Still a work in progress
Hawks’ surprising start encouraging, but there’s plenty of hockey left
These aren’t last season’s Blackhawks. These aren’t even the Hawks they were supposed to be this season after shedding veterans to begin their rebuild and losing a few top contributors before the first game.
And when you consider the disastrous start to the season, COVID-19 absences, nine overtime games and a revolving-door roster chock full of rookies, an 11-6-4 start and eight wins in 10 games entering Saturday’s matchup against the Red Wings would seem improbable.
But here we are, and the Hawks would qualify for the playoffs as the third-ranked team in the Central Division if the postseason had started Saturday.
But 21 games don’t define a season. It will take the other 35 games to paint the full picture.
Still, the Hawks’ start sheds some light on what kind of team they are and some characteristics about their players.
Here are five things we think we know so far about the Hawks.
1. Who knows if Kevin Lankinen is the goalie of the future, but he is the goalie of 2021.
The Hawks haven’t formally named Lankinen their starting goaltender, but at this point do they need to?
Lankinen started 14 of the first 20 games and compiled an 8-3-3 record, best among rookie goalies. He ranked sixth in goals saved above average (6.63 GSAA), according to hockey-reference.com data, though some other sites rank him as high as fifth.
However, he already has had five games in which he has allowed four goals or more, including nine combined over the last two.
Tuesday’s game against the Columbus Blue Jackets is a snapshot of the highs and lows of Lankinen: He gave up a straightshot breakaway goal to Cam Atkinson — the kind he has allowed before but might need to stop more often if he expects to have longevity.
At the same time, he has thrived in some do-or-die moments, such as when he found himself in another solo breakaway situation in the final seconds of overtime but stretched out to rebuff a couple of attempts from Oliver Bjorkstrand to stuff in the game-winner.
If Lankinen has one thing for certain going for him, it’s his even temperament regardless of the results.
“Sometimes you can feel this is the moment the boys need you,” Lankinen said after weathering a third-period barrage during a 2-0 win over the Detroit Red Wings on Feb. 17, his first career shutout. “As a goalie, you need to step up big in those moments.”
After that game, coach Jeremy Colliton talked about Lankinen’s growing confidence.
“I think that’s one of his best qualities, actually, his self-belief,” Colliton said. “If he lets in a goal or makes a mistake, I don’t think it’s going to affect him going forward, which you’ve got to have a short memory in this league, particularly as a goaltender.
“I don’t have much to critique him on. I expect him to get better.”
2. It might be a youth movement, but Patrick Kane is indispensable.
The Hawks entered Saturday having scored 63 goals. Kane was involved in nearly half of them: 10 goals and 21 assists.
“We’ve seen it before,” forward Carl Soderberg said, “but I think he’s taking it to another level this year.”
“It’s unbelievable,” defenseman Connor Murphy said of Kane’s play. “The consistency he’s brought to his career, to his game, and being such an elite forward and scorer and passer. … Playing against him is so hard because he can beat you in different ways. It doesn’t matter how tight you are on him and how much the team presses defensively
against him.
“He’s able to find holes to make passes, keep his composure or keep his hands free and be deceptive all over the ice. … You see it every game, it forces other teams to respect and think twice when he’s on the ice.”
It’s not just the flashier stats with Kane. He’s spending the third-most time on the ice among Hawks skaters and most among forwards (22:13). His team-high plus-8 rating indicates that while he spends a lot of shifts in the offensive zone, he’s doing more than just carrying the load on offense.
Said Colliton: “His production is better than ever, but to me it’s all about the work ethic away from the puck and willingness to put pressure on the puck and create transition for himself but his line mates, too. That type of team-first mentality, that’s what we’re trying to build here so we can have long-term success. Not only is he doing it, but he’s encouraging other guys to do it. …
“When you’re unselfish, it comes around. When he’s driving that, it sure is powerful.”
3. Call this version of the Hawks the ‘culture club.’
Talk to Colliton over a long enough period of time and you’ll hear certain words and phrases repeated: “culture,” “build,” “adversity,” “urgency,” “work ethic” and “relentless,” to name a few.
“Something we wanted to establish this year no matter the results are we’re going to practice,” Colliton said last week in Detroit. “There needs to be a culture of improvement every day and not being satisfied with where we’re at, particularly the young group we have. If we don’t get better, we’re not going to survive.”
A lot of coaches express similar virtues, but this season you hear that echoed by players, including another phrase: “buy in.”
“There’s a culture in this room,” Brandon Hagel said. “The success we’ve had is for a reason. It’s not luck, it’s everyone buying in, everyone continuing to build.”
All those attributes would be meaningless buzzwords if Colliton didn’t see them
on the ice. Asked to assess the first 20 games, Colliton said he has liked the work ethic.
“We’ve been focused on playing for the team, making team decisions, and I see a group that wants to get better and a lot of guys who will get better as the year goes on,” he said. “That needs to continue to be our focus.
“If we improve, young guys developing as a team, learning all the little things we need to do to win, we set ourselves up to have some fun.”
4. Adam Boqvist hasn’t lived up to the billing, but the Hawks still are high on him.
Boqvist’s self-appraisal tells you that even he thinks he has yet to fulfill the promise of the No. 8 pick in the 2018 draft.
“I had a good offseason, obviously I had a slower start but now after (having) COVID I think I played pretty good,” the defenseman said Wednesday. “I’m just going to keep going.
“I’m feeling more confident out there in my second year and they picked me so high up, I have to show why they picked me.”
A big part of Boqvist’s profile is that he’s an offensive blue liner. However, he has had five goals and 13 assists in his first 51 games and on defense he is a work in progress, sometimes having problems with positioning and gap control. Some of his defensive shortcomings came to bear during the playoffs series against the Vegas Golden Knights.
Over the summer he got stronger, he said. He took lessons from the playoffs and took coaches’ advice to “stay positive. Everyone’s going to have mistakes out there, especially an offensive D-man.”
He’s learning to balance demands on both sides of the ice: He has to take care of defense to join the rush on offense.
Colliton emphasized Boqvist is just 20 years old, far from a finished product.
“He’s shown a lot so far,” Colliton said. “Even going back to before he went on the
COVID list he had a couple of good games. He’s been solid for us away from the puck, but you’re starting to see more of the offensive side on the offensive blue line, getting more comfortable on the power play, we love his mobility with that group.
“His mentality has to be the same as the team: Just get better every day and don’t take anything for granted.”
Boqvist would agree.
“I’m far from where I want to be,” he said. “I want to be the best in the league. I’m just going to keep working every day and hopefully good things happen.”
5. The Hawks are playing with fire with their five-on-five.
The power play has come to the rescue during the Hawks’ recent run, but they sometimes can live and die by the man advantage. They ranked 28th in goals-for per 60 minutes (1.87) in five-on-five situations, and it’s about the same in expected goal rate (1.98, 27th), according to NaturalStatTrick.com.
Their shooting percentage (6.51%) is fourth from the bottom.
Take Tuesday night’s game against the Blue Jackets, for example. They dominated possession and took 17 shots — the highest number in a first period all season — and still got just two goals. That’s one period in one game, but it illustrates how merely getting shots on goal isn’t enough, particularly in five on five.
Colliton has said the team needs to keep the puck in the offensive zone more consistently, create better looks and get more bodies crashing down.
“Net presence is always something that you can raise your shooting percentage by just having people at the net,” he said. “Pucks go off, you get rebounds, things like that. I think our shooting percentage a bit low and that’ll correct.
“We’ve shown we can generate momentum in the offensive zone. … It’s something going we’re going to keep working on but I wouldn’t say it’s a concern.”