Blackhawks adjust to view from the bottom of the standings
GM Bowman does not anticipate sweeping changes
CHICAGO — Reminders of the past hang chronologically in the United Center rafters, where the Chicago Blackhawks’ Indian head logo is displayed on banners bookending the six white flags saluting the team’s Stanley Cup championships.
A new banner will not be added this season, which has produced fewer victories and points than any other since the last time the Blackhawks failed to qualify for the National Hockey League playoffs, a decade ago.
Chicago skates toward the end of the NHL’s second longest active playoff streak after nine consecutive post-season runs and three Stanley Cup titles since 2010. Those who have become accustomed to the season extending into late spring and even early summer are bracing for a new reality.
Among them is the team’s general manager, Stan Bowman. He has guided Chicago through a decade that includes 76 postseason victories — tied for the league best in that stretch with the two-time defending Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins. But Bowman had sensed this time was coming. It was just a matter of when, given the salary-cap restrictions of today’s NHL.
Bowman was frustrated last season after the Western Conference-leading Blackhawks were swept in the first round of the playoffs by the Nashville Predators. But the current campaign has brought its own challenges. The Blackhawks traded popular forward Artemi Panarin in the off-season, and lost Marian Hossa for the season to a rare skin condition. Goalie Corey Crawford suffered a mysterious upper body injury that has prevented him from playing since Dec. 23.
The combination of lost talent, injuries and less production from top-line players has taken its toll on the Blackhawks (30-35-9), who sit in last place in the Central Division. Bowman accepts the hand Chicago has been dealt and refuses to consider what could have been had the Blackhawks been able to remain healthy and maintain the level of excellence that has made Chicago a playoff staple for the better part of the past 10 years.
“The league doesn’t stop when good players get hurt, and other teams go through it too, and you have to find a way to overcome,” Bowman said.
He added: “When you don’t have the guys who would play a big role, is there another way to make it work? Obviously, we haven’t come up with that formula this year.”
Rather than watch his team peak as it heads toward April, coach Joel Quenneville has endured nights when the scoring was just not there, or the power play or the penalty kill faltered, or the defence failed to provide enough insulation for goalies playing in Crawford’s stead.
The star players Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews have been left to ponder what went wrong and to answer questions about the team’s focus now that there is no post-season to look forward to.
Quenneville has done his best to remain positive.
“I would say we’re not in a bad spot,” he said. “It’s definitely not easy, but I think guys are still playing with purpose.”
Toews told reporters recently: “You have pride as a team. You know what you’re capable of as a team, even if you’ve underachieved or you haven’t had the success you’ve been looking for in the last couple of months.”
After a 5-1 loss to Colorado on Tuesday that eliminated the Blackhawks from playoff contention, Kane said that he and his teammates were trying to remain in the moment rather than consider what may be coming.
“Who knows what’s going to happen,” Kane said.
“I’m sure that will kind of be left up to management and coaches and us as players obviously throughout the offseason to rectify what went wrong this season and make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
Bowman insisted the Blackhawks were not “lightyears away from where we want to be.”
He said he did not anticipate a need to make sweeping changes.
For the time being, the Blackhawks will spend the remainder of the season evaluating young talent to determine which players could be moved into the kind of difference-making roles Kane and Toews have maintained during Chicago’s decade-long run of success.
For a fan base that has remained loyal and picked up followers as the Blackhawks captured three Stanley Cup titles in six years, the immediate future, one without playoff beards and a championship rally in Chicago’s lakefront Grant Park, will require some adjustment.
“The fans who have missing hair or graying hair will remember the times before the run; the ones who are very young will not,” said the television announcer Mike Emrick, whose voice has become part of Chicago’s recent post-season soundtrack.
“The older ones will remember and perhaps understand the cyclical nature of it because they will remember some Blackhawks teams when they weren’t very good and the times when this place was half-empty and you could have a section to yourself.”
He added: “But it’s the way it is, the way sports run. Nobody is on top forever.”