Happy New Years to all of you! Another month of Hawks hockey as come to an end and well, there isn’t much to say on how this month played out besides that “hockey… was played. This team took the ice for 13 games this month and it was arguably going to be a very tough month as they were set to face teams that have already made their mark as being playoff teams and teams who were going to be dangerous as they were desperately trying to turn their season around.
The month started off great with an upset victory over the struggling New York Rangers. However, that would be the lone bright spot until almost the end of the month as the team went on their 2nd 8 game losing streak of the season. The Hawks finished December with a 2-11 record, which has helped them get pole position for the 1st overall pick in the draft lottery.
Taking a little bit of a deeper look at the stats from the month, offense has been an absolute struggle for this team as they only scored 21 goals this month and are averaging 1.62 goals per game. Defense hasn’t been much as they have given up 49 goals while averaging 3.77 goals against despite having some great performances from their goalies. Special teams have not fair any better as they have seen their power play unit drop to 26th in the league with them converting only 17.1% of the time. They also gave up 2 shorthanded goals; ironically enough, against the Columbus Blue Jackets, the team they are battling for draft position. If you thought the power play was bad, the penally kill is even worse. They finished this month with a 68.8% kill right, which is good enough to rank them 29th in the league, woof.
Trying to find some sort of positive from this past month, you have to look into the face off percentage stat. This team continues to dominate in the dot, finishing the month with a 57.1% win percentage ranking them 2nd behind the Bruins, who have won 57.2% of their draws. This team is absolutely killing it across the board when it comes to draws; they have a 73.4% win rate on the power play, which is 6.7% better than the next team. They are winning 58.6% of their draws in the offensive zone and 56.2% in the defensive zone. For how good Toews and Domi have been this year, its a little sicking that its all for nothing as this team continues to struggle with puck possessions. The centers are giving them every opportunity to start each possession on the attack, but rarely does that come to fruition.
Have I mentioned yet that this team has struggled with offense this month? Looking at player production, not one player reached double digits in points. Patrick Kane almost got there finishing the month with 9 points (3g+6A), its been a rough go for the future hall of famer which saw him go on an 8 game goalless drought. Max Domi continues to have a surprising season as he picked up an other 8 points this month (4g+4a) and Jonathan Toews mission to prove that he can still contribute in this league kept going as he found himself with 7 more points (3g+4a). So what can we learn from the month of December? Pretty much what we already knew, this is a team that is not good, but its what we expected. The crazy thing about this team though, is even though they are not playing good hockey at all, they also aren’t letting themselves get blown out every game. 9 of the 11 loses where by 3 goals or less and the other two were embarrassing blowouts. However, the foundation for the rebuild is being laid out and this team is inching closer and closer to the 2nd ultimate prize, the 1st overall pick.
So what does January hold? They have another 13 games this month which start out with a 7 game home stand. They face four teams who currently are under.500 (San Jose, Arizona, Philadelphia, and Vancouver) and everyone else are in playoff spots or within a few points of playoff positions. We might get to see a few extra wins this month, but the really big question is when are we going to see trades happen. One mid January hits, teams will really evaluate where they are and what their needs are and you have to assume the first few phone calls that get made are to Kyle Davidson about 19 and 88. I am going to predict this team matches Decembers record and finishes 2-11 with victories against the Coyotes and the Flyers.
One more thing before I go, just for fun I looked up the Hawks record for the year of 2022. In 87 total games last year they finished with a record of 25-50-12 good for 62 points. If the season was January 1st to December 31st, the Hawks would have finished 31st in the league. Yup, this team has and continues to stink out loud. Check out the latest episode of the WCBPodcast