NEUTRAL PARTY
Short on skill but big on speed, Hawks faring better vs. teams that pressure middle of ice
CALGARY, Alberta — The Blackhawks have experienced more offensive success transitioning through the neutral zone this season against teams with high-pressure structures than against teams with more passive structures.
It makes sense. The Hawks lack talent and chemistry, meaning they have a difficult time connecting enough passes to break down a well-organized trap. But the Hawks do employ some speedy forwards, so if given space to skate, they can win races to get the puck over the blue line.
That contrast has been on display recently. Last week against the Flyers’ aggressive 2-12 neutral-zone defense, the Hawks produced one of their best performances of the year.
But against the Kings’ tricky 1-3-1 formation Sunday and the Canucks’ conservative 1-1-3 formation Tuesday, the Hawks were shut down.
“We play our best in the neutral [zone] when we don’t come back and set it up,” Patrick Kane said. “If we have forwards demanding the puck and getting speed — and they’re onside — our best option is to utilize that when [our opponent is] not set up and ready.”
Against the Flyers, Hawks coach Luke Richardson’s game plan worked to perfection. The plan involved one forward “posting up” in stationary position in the middle of the neutral zone while the other two forwards swung to the outside to build up speed.
The Hawks were consistently able to enter the zone cleanly on breakouts and regroups when their defensemen passed to the post-up player, who tipped it over to one of the swinging wingers.
It worked for every line, too. At one point, the sequence went from Jake McCabe to Jason Dickinson to Andreas Athanasiou. The following shift, Ian Mitchell, MacKenzie Entwistle and Colin Blackwell executed it.
“[It] created a lot of offense for us,” Richardson said.
Against the Kings and Canucks, however, the Hawks committed turnovers on a fair number of their carry-in attempts and were forced to dump the puck in more often.
Considering the Hawks are the NHL’s worst team at retrieving dump-ins, according to All Three Zones, that proved rarely fruitful.
“We just had a lot of trouble [against the Kings], and it was [due to a] lack of energy and skating,” Richardson said. “[In Vancouver], it was just a lack of execution, whether it be getting it out of our zone cleanly or handling the puck in the neutral zone. We went offside a few times.
“You have to get even more simple when things aren’t going 100% perfectly. You’ve got to be one-touching out of your zone, one-touching in the neutral zone and playing [it] behind the other team. [In Vancouver], we wanted to connect tape-to-tape, and it just wasn’t going tape-to-tape.”
There were a few bright spots against the Canucks. Sam Lafferty’s soft goal followed a legitimately good zone entry. Seth Jones’ ‘D’to-‘D’ pass to McCabe caught the Canucks favoring the right side, giving Lafferty an easy carry-in on the left.
Minutes later, Jack Johnson tracked down a cleared puck and made a sooner-than-expected pass up to Kane just outside the blue line. The Canucks scrambled to get their three players back to “line up like a wall,” Richardson said, and Kane was able to find Dickinson cutting behind the wall for a scoring chance.
“Even [against] the teams that do kinda trap up, if we can play a little faster [while] they’re trying to change somebody or set up their system, [that can help],” Richardson said.
Kane mentioned that creating an isolated two-on-one advantage against an outside defender in a 1-3-1 trap also can be an effective way to break it down.
But he believes the Hawks have struggled to attack bunkered-in neutral-zone defenses dating to their 2017 playoff series against the Predators. And this year’s talent-lacking team hasn’t broken that pattern.