NHL
Tyler Bertuzzi of the Blackhawks scored all three of his goals in the third period. Bob Frid / Imagn Images
VANCOUVER — The Blackhawks have had periods like the second Wednesday night at Rogers Arena. More than they can count, more than they care to remember. Periods when every clearing attempt seems to hit a stick or a leg, when every shift is spent deep in their own zone, when they’re taking penalties out of exhaustion and desperation, when it feels like time is moving so slowly, it’s actually going backward.
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And they were met with a shrug. What else did you expect from a roster so outclassed night after night? It’s part of the rebuild, part of the growing pains, part of the process. Just move on, nothing to see here.
Not Wednesday night, though. It might have looked the same, but it felt different.
For one, these Blackhawks have Spencer Knight. For another, they have a standard — a higher one than we’ve seen in Chicago in some time.
So maybe we shouldn’t be surprised that they came through that period unscathed, still tied 0-0 after Jeff Blashill’s first successful challenge as Blackhawks coach. And maybe we shouldn’t be surprised that they came out like a completely different team — like the one we’ve been seeing most of the season — and blitzed the Canucks for five goals. Forty-three saves (and a primary assist!) by Knight, a hat trick for Tyler Bertuzzi, a goal and an assist from Connor Bedard. A 5-2 Blackhawks victory.
“We talked (in the second intermission) about how good teams find a way to win this game,” Blashill said. “You’re on the road, it’s 0-0, you probably haven’t played your best. Go out and have a great period. And I thought we did.”
Good teams, he said.
Are the Blackhawks good? To be determined. But they’ve often been good. And that’s not nothing.
They did a lot of good things on Monday in Seattle, too. They out-attempted, out-shot, out-chanced and largely outplayed the Kraken, who play a particularly frustrating style. They were borderline dominant at five-on-five, merely doomed by special teams and Joey Daccord. It happens. Considering how the last handful of games went at Climate Pledge Arena, it was a step in the right direction, a building-block game, a moral victory.
At least, it would have been before the Blackhawks beat the Mammoth, whupped the Blues, knocked off the Ducks, edged the Lightning, thumped the Senators. The bar has been raised.
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“No moral victory there,” captain Nick Foligno said following Wednesday’s morning skate. “That one pissed me off, because we should have won that game.”
Indeed, when the bar is higher, so are the emotions, so is the indignation after a failure. Had Foligno said something like that last season, and he occasionally did, it probably would have been greeted with stifled laughter and rolled eyes. Moral victories are all this team has had for years now, with the last three campaigns being the franchise’s worst three by points percentage since the 1950s.
But these Blackhawks believe — in Blashill, in themselves, in their chances. Against anyone. In any arena. They didn’t last year. Maybe they didn’t two months ago. They started to about a month ago, as a grueling training camp was wrapping up.
Now they have proof of concept. Proof that this works, that they work. The Blackhawks have had a realistic chance at two points in 13 of their first 14 games, a face-plant in Winnipeg to open this six-game road trip the only exception. A year ago at this time, Foligno was talking about the old saw that in order to be a playoff team in the NHL, you have to be within a handful of points of a playoff spot at Thanksgiving. It was earnest, but it was also wildly unrealistic. Almost laughable.
It doesn’t feel nearly as laughable right now.
“And how awesome is that?” Foligno said. “To me, that’s the exciting part. Now we’re playing meaningful games. That’s what I was talking about last year — meaningful games doesn’t only mean that you’re in first or second place in the league. It’s like, are you playing games that matter? Are you playing games that can get you into the playoffs, that can keep you in the mix for as long as you can? And that’s what I want to see our team understand.”
There are a few ways of looking at this Blackhawks start. The 6-5-3 record is solid, but middling. As even Foligno pointed out, they’re not really a .500 team, because they’ve lost more games than they’ve won. But the underlying numbers are intriguing. The Blackhawks are now the fourth-best five-on-five team in the league in the only stat that matters — goals. They’ve outscored their opponents 32-25 at five-on-five. So if the power play can start clicking (it went 1-for-1 in Vancouver, with Bedard hitting Bertuzzi for one of his patented backdoor bank shots) or the pedestrian penalty kill can get back to its early-season levels (2-for-2 on Wednesday), there’s no reason to think the Blackhawks can’t keep this up.
