting the ice against the Devils. He did have some concerns about his faceoffs after winning just one of his first four.

“I already tried a couple faceoffs against (Bo) Horvat and the (New York) Islanders, and they didn’t do good at all there,” he said. “Hopefully I’ll be better at the faceoff dot, practice my faceoffs.”

Faceoffs didn’t go well against the Devils either, as he won two of nine, but he had better results in his other center duties. He stole the puck from Devils goalie Jake Allen behind the net and set up Ilya Mikheyev in the first period to put the Blackhawks ahead 1-0. Overall, he and his line had some chances and gave up some chances. The Devils had the better analytics with him on the ice, but they weren’t lopsided in a 5-3 loss.

“I thought he did good,” Blashill said. “He’s not even a week into his NHL career, playing center against some really good players at times. I thought he looked good. He’s really strong on the puck, wins a ton of those, stops on pucks. He’s got a lot of winning habits. He did a good job.”

Frondell has shown a knack for creating offense in his first four games. He added a secondary assist on the power play Sunday after starting with a primary assist to Mikheyev in his debut. He also set up Bedard with a spinning, no-look pass against the Philadelphia Flyers in his second game.

But … did he mean to do that?

“The spin pass? … I don’t … I just saw, I think, it was (Ryan) Greene in the front of the net and Bedsy was coming down with speed,” Frondell said. “I just tried to throw it in there. It was lucky, yeah. I want to say it was on purpose, but no.”

The stick with which Frondell made that pass is unlike any on the Blackhawks. The CCM sticks he’s had all season were provided to him by Djurgården.

“I heard like my stick is hard to find or whatever,” Frondell said. “It’s a stock stick. It’s not custom made or pro. I think it’s called a stock stick. You buy it from the store.”

The problem is those stock sticks are hard to find. Frondell probably has enough to get through the season; he said he brought about 15 with him. Finding custom-made pro sticks will be on his list of items this offseason.

The Blackhawks were better offensively against the Devils on Sunday. Frank Nazar provided two goals and kept up his recent surge. But their defense continued the trend of giving up a lot of chances: The Blackhawks allowed a season-high 92 shot attempts Sunday. The previous high, 90, came Tuesday against the Islanders.

During the Blackhawks’ four-game road trip, they allowed 19 goals, 322 shot attempts, 168 shots on goal and 200 scoring chances at all strengths. At five-on-five, they earned expected goals rates of 29.86, 29.25, 23.78 and 27.81 percent.

Blashill understands some of that is the Blackhawks’ reality right now with how young they are and introducing two players to the NHL this past week.

“We don’t want to give up two-on-ones for fun, for sure,” Blashill said. “But whatever I saw before the game, I think our oldest center was 22 and our D could be playing in the NCAA tournament right now. They’re going to make some mistakes, and we’re going to have to be patient, and they’re going to have to learn. … It’s part of it, man. It’s part of where we’re at. We’ve got to keep grinding through and making sure, as we go through some of these frustrating moments where we gave up a lead late, that we’re learning. There’s nothing wrong with failure if you learn from it.”

Artyom Levshunov is dealing with a hand injury and missed Sunday’s game. (Bruce Bennett / Getty Images)

Defenseman Artyom Levshunov missed Sunday’s game after he played through a small fracture on his left hand for nearly three games. He suffered the injury during the New York Islanders game Tuesday. Neither he nor the Blackhawks are exactly sure how he injured it; he told the team it may have happened on a deflection.

Blashill hoped to know Levshunov’s timetable after he received more imaging on the hand Monday.

“He’s a tough kid so he played through that pain,” Blashill said. “As it kept going, we got more imaging and found that.”

With Levshunov out of the lineup, Blashill chose to go with five forwards on his top power-play unit. He placed Bedard at the top of the power play along with Frondell, Nazar, Teuvo Teräväinen and Tyler Bertuzzi.

“It gets the puck in Connor’s hands a lot,” Blashill said. “It’s easier to get the puck in his hands up top than it is on the flank. He’s talked about wanting that opportunity to do it. He’s obviously a really, really smart player. He’s got good deception. We thought, let’s give it a try and see it. It’s something we talked about through the year. Obviously the power play hasn’t gone very well lately. We felt it was a good time to give it a try.”

Blashill will probably need to see the unit more before deciding whether to stick with it. The Blackhawks had three power plays Sunday and scored on a five-on-three power play.