Follow JJ on Twitter @jaeckel!
What a nice problem to have: dissecting what's "wrong" with your team when you've gone 7-1-1 in your last nine.
That said, the Blackhawks did not deserve to win last night, outshot 44-24 by the Carolina Hurricanes, and saved by yet another stellar performance by goalie Corey Crawford.
That's the one silver lining to this season of strange ups and downs and odd statistical anomalies for the Hawks: the goaltending duo of Crawford, playing arguably the best hockey of his career, and revelatory rookie Scott Darling is as good as it's been for Chicago in 20 years.
And if the Hawks don't get the ship righted in the next ten games or so, they will need Crawford and, if necessary, Darling to be that good in the playoffs.
So what exactly is wrong here?
The Hawks were not dominant, nor dominated, in the face-off dot last night: 50%. For the year, they're roughly 52%, 6th best in the league. That's not "the problem."
One no-duh issue is they don't shoot enough. A problem this particular Hawk club has had all year is tending to overhandle and overpass the puck, as opposed to just putting it on net and looking for a rebound.
Another interesting and very telling statistic is that this Hawk team, unlike many past seasons, and especially the 2010 and 2013 Stanley Cup teams, is a "possession" style team that, at least in a couple of statistical areas, doesn't possess the puck all that well.
Giveaways and takeaways are somewhat skewed by the subjectivity of scorers in different buildings around the league. That said, how teams rank is skewed only by a bias or inaccuracy in their own building. Otherwise, all teams are on the same footing.
The Hawks rank 11th this season in takeaways. And a more respectable 18th (lower being better) in giveaways. In 2010 they were 5th in takeaways and 24th in giveaways (both better). In 2013, they were 1st in takeaways and 20th in giveaways. Just to be fair, I guess, and broaden the sample, last season they were 7th in takeaways and 14th in giveaways (a slight improvement thus far this season).
So generally speaking, this team is worse at backchecking and gaining possession, and as far as coughing up pucks, than its predecessors in 2010, 2013, and 2014.
2013 and 2014 in some ways provide the best comparison as the rosters are still somewhat similar to the present vintage.
Here's what's also telling. In those nine games, all played without start winger Patrick Kane (where the problem seems to at least begin), a fixture for the last few seasons on the "second" line:
Bryan Bickell has 1 point. Brandon Saad has 3 points (and is -1). Teuvo Teravainen has 2 points (also -1). Kris Versteeg has 1 point (even)
And although the Hawks have not been scoring overall, for comparison sake:
Patrick Sharp has 6 points (+8) Marian Hossa has 8 points (+7)
Even Andrew Shaw has 4 points and is +1 Joakim Nordstrom's output (only playing in 7 of those games) is equal to Bickell and Versteeg (and he's even)
What these players all have in common is they play wing for the Chicago Blackhawks. The first four play on the Hawks' second and third lines. The second four play on the 1st and 4th lines. And therein lies the problem.
You can point to the centers of the second and third lines, Antoine Vermette and Brad Richards respectively, but Richards was having a pretty good season offensively until Kane went down. Vermette over his career hasn't been Wayne Gretzky, but playing with mostly third and second line teammates, he's averaged about 45 points a season.
The problem seems to be the wings on the 2nd and 3rd lines.
Many are zeroing in on Bickell and Versteeg today (and rightfully so), but Saad and Teravainen should not be given a free pass by any means. The latter two were elevated to Toews' first line last night, where they accomplished nothing. Sharp and Hossa flopped down to Vermette, where they produced 3 points.
Is it completely fair to compare a rookie and another younger player with two multiple all-stars? No. But the fact remains, if you're going to be given second and third line minutes, or any TOI at all, you have to earn it.
Another issue is the defense, where Joel Quenneville is tinkering with pairing Brent Seabrook with Kimmo Timonen and Duncan Keith with Michal Rozsival. Make no mistake, these four, Niklas Hjalmarsson and Johnny Oduya are your top 6 going in to the playoffs. What will be interesting is at what point does Q revert to pairing Keith and Seabrook—clearly he will if/when he shortens his bench down the stretch in playoff games, And the Hawks' possession numbers should improve.
Answers?
It would seem Q wants Shaw on Marcus Kruger's fourth line. But maybe that's not a luxury he can afford.
Maybe instead of Saad, Versteeg and Teravainen trying to create space for themselves with toe drags and cutesie passes off the boards, they would be helped by playing opposite Shaw or Andrew Desjardins—who could create space for them.
Saad, Versteeg and Teravainen can learn a whole lot right now from how the oft-maligned Sharp is sacrificing himself to use his speed and work past defenders, in the absence of trickery.
Maybe Bickell needs to watch Dan Carcillo or Desjardins play a couple of games—not so much to learn anything but be reminded how much this team needs him to step up.
7-1-1 is great but the last two games, a 4-0 loss in Dallas and a game they should have lost in Carolina, should tell the Hawks and their fans that there is still work to be done. Especially on both flanks of the second and third lines.
I'll have a Flyers preview tomorrow. Promise.
JJ