Delia earns another look
Blackhawks goalie’s latest performance gave him a rare opportunity to shine in action this season
Collin Delia couldn’t recall a game like Thursday’s overtime thriller between the Chicago Blackhawks and Carolina Hurricanes, which the Hawks won 2-1.
He and Petr Mrazek traded highlight-reel saves as each thwarted multiple breakaways and odd-man rushes. Delia faced 11 high-danger chances in the first period alone and stopped 36 of 37 shots for a .973 save percentage on the night.
“Got to give credit to their goalie as well,” Delia said. “We threw everything at him, he played really well. But credit to our guys for sticking with it and just finishing it out there.
“I haven’t really seen many games like that.”
Delia hasn’t seen many games this season — period.
He has played in five games with four starts and has a .903 save percentage and 3.33 goals-against average, but that includes two of the Hawks’ first four games, when they were still finding their footing against the Tampa Bay Lightning and Florida Panthers.
Over his last three appearances — which includes second-period relief for Malcolm Subban on Monday — Delia has a .939 save percentage and 2.0 GAA.
These recent appearances, which marked Delia’s first action since January, have come against the Hurricanes, a team with the league’s best record and a sense of urgency as they try to preserve a modest lead over the Tampa Bay Lightning and Florida Panthers for the top seed in the Central Division.
“You can’t ask for more from him in these 2½ games,” Hawks coach Jeremy Colliton said. “The start of the season and how all that played out, and then the Rockford games, it is what it is. From his perspective, you’ve got to really respect that he went through the adversity and fought through it and prepared himself, not knowing if he was even going to get a chance.
“(He) did a lot of work with (goalie coach) Jimmy (Waite). … The one thing I noticed, over the last couple of games, his puck handling looked very solid, very improved. That was an area that he knew (needed work) and something he’s been working since I had him in Rockford, was handling the puck. I thought it made a big difference tonight. It was very noticeable. So credit to him.”
It’s unclear whether Delia will get the final two starts of the season, and with a maximum of seven possible games, the Blackhawks still have a small sample size.
The Hawks started the season saying the goaltender position would be an open competition for the starting job among Delia, Subban and Kevin Lankinen. Delia, who had the most experience in the Hawks system and started 14 games in 2018-19, seemed to be the favorite to take the job or at least force a timeshare.
The Hawks thought enough of Delia in February 2019 to give him a three-year, $3 million contract extension. But no one could’ve predicted how things would unfold.
Subban gave up five goals in the opener against the Lightning, and Delia gave up five goals in each game against the Lightning and Panthers. Lankinen allowed five goals in his first career start against the Panthers, but it came in a 5-4 overtime loss.
Over the next 24 starts, through March, Lankinen compiled a .925 save percentage and 2.56 GAA. He capped the month with a 31-save performance in a 2-1 win over the Hurricanes.
For a while it seemed like a foregone conclusion that Lankinen had become the heir apparent to Corey Crawford, but then the rookie began to show signs of falling back to Earth. He gave up four goals in the next game against the Canes and has gone 3-6-1 with an .872 save percentage over his last 11 games.
Also during that span, he has had three five-goal games and has been pulled for Subban twice.
Subban had an outstanding February, going 3-1-0 with a .932 save percentage and 1.94 GAA. But then he gave up 16 goals over four games in March, though he rebounded slightly in April.
For most of that time, Delia languished on the taxi squad.
He was caught in no man’s land because of unusual circumstances. This season teams were required to roster three goaltenders to comply with COVID-19 protocols. That third goaltender helped make up the taxi squad.
However, the Hawks didn’t want to expose Delia to waivers by sending him down to the Rockford IceHogs.
His only game action came when the Hawks reassigned him to Rockford on Feb. 26 for a conditioning assignment, which doesn’t involve waivers, while Matt Tomkins was moved up to the taxi squad.
Delia had an .858 save percentage and 5.16 GAA during his four-game tuneup, then was recalled to Chicago on March 8. Delia did draw into the lineup as Subban’s backup April 17 but didn’t play.
“He (Delia) had a couple of games, much like Subban and Lankinen, and then Kevin got on a hot streak there,” Stan Bowman, president of hockey operations, said in late March. “Could’ve easily happened the other way around.
“We all saw how it played out, it wasn’t like this was preordained. He had the opportunity, and Kevin did great more so than Collin did anything wrong.”
Delia didn’t complain about his lot, but he did try to make his case with coaches.
“More so early on, when things were sorting out, early on when he sat for a bit,” Colliton said after Tuesday’s game. “Just seeing how things are going and also he has searched me out a couple of times.”
“That’s part of it. It’s a hard situation, it’s a weird year ... , as I’ve said before, where every team’s carrying an extra guy. It’s hard to get that guy the reps they would want to have and the game action you’d want to have, especially with the roster situation. No one wants to lose their third goalie to waivers. In the last month or so he’s done a good job to prepare himself for this opportunity.”
After Thursday’s game, Delia reflected on that time with Colliton and said those conversations were “just to let him know ‘I’m still here.’ ”
“I still want to play, I still want to compete night in and night out,” Delia said. “It was unfortunate that it wasn’t me, but his message to me — which was pretty consistent — was just, ‘Be ready. You’re going to get another shot.’
“Whether it was (going to be) the day after that conversation, three weeks from then or end of the season, you really aren’t sure when that’s going to come. You just have to be ready regardless of the situation.”
It’s puzzling why the Hawks took so long to come back to Delia.
Colliton has been reluctant to go into great detail about what coaches weren’t seeing from Delia in practices earlier this season, though it’s not just blowing smoke to say the Hawks had been riding the hot hand.
“It’s hard to roadmap it,” Colliton said in mid-February about Delia’s next opportunity, “but we have two guys who have done a lot with their starts and we’re trying to keep them in a rhythm. That’s the reality of the situation.”
All three of the Hawks’ goalies have one more season before they become unrestricted free agents. Delia has a cap hit of $1 million while Subban and Lankinen are at $850,000 and $800,000, respectively, this season and next.
They’ll continue to be a bargain at the same price next season.