Repeat after me:
1) At it's best—when there's a lot of flow and transition—the Blackhawk offense starts in their own end. Duncan Keith, playing nearly half of every game, is critical to this. Without it, they are not a special team.
2) The Blackhawks two most dynamic offensive players right now are Artemi Panarin and Patrick Kane. They are playing on the same line. That line is producing all the Hawks' offense.
Another thought for this morning:
The New Jersey Devils are a much-improved hockey team.
The Blackhawks, as limited as they are by the Keith injury and a lot of new faces at forward, had a lot of offensive zone possession last night. The Devils limited the Hawks shots and protected their house very, very well. Thus, there weren't that many prime scoring chances on Cory Schneider.
Everyone's ready to throw Marcus Kruger and Andrew Desjardins on the fire this morning. But playing with a recent AHL call up, their line had all kinds of offensive zone pressure. As did Jonathan Toews and Marian Hossa on the first line. The Hawks are just having to play strictly a grind and cycle style in the absence of transition opportunities.
Or, in other words, they're short-handed, forcing too many players into roles that aren't right for them.
Kruger lost a key face-off last night, and went 2 and 4 overall. Meanwhile, the "great" Artem Anisimov was absolutely destroyed in the dot yet again last night, going 29%.
Rookie defenseman Viktor Svedberg showed again last night that maybe too much is being asked of him at this point.
Another factor in the 3-2 loss to the Devils was that if you're going to proclaim "goalie wins," you need to be prepared to do the same for goalie losses.
Corey Crawford was not—not—good last night. If he has a reasonably good night, that game goes to OT. If he plays well, the Blackhawks win and nobody is dining the alarm bells this morning.
Meanwhile the Blackhawks hover just above .500, about to embark on the long Circus Road Trip, awaiting Keith's return and hoping for some other answers.
The evidence suggests the line composition and the effort at least were good last night, even if the results weren't all that great. Then again, Joel Quenneville may decide soon to try Panarin on the first line again.
Stay tuned, it's a work in progress.
I'll have a Blues preview tomorrow.