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On the other hand, they might be riding the PDO train a bit here. The goaltending, particularly Knight, has been outstanding. And the shooting percentage at five-on-five (11.11, fifth in the league) is a bit high. The start of this trip could have been regression to the mean, which could have presaged a return to the Gavin McKenna sweepstakes. The third period in Vancouver suggests otherwise.
The question remains, is this play sustainable for a team that had just 61 points a year ago, and a ghastly 52 the year before?
The Blackhawks are biased, of course, but they believe it is.
“Obviously, our goaltending’s been fantastic,” Foligno said. “But I do think it’s sustainable, because we have a real system that we trust as players, that’s conducive to how we are as a group. And there’s a commitment to that side of it. And if you can win the five-on-five battle in this league, you’re going to be a good team.”
“I don’t think we’re an easy team to play,” said Bedard, who outhustled Quinn Hughes to a Knight flip for the game-sealing empty-netter, his first goal against his hometown team. “If you’re on the other side (with) how fast we are, how tenacious we are, I think that would be frustrating five-on-five. As someone on the power play, we’ve got to start winning games for our team and start producing at a higher clip. But five-on-five, we’ve been good and I don’t see why we can’t keep that up.”
Wyatt Kaiser, who has emerged as arguably the Blackhawks’ No. 1 defenseman this season, said the Blackhawks can still be “a little immature at times, and we shoot ourselves in the foot.” They take a risk at the wrong time, or they try to force a play that’s simply not there. There are still forehead-slapping plays like Artyom Levshunov’s almost comical drop pass to nobody during the third-period power play that Bertuzzi scored on. It was a miracle Vancouver didn’t score on that one. But then there are plays like Bedard’s chip-and-chase along the boards in the third period in Seattle that led to André Burakovsky’s goal. Bedard made the conservative play rather than risk a turnover, and still created a Grade-A scoring chance out of it through skill, speed and hustle.
If anything is going to become the Blackhawks’ brand, their identity, that’s probably it.
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“They’re seeing how we’re getting there,” Foligno said. “It’s not because we’re outscoring teams by eight and we’re all just run-and-gun. It’s good structure. It’s still exciting as hell, it’s fun to watch, and it’s fun to play. But it’s a structured game, and you’re seeing the buy-in from Connor and Frank (Nazar) and all these guys that have come in here. It’s made us a better team.”
It’s lanky defensemen getting their sticks in shooting lanes. It’s skill guys like Nazar working in the corners. It’s Ilya Mikheyev playing precision two-way hockey. It’s Oliver Moore chasing after every puck like his life depended on it.
Like Kaiser, Blashill uses the word “mature” a lot, as a descriptor on good nights and an aspiration on bad nights. Bedard’s maturation is most important, but it’s happening all over, as younger players like Kaiser step out of their support roles and into primary roles. Even off the ice, Foligno can sense it, joking that he now gets to be “big brother instead of Dad” when he hangs out with the guys. After a practice in Seattle, Foligno — his stall wedged between Bedard’s and Nazar’s — had a lengthy, giggly and ridiculous discussion with the two about the various pronunciations of “roof” and “milk.” It was like watching three college kids needle one another, not a 38-year-old captain ribbing a couple of rookies.
The Blackhawks are taking the next step. Now it’s up to them whether it’s merely a step, or it’s a full-blown leap. They believe it’s the latter. And it’s getting a lot harder to roll your eyes when they say as much.
“I’ve always believed in the guys,” Kaiser said. “We’re skilled, we’re fast, and we’ve got some dawgs in here. There’s no reason to think we can’t keep this up.”
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Mark Lazerus is a senior NHL writer for The Athletic based out of Chicago. He has covered the Blackhawks and the league at large for 13 seasons for The Athletic and the Chicago Sun-Times. He has been named one of the top three columnists in the country twice in the past three years by the Associated Press Sports Editors. Follow Mark on Twitter @MarkLazerus
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