Wyatt Kaiser and Connor Bedard, when matched up against each other in a drill during Blackhawks practice Thursday, briefly pushed and whacked each other in front of the net.
Twenty seconds later, when play returned to that end of the rink and Kaiser wanted to box out Bedard from getting any possible rebound, they ended up scrapping so fiercely that Kaiser eventually tackled Bedard onto the ice.
There were no hard feelings whatsoever. By the time the two Hawks rookies walked into the Fifth Third Arena locker room — having exhausted themselves over the course of a long, intense practice just as forecasted — they seemed to barely remember the incident.
But that drill was an indication that coach Luke Richardson’s message about the Hawks needing to become a feistier, hungrier team capable of winning more puck battles had been heard.
“It doesn’t matter if Connor is out there or not,” Kaiser said. “Every guy, you’re going as hard against them as you can.”
Added Bedard: “It was the best practice. ... We’re competing, but we’re having fun. That’s like a game: you’ve got to battle hard.”
Richardson himself certainly enjoyed seeing it.
“[Kaiser is] young and still earning his stripes here,” Richardson said. “And it’s good for Connor because Connor’s going to get played hard by other teams. So it keeps everybody in the game mode.”
Richardson and veteran Nick Foligno both mentioned how the Bruins have always practiced particularly hard — nearly “to the point where there were some fights,” Foligno added — throughout Patrice Bergeron, Brad Marchand and Zdeno Chara’s eras.
It’s probably no coincidence the Hawks’ lopsided loss against that very Bruins team Tuesday was what sparked Richardson’s decision to make Thursday’s practice so grueling — as well as his impatience about the Hawks’ lack of evident improvement from last season.
Before the aforementioned drill, line rushes revealed more shuffling to the forward trios. Bedard’s wingers are now Foligno and Philipp Kurashev; Lukas Reichel’s wingers are now Jason Dickinson and Taylor Raddysh.
And afterward, the Hawks spent a while rotating through 2-on-2 battle drills set between two nets just 25 feet or so apart.
Blackhawks practice grinds on with 2-on-2 mini-rink drills pic.twitter.com/KH3zpB9LqD
— Ben Pope (@BenPopeCST) October 26, 2023
Richardson likes those 2-on-2 battles because they force players to make decisions quickly while banging around with each other, something he hopes translates into yet another daunting matchup Friday at the Golden Knights.
“We expected a high-compete, high-level skating practice, and we got it,” he added. “Hopefully [the guys] use that energy level [in Vegas], because we’re going to need it.”
As for Kaiser, meanwhile, he hasn’t enjoyed as stellar a start to his first NHL regular season as fellow defensemen Alex Vlasic and Kevin Korchinski. He admitted his confidence was “a little bit low” on the opening road trip.
Perhaps those struggles are to be expected, considering he possesses considerably less pro-level experience than Vlasic and was never as highly touted a prospect as Korchinski. But the fact he has played exclusively alongside depth veterans Jarred Tinordi and Nikita Zaitsev — as opposed to Seth Jones and Connor Murphy — is also likely a factor.
The Hawks are still trying to figure out how to make their third ‘D’ pairing effective. Tinordi (40.0%), Kaiser (38.4%) and Zaitsev (26.9%) are the Hawks’ bottom three defensemen in terms of scoring-chance ratio. They’ve combined for zero points, too.
One complication stems from Tinordi and Kaiser both being natural left-side defensemen. Kaiser had been biting the bullet and playing the right side, but they switched Tuesday so Tinordi played the right side. Tinordi said he had to be more cautious with his gap control as a result, but that flip at least freed Kaiser to better utilize his skating ability.
“[I’m] just trying to find that confidence, play my game and get to the level I want to be,” Kaiser said.
