Within a span of three days, the Blackhawks have now made both of the lineup changes that fans have been most adamantly requesting since the start of the season.
Shortly after promoting young forward Lukas Reichel onto the first line next to Connor Bedard, Hawks coach Luke Richardson promoted rookie defenseman Kevin Korchinski onto the top power-play unit during practice Tuesday.
On Wednesday against the Blue Jackets, Korchinski will occupy the point position above Bedard, Reichel (who is three games into his tenure in the bumper position), Philipp Kurashev (who replaced Taylor Hall on Tuesday) and Corey Perry.
“It’s a privilege,” Korchinski said. “It means that they trust me, which is awesome.”
Veteran defenseman Seth Jones was demoted to the second unit but understood the decision.
“Nothing has really been clicking, so we’ve got to change it up,” Jones said. “Kevin is a great puck-mover, and it’s just a different look for us.”
Jones is correct about things not clicking. The Hawks’ power play, which seemed promising back in training camp, has been an abject disaster so far. At 6-for-53 overall, their 11.3% conversion rate ranks 29th in the NHL.
The Jackets are notably one of the three teams with a worse power play, although their penalty kill has actually been the NHL’s fourth-best. They nonetheless enter Wednesday in total disarray, having lost nine in a row and 13 of 14. Coach Pascal Vincent has responded by scratching and/or benching star forwards Patrik Laine and Johnny Gaudreau on several recent occasions.
The Hawks desperately need to capitalize on the relatively easy matchup, and some special-teams improvement could make the difference. Their penalty kill has conceded at least one goal in eight straight games while the power play has yet to score in consecutive games at any point.
“There’s a lot of games you can look toward this year [where if] we score one on the power play, maybe two, it could be a different story in the standings,” Jones said.
The man-advantage problems have been widespread. The Hawks rank 31st in power-play faceoff percentage at 45.8% (as one of only six teams below 50%), meaning they often immediately have to retrieve a clearance.
They’ve struggled just as much on offensive-zone entries, regularly fumbling the puck at the blue line; only Bedard and Kurashev have been able to carry the puck in effectively and consistently.
And once inside the zone, they’re overly hesitant to shoot, ranking 32nd in power-play shot attempts per minute. They’re not much better in terms of scoring chances, ranking 29th in that regard.
“[We need to] focus on simplicity and trying to get pucks to the net and getting bounces,” Richardson said. “When you watch the highlights every night, it’s very simple. It’s point shots with screens and tips. Unless you’re Tampa Bay, there’s not a lot of seam [passes] and double-seaming to the back door. We have to do the same.”
Korchinski’s elite skating ability should help with the offensive-zone entries. He’s so swift and smooth on the ice that Hawks coaches have talked to him about his tendency to accidentally drift out of position defensively. In these situations, though, that skill will only benefit him.
Meanwhile, the Hawks have noticed a trend of penalty kills — by executing the same aggressive diamond formation the Hawks use — breaking up or intercepting flank-to-point passes (such as from Bedard to Jones) that theoretically shouldn’t be risky.
They’ve discussed focusing more on flank-to-goal-line passes (such as from Bedard to Perry) to exploit that extra space and force the penalty kill to collapse down low.
“Low plays have to be the play, whether it’s a couple jams early on so they respect that low play and then things start opening up,” Jones said. “We’ve got to look to the goal line a little bit more.”
