The blue line continues to be the Hawks’ most glaring issue, and most pressing offseason need.
ANAHEIM, Calif. — For all the Blackhawks’ problems this season, and there have been many, the biggest one has been the blue line.
You can see Jonathan Toews and Brandon Saad having bounce-back offensive seasons next year. You can measure the difference a healthy Corey Crawford and his.929 save percentage should make next season. You can envision a better power-play performance next year as Alex DeBrincat and Nick Schmaltz continue to take on larger roles.
But there’s no defense for this defense.
The blue line has been a flashing red warning light all season, never more glaring than during the Hawks’ three-game California road trip. Nobody was very good in Sunday’s 6-3 loss to the Anaheim Ducks — quite a comedown from their stirring comeback victory over the Los Angeles Kings a day earlier — but the defensive effort, in particular, was alarming.
It was Duncan Keith standing idly by as Rickard Rakell moved to the front of the net for a power-play goal in the first period. It was Jordan Oesterle offering a half-hearted stick check as Corey Perry performed a spin-o-rama on the doorstep to beat Anton Forsberg to make it 2-0 four minutes later.
Those passive plays — Keith didn’t really react, Oesterle didn’t really move — summed up the Hawks’ defensive woes all season. Nobody takes the body. Nobody clears opponents from the crease. And while Corey Crawford might be able to stop some of those chances on a regular basis, neither Anton Forsberg, J-F Berube nor Jeff Glass has been able to.
It goes beyond the inability to clear the slot and the crease, though. Brent Seabrook made a pass to nobody in the defensive zone during a power play, leading directly to a scoring chance for the Ducks. Keith had two turnovers that led directly to goals against the Kings a day earlier. Erik Gustafsson and Carl Dahlstrom flailed their way to three quick goals-against in San Jose on Thursday.
Every Hawks defenseman this season has struggled at times. But over the past five weeks, as the bottom has fallen out on the season, it seems every Hawks defenseman has struggled at the same time. The Hawks simply have never recovered from the offseason departures of Niklas Hjalmarsson, Brian Campbell and Trevor van Riemsdyk.
Repairing the blue line has to be a big part of the Hawks’ offseason plans. They’ll have loads of cap space to play with for the first time in ages, and they need to parlay that into a legitimate No. 2 defenseman, or at least a second-pairing guy. And you can bet 2017 first-rounder Henri Jokiharju will get every opportunity to show he’s NHL-ready during training camp, even at just 19 years old.
As for the rest of this season, the Hawks at least showed some fight. Jonathan Toews and longtime nemesis Ryan Kesler dropped the gloves eight seconds into the second period for a lengthy and spirited brawl. But if there were any momentum to be gained from the fight, the Ducks seemed to get it. Marcus Petterson scored his first NHL goal to make it 3-0 at 2:09, and Jakob Silfverberg scored from the slot to make it 4-0 at 6:39.
The Hawks tried to mount a second improbable rally in as many days, with Tomas Jurco tipping in a Connor Murphy shot at 14:59 of the second and Nick Schmaltz scoring the first of his two goals off the rush 67 seconds into the third to make it 4-2.
But Oesterle failed to clear a rebound from the goalmouth and Silfverberg backhanded it between Berube’s legs for the dagger, making it 5-2 at 7:00 of the third. Perry added a second goal of his own, getting behind Oesterle and Seabrook for a stuff-in from the corner, rendering Schmaltz’s 20th goal with 2:28 left mere window dressing. Just two more defensive lapses in a game — and a season — full of them.
