NO. 1 GOAL: PROTECT THE NET
Postseason unlikely if Hawks’ defense keeps its horrendous pace
Some of the first adjustments Jeremy Colliton made as Blackhawks coach came on defense.
The zone system used by Joel Quenneville got tweaked to implement more man coverage in the defensive third of the ice. Greater emphasis was placed on allowing defensemen to carry the puck up in transition rather than look for the quick pass. In the Hawks’ 1-0 victory over the Blues on Wednesday, we saw how that all can come together.
The changes under Colliton seemed, in part, to be an admission that the old approach wasn’t working. The team had been yielding goals by the barrel, and goaltending couldn’t shoulder the load. According to Corsica, Cam Ward and Corey Crawford have allowed only 1.3 more goals than expected based on shot data.
The Hawks have remained a riddle despite that. They’re hoping tweaks under Colliton and reinforcements such as Gustav Forsling, who made his NHL season debut Wednesday, can right the ship. Connor Murphy’s return might come soon, as well. Whether all this adds up to a stronger defensive effort remains to be seen.
Goal prevention hasn’t just been a small problem for the Hawks. Only one team in the NHL — rebuilding Ottawa — has allowed more goals per game. That’s not a spot you want to be in.
And if you look beyond the Senators’ mess this season and to recent history, the Hawks’ situation looks equally dicey.
Opposing teams have scored 67 goals through 19 games, an average of 3.5. Only 23 teams, including the Hawks and Senators, have allowed that many that early since the 2004-05 lockout, per Hockey Reference’s Play Index. The other 21 averaged just 33 wins, and all but three of them missed the playoffs. None of them reached the conference finals.
That’s the path the Hawks have put themselves on. The only playoff teams to allow that many goals this early in the current era are the 2005-06 Flyers and Devils in the post-lockout offensive boom and the 2017-18 Penguins, who make for a tricky comparison given that they boasted two of the best players of their generation. Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews, as good as they are, aren’t on the same level as Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin.
And for everyone else, the inability to stop teams in October and November was a harbinger of things to come.
The numbers look similarly dire if you go through the Hawks’ recent history. They haven’t allowed this many goals to open a season since 2005-06, when they finished with a 26-43-13 record and earned the draft pick that became Toews.
Teams that allow this many goals early on tend not to figure it out quickly enough. While a shutout win over the Blues was a step in the right direction, Colliton and his team have their work cut out to avoid another last-place finish.