The Blackhawks are staying the course, at least for now, and that means Jeff Blashill is leaning on adjustments instead of a teardown.
After a brutal 4-13-1 start and a miserable three-game road trip, Chicago returned home and practiced Monday with the same coaching staff still in place. News broke Sunday that the Blackhawks would not be making staff changes at this point, even after Saturday’s 9-2 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes made the need for answers look obvious.
Blashill and his assistants met with management Sunday to go over the situation, pinpoint problem areas and talk through possible changes. But once the team got on the ice Monday, it was clear the response was going to be more measured than dramatic.
The Blackhawks sit 31st in the 32-team standings, have won only four of 14 games this season and are near the bottom in just about every meaningful statistical category. Their minus-37 goal differential is the worst in franchise history through 18 games. Even so, Blashill said the priority is to work with the current structure rather than rip it up.
“You can look at full-scale changes, and you can look at tweaks,” Blashill said. “I think midseason, we certainly prefer tweaks to full-scale changes, and that’s what we’re looking at right now.”
He said the concern with sweeping changes is that they could leave players second-guessing everything.
“If you make full-scale changes, [we] could walk on the ice Thursday and guys are super hesitant and don’t know what they’re doing. That’s the worst possible situation. For me, it was more looking at identifying areas, either changes in the points of emphasis or tweaks in how we do things, to make sure that we correct the areas where we’re struggling.”
Those points of emphasis showed up at practice. Blashill said the team focused on basic defending, including playing “body on body”, along with defensive-zone tracking and net-front coverage.
Another major issue is the 2-1-2 forecheck, which has been exposed in transition all season. Blashill said the Blackhawks have allowed the most 2-on-1 rushes in the league by a lot, and the tape backs that up.
The defensemen have been pinching aggressively along the walls in the neutral zone and at the opposing blue line, with the high forward supposed to cover behind them. Too often, that support hasn’t been there, and opponents have turned it into odd-man rushes.
Blashill wants his defensemen to be smarter about when they step down the walls and more aware of when a pinch is too risky. He also wants the high forward to be automatic in support and to track the middle of the ice instead of drifting toward the boards.
Nearly a quarter of the way through the season, the Blackhawks still haven’t fully sorted out Blashill’s system, but the coach said the group remains committed to it. He said he’s been talking with players since the team got back from Carolina, trying to figure out whether the issue is hesitation or confusion.
“I had a lot of conversations with our players about whether we know what we’re doing or if there’s hesitation… As I talked to the players, there was full belief in the systems that we’re doing. I didn’t get any feel of ‘Why are we doing this?’, and I’ve gotten that in the past. I got zero [sense] of that.”
Chicago’s next chance to show those tweaks mean something comes Thursday against the Buffalo Sabres.
Spencer Knight, meanwhile, didn’t sound interested in soft-pedaling anything.
The Blackhawks goalie, who has a 4-10-0 record and an .881 save percentage but ranks second in the NHL with 364 saves, spoke after practice about Arvid Soderblom being placed on waivers. His comments were blunt, and they landed like a shot across the room.
“I look at myself and the people in this room - (we) should be pissed off at ourselves for letting us allow that to happen,” Knight said, referring to Soderblom being cut from the NHL roster. “I think we put him in pretty shitty spots, to be honest with you.
I’m sure there’s times he wanted to perform and play better, but… I think there are times that we fucked him over as a team. I wish I could be there for him.
When suddenly that happens to your teammate, especially as a goalie partner, I don’t feel good about it. I hope everyone on the team takes a little pride in the sense that we can’t let that stuff happen, and we can’t put our teammates in those spots.”
Knight doesn’t usually talk like that, which is exactly why the message hit so hard. He was direct about the way the team has left its goaltenders exposed, and his frustration matched the reality of what’s happened in front of him. The numbers say plenty, but Knight’s point said even more.
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