Ex-Star Janmark looks to redefine career in Chicago

2-way forward eager to show former team what it’s missing

Mattias Janmark signed with the Blackhawks in October in part because he felt the Hawks saw more offensive potential in him than the Dallas Stars, with whom he spent the first four seasons of his NHL career.

The left winger gets to face his former team for the first time Sunday in Dallas, and he said he hasn’t given much thought to playing against it. Well, maybe with one exception.

“Me and (defenseman John) Klingberg were pretty good friends,” Janmark said of his fellow Sweden native. “So that’ll be fun.

“Try to get a forecheck going on him maybe. Get a hit in there.”

Janmark, 28, likely will be just as keen on getting a goal or an assist as laying a hit on and old teammate. He has been on a mission to redefine himself as more than just a defensive-minded forward with occasional scoring ability, and he found like minds with the Hawks.

“We skate a lot here,” Janmark said. “They want us to get our feet moving. We have a really offensive mindset, but they still want to be competitive and take care of the defense.

“If I compare it a little to Dallas, our focus was always on the defense and we were prioritizing that and maybe our offense took a hit there. … Here, it’s just the reverse. We really try to get the offense going and we try to find that balance with the defense.”

When Janmark broke in with the Stars as a rookie in 2015-16, he was more offensive-oriented. But over the last couple of seasons, he has played more of a defensive, checking role. He finished with a career-high 1.6 defensive point shares two seasons ago.

However, “the last two years in Dallas I was not playing as well as I hoped and the offensive numbers went down,” said Janmark, who last season averaged career-low 0.25 goals and 0.91 points per 60 minutes, according to NaturalStatTrick.com.

In his reset with the Hawks, Janmark has four goals and four assists in 12 games. He had a goal in three straight games against the Detroit Red Wings (twice) and the Nashville Predators, and a goal and assist on the power play Thursday in a 6-4 win against the Carolina Hurricanes.

Albeit a small sample size, he’s averaging 0.75 goals per 60 minutes (despite a career-low rate of 4.1 shots per 60 minutes) and 1.51 points per 60 minutes over that span, close to his rookie-season rates of 0.78 goals and 1.63 points. But his defensive point shares are down to a career-low 0.2, according to hockey-reference.com.

Coach Jeremy Colliton doesn’t read much into Janmark’s defensive numbers, given that he’s on a new team and had no preseason, a short camp and difficult first two games against the defending champion Tampa Bay Lightning.

“I just thought he had a tough start,” Colliton said. “Since Game 4, he’s been really good.”

Janmark acknowledged his start with the Hawks “hasn’t been perfect.”

“The first couple games were just kind of a struggle, getting my legs going and getting into the system,” he said. “But Game 5 (and) 6, I got the legs going and I feel that I play the way I was hoping and I knew I could.”

His defensive background in Dallas should work to his benefit. As Janmark builds on his rediscovered offensive game, defense just becomes muscle memory.

“Some games (this season) I was good offensively, but maybe you’re a little sloppy defensively,” he said. “You want to be good defensively but still have that offensive touch to it. That’s what I’m looking for.”

Despite the newcomer’s self-criticism, defenseman Connor Murphy believes Janmark already has been playing a strong two-way game, showing he has speed, makes the right reads and can check well to get the puck back and lead a counterattack.

“The reason he gets some offensive opportunities is because of not having to defend (much) and defending quickly to get out (of the defensive zone), and that’s the name of the game,” Murphy said. “There’s some guys that are so good, they only have to defend quickly because they can close things down and get it down and play most of their shift in the offensive zone.

“Janny’s been able to play with different guys, and if he’s out there with a couple of our top offensive guys it will seem to have more of those offensive shifts anyway. So I don’t think he’s giving anything up (defensively).”

It says a lot that in the preseason Janmark was projected as a third-line forward and indeed started out playing in the middle of the lineup but has played his way onto the top offensive line with Patrick Kane and either Pius Suter, Philipp Kurashev or whomever else the Hawks choose to mix in.

It’s in both the Hawks’ and Janmark’s interests to give him wide latitude to explore his potential to be a top-six, two-way forward.