The Blackhawks are a mess in many areas right now.
After an awful 7-1 loss Thursday against the Kraken, they remain last in the NHL standings with a 9-19-1 record and second-to-last with a minus-38 goal differential.
The power play is one thing that theoretically shouldn’t be so atrocious, though. Despite the roster’s overall lack of talent, the Hawks do have Connor Bedard, who has already become one of the league’s most dangerous offensive weapons.
They’ve also had Seth Jones, one of the league’s most experienced offensive defensemen, healthy for most of the season so far. Philipp Kurashev, Taylor Raddysh and Tyler Johnson are the others who have logged the most power-play ice time.
Yet the power play is atrocious. The Hawks are 9-for-91 this season and have allowed five shorthanded goals, equating to a plus-four goal differential that ranks second-to-last in the NHL. Their 4.4% net conversion rate is last outright.
What’s going wrong? And how are the Hawks trying to fix those problems? Let’s break it down:
Entries
For much of the season, the Hawks were using a two-wave approach to power-play regroups predicated around drop passes.
The defenseman — typically Jones — would retrieve the clearance and skate out to the neutral zone while two forwards — Bedard and one other — circled behind him. In theory, Jones would push the opposing penalty kill back, then drop-pass the puck to Bedard, who could pick an opening to carry the puck into the offensive zone.
But the Hawks kept running into an issue: since the opposing penalty kill knew the drop-pass was coming, Jones’ initial rush rarely pushed them back, forcing Bedard to have to either beat multiple players to reach the blue line or dump the puck in.
The entry problems reached rock-bottom Dec. 5 when the Predators went as far as to position one penalty-killer behind Jones in the neutral zone, anticipating and blocking the drop-pass. The Hawks looked baffled by it and didn’t know what else to do.
Starting Dec. 7 against the Ducks, there was an obvious effort to diversify their entry techniques. NHL coaches often talk about the value of predictability, but in this situation, unpredictability can be good.
“We’ve talked about just turning up into a speed breakout and not doing the drop and throwing a different wrench at teams, because a lot of teams just take it for granted,” coach Luke Richardson said that night.
The drop-pass hasn’t been abandoned by any means. They still use it on most entries, just with a bit more creativity involved. Bedard said Thursday he likes it, noting there’s “a reason pretty much every team does it.”
But depending on the specific neutral-zone trap being utilized by the penalty kill, the Hawks are now instructed to read the situation to determine the best method.
When there’s space for the original puck-carrier to skate the puck in himself, he should take the opportunity. When a winger is open on the flank, he should be willing to make a horizontal pass at the blue line. And when an opposing penalty-killer attempts a rushed shift change, he should target and exploit his spot.
Doing everything with more speed — in terms of both literal skating and decision-making — has been another emphasis.
In-zone
Anthony Beauvillier was formerly part of a Canucks power play that currently ranks third in the NHL in net conversion rate (26.7%). On the Hawks, he hopes to translate some of their tactics.
“It’s one of the few power plays that have a lot of [offensive] zone time,” Beauvillier said. “We can probably look into what they do. Obviously I’ve received the message about what they do, so I can probably get more comfortable here and talk about it a little bit.”
Converting the overall five-on-four player advantage into localized two-on-one advantages is one key thing the Canucks do well that Beauvillier believes the Hawks could do better. Doing so makes it easier to win puck battles and maintain possession after missed shots and rebounds.
The Hawks have also studied what works so well for the Lightning’s power play, which ranks second in net conversion rate (27.5%) with Nikita Kucherov and Steven Stamkos on the wings and Brayden Point in the bumper role.
“You see the same goals on their power play: the same shot-tips from Point, or back door [passes], or [Kucherov] one-time fakes it to Stamkos and shoots it,” Lukas Reichel said. “The whole league knows it, but you don’t know what’s coming. We can do better with that, but it takes time.”
By recently moving Raddysh into the bumper role — roaming the middle of the zone inside Bedard — the Hawks are trying to recreate those Kucherov-to-Point shot-tips. Raddysh has found some success there.
Bedard
The Hawks’ power play will ultimately go as far as Bedard takes it. For every moment where he shows his age — such as an untimely slip Tuesday that led to an Oilers shorthanded chance — he makes another three brilliant plays that, more often than not, are squandered by his teammates.
Volume-wise, he’s the dominant shooter on the power play. His 47 power-play shot attempts are tied for 24th in the NHL. The next-highest Hawk is Kurashev, whose 20 attempts are tied for 132nd.
If there’s any valid criticism of Bedard, however, it’s that he tends to miss the net quite a lot. Of his 47 attempts, one has gone in, 17 have been saved, 18 have missed the net and 11 have been blocked. Indeed, Reichel and Kurashev — with two each — have actually scored more power-play goals than Bedard so far.
His 38.3% miss rate is 10th-highest out of 136 qualifying forwards around the league. His identical 38.3% on-goal rate, conversely, ranks 128th — even though his 23.4% blocked rate exactly matches the league average.
“I like the shooting, but I think some of it is selectional,” Richardson said. “[Over time], he’ll probably have a better shot selection. He’ll be able to [determine] what’s a good shot and what’s a good time to pass off or turn back and try it again.”
Has it improved?
On the season, the Hawks’ power play ranks last in the NHL in shot attempts per minute at 1.40. They’re third-to-last in scoring chances per minute at 0.83, ahead of the Jets and Flyers.
Things seemed slightly better recently, and the numbers reflected that. In seven games between Nov. 29 and Dec. 11, the Hawks averaged 1.72 shot attempts and 1.03 scoring chances per minute, ranking 19th and 13th (respectively) during that time period.
“The biggest place we’ve improved is in the ‘O’-zone: moving it quicker, [making] smarter plays on the outside to spread them out, and then finding seams and attacking,” Richardson said Dec. 9.
But during the last two games, with Jones’ injury and Korchinski’s absence forcing Alex Vlasic and Nikita Zaitsev to quarterback the units, little has clicked. And looking at the larger picture, the Hawks still have a long way to go.
At least the power play — in contrast to some other areas — has the necessary ingredients to make improvement possible, though.
