Blackhawks forward Colin Blackwell had 10 long months to think and reflect while recovering from sports hernia surgery.
And during that time, he read a stat that rattled him. From 2021-22 to 2022-23, he was one of just a handful of NHL players whose hits per game declined by more than 40%.
Indeed, running the numbers now, he averaged just 4.7 hits per 60 minutes last season with the Hawks, well below his career average of 6.6 and his previous-season average of 7.9 with the Kraken and Maple Leafs.
The 30-year-old Harvard grad knows the NHL’s hit stat-keeping can be somewhat unreliable, but he figured that large of a discrepancy had to mean something.
“It gave me some red flags of what I maybe changed,” Blackwell said Saturday. “I usually always play — and I think I still did last year — with a little chip on my shoulder. But it seemed like last year, a lot of bad things happened....[and] when you get into that bad mindset, it’s hard to get out of it.”
Heading into his season debut last week against the Avalanche — having finally healed enough to feel ready to play after an emotionally testing and draining recovery period — he thought through how he wanted to play differently this season.
“After watching the 30 games [I sat out], I saw what we needed: a little bit of a spark,” he said.
“The main thing was finishing checks and being hard to play against, and that translates into drawing penalties. That has always been my career [hallmark] and how I’ve gotten to that point. I think I did that for a good portion of last year, but I was maybe too inconsistent for what I’m used to.”
Blackwell might as well flush everything about last season, during which he not only made less of a physical impact but also struggled offensively. He tallied just two goals — waiting until Jan. 8 to get his first one — and eight assists. Coach Luke Richardson believed Blackwell had finally begun finding his game in January and February, but then the surgery shut him down.
He has looked like an entirely different player through his first three games this season, recording 10 hits — at a rate of 13.6 per 60 minutes — along with one assist, five shots on goal and two penalties drawn.
He was particularly impactful in the Avalanche game, to the point of being one of the Hawks’ best players that night. His third-period demolition of Nathan MacKinnon might be the team’s most memorable hit of the season to date.
Against the Canadiens, he failed to clear the defensive zone seconds before their fourth goal, but he also made a great play to set up a Jason Dickinson goal earlier on.
Until Richardson jumbled every forward line in Saturday’s meltdown loss to the Blues, Blackwell looked like a seamless replacement for now-injured Joey Anderson on Dickinson’s thriving third line.
“‘Blackie’ has brought a lot of intensity and emotion,” Dickinson said. “He already brings energy to games, and [after so] much time out, he’s raring to go. He’s itching for it. It’s contagious. It’s easy to build off his energy.”
The question now is whether Blackwell can keep this up throughout this season’s 49 remaining games without wearing himself — or his stamina levels — down again. Only time will tell.
“The reality of it is I didn’t get a summer [of training], didn’t get a preseason and missed 53 games collectively from last year and this year,” he said. “From that standpoint, with my body, I still have a long way to go.
“That’s why I get here early and am one of the last ones to leave. [I’m] just trying to maintain [my strength] and make sure I don’t deal with what happened in the past.”
