Welcome to John McDonough, Rocky Wirtz and Stan Bowman’s worst nightmare: the 10 things that could lead to the implosion of the Blackhawks in 2017-18.
1) Rotten to the core
There’s been a lot of debate in Blackhawk nation (and elsewhere) around the “hard miles” theory as it applies to the Hawks’ best players, particularly: Duncan Keith, Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane.
While Kane hasn’t missed a beat, the other two have had a couple of “off” seasons. There certainly are plausible explanations. Not the least of which are chemistry changes and injuries. But the Hawks took steps to positively restore chemistry around Toews (at least) this offseason, and ostensibly both players have had their longest summers of rest and recuperation since 2012.
Toews and Keith are in many ways the engines that drive the Hawks at their best. If either or both come up short this season, expect similar results as the last two seasons. And cue the cries for a larger shakeup (ie, a rebuild) this offseason.
2) Seabrook
Similar to the last point, and although Brent Seabrook is not really a critical core player, he is being paid as such, and he has been at the center of robust debate as to where his skill level really is at this point of his career. On the one hand, some say his game has “fallen off a cliff.” On the other, some cite that for most of the last two seasons, he has had to babysit the likes of Viktor Svedberg, Erik Gustafsson and rookie Michal Kempny.
Regardless, with the departure of Niklas Hjalmarsson and more minutes for the likes of Kempny and Connor Murphy, if Seabrook does not play well this year, it could spell serious trouble for the Hawks.
3) Different year, different players, same problem
Anyone who’s read here the last couple of years doesn’t need to me to repeat the litany of out of position or over-challenged players the Hawks have tried at one of their top 6 left wings spots.
It’s been too easy to evaluate the Panarin for Saad deal as a straight up swap and comparison. Because the fact is, Saad will likely play with Jonathan Toews, and the “replacement” for Panarin will play with Patrick Kane. As I outlined yesterday, today, that player is likely 35 year old Patrick Sharp. Should that fail, or if no one else takes the job, the Hawks could be right back where they were last year, “auditioning” natural centers and right wings on Artem Anisimov’s left flank. It’s not a huge worry, as Kane and his line have been consistently productive the last few years sort of regardless of who he lines up with. The Hawks are hoping for similar this year.
4) Crawford goes down, Forsberg doesn’t step up
Seems almost self-explanatory, as after the highly regarded (anyway) Anton Forsberg, the goalie pickings get awfully slim in the Hawk system. Should Crawford take an extended injury, there will be fairly big pressure on the talented, young Swedish netminder, Forsberg.
Should he fail to deliver, look out below.
5) Panik regresses
Richard Panik had a pretty nice season last year—and occasionally looked all-world.
All that said, he went through some scoring droughts, punctuated by a few big nights, and there are times when he can look pretty pedestrian too. The Hawks need Panik to at least duplicate what he did last year, now that he seems fully installed on Toews’ right wing.
6) The pieces just don’t fit
Bowman really re-engineered his forwards this offseason, and addressed especially the left side, adding at least 3 natural left wings. He also paid special attention to getting NHL veterans who are specially suited to lower line situations—hopefully eliminating the need to have young players filling NHL roles they are either not ready for or not suited for in terms of playing style (as was the case last season). But now all this new depth needs to come together and form four cohesive, effective lines.
And it can be argued some of these changes came at the expense of defensive depth. In all likelihood, Keith and Seabrook will be tasked with anchoring each of the top two pairs, playing with Murphy and Kempny respectively.
Both of these young players have natural physical ability—both need to improve in their consistency and mental aspects of the game.
7) Drawing a blank
The Blackhawks were underwater much of last season in shots and 5-on-5 play, as well as in the lower half of the league (after an abysmal start to the season) on the penalty kill. This was a worsening of a trend that started in 2015-16—directly mirrored by a two-season decline in the faceoff circle.
While some in the fancy stats crowd continue to swear faceoffs don’t matter—intuitively, it’s hard to separate winning draws and owning pucks with shots on net taken in the offensive zone and shots allowed in the defensive zone. Not to mention pucks that end up in the back of your net on the penalty kill.
Ask guys who take faceoffs and do it well for a living, and they will argue the same.
If Jonathan Toews is the only Hawk faceoff option capable of winning over 50% of his draws—and the last two years, the only other option within a whiff of 50% was the now departed Marcus Kruger—the Hawks could be in deep trouble on all the metrics outlined above.
8) The defense is as bad as it looks
Deferring to the fancy stats crowd for a moment, what if Murphy remains a pumpkin—even playing with Keith as a partner? And if Kempny can’t iron out some of the thought process wrinkles that plagued his game last season.
And what if Gustav Forsling doesn’t make a big step up in terms of becoming a regular, reliable NHL defenseman. And Jan Rutta needs a full year in Rockford to get acclimated to North American ice. And Svedberg and Gustafsson are still, well, Svedberg and Gustafson?
Any or all of these are possibilities. And if, oh, half or more of these scenarios play out to the negative, ruh roh.
If I had to bet today, when Stan Bowman “recaptures” (see what I did there?) Marian Hossa’s cap money, he is going to go out and pay (handsomely) for a competent NHL defenseman to provide much needed depth and ability to this group.
But, still.
9) The bug bites
I don’t have the actual man-game numbers in front of me, but it seems to me, anecdotally, the Hawk core has been pretty darn healthy overall the last several years.
We’ve already talked about the importance of Keith, Toews, and Crawford (at minimum) staying healthy.
But the reality is, as much as the Hawks are almost banking on unknowns stepping up and filling predicted gaps in production and roles up and down the lineup, if ever there was a year the Hawks can not afford one of their top 7-8 players to go down for any length of time, it is this one.
10) Leadership failure
In the wake of the Hawks’ dreadful first round performance in the playoffs, team leadership said the right things. There was minimal finger-pointing, responsibility was shared all the way around, commitments were made to improve.
Say what you will about the moves Bowman made this summer. But he did not do what many expected—just perpetuate the inertia of the last couple of seasons and expound the same weak platitudes about prospects and rookies on the way.
Bowman did go out and add (NHL) youth, size and speed—while gaining some cost control—this summer. The question is how good that youth, size and speed will be once integrated into a thinner Hawk lineup (at least in terms of the big names we have all become accustomed to—no Hossa, Hjalmarsson, Panarin or Kruger).
Now, the onus is on Joel Quenneville, Kevin Dineen and new assistant Ulf Samuelsson. Samuelsson is the guy the organization targeted and courted hard to replace the much-maligned Mike Kitchen, a longtime Quenneville crony, who allegedly was not a big favorite of the players.
It was Dineen, I was told, who saved his own job by offering a frank and insightful assessment of what was wrong with the team in a postseason interview. And it is quite possible those insights helped drive some of the personnel moves this summer.
The coaching staff must therefore, bite the bullet—and give lots of TOI to a Kempny, allow Murphy to make some initial mistakes, display patience in achieving a new chemistry on the third and fourth lines. And more.
I personally felt like the staff did a pretty good job (in the regular season anyway) last year with a lot of ill-fitting parts and players not ready for primetime. Bowman has gone out and added a lot of guys with real NHL experience.
The question is are they, or can they be, the right guys?
Answers await in 60 days or so.
JJ
Chicago Blackhawks Blogger • 
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