Chicago Blackhawks: Assessing the struggles as of late

After creeping so close to a Wild Card spot, the Chicago Blackhawks have cooled off recently.

The Chicago Blackhawks knew they had an incredibly important week ahead of them last week when they set out for California. They did not live up to what they needed to get done in order to maintain pace in the Western Conference Wild Card race.

It got off to a pretty good start when Brandon Saad found Patrick Kane for a very late goal in Anaheim to give them a regulation win over the Ducks. It was looking good, heading to Los Angeles to play the Kings, who were on a 10-game losing streak.

After erasing a 3-0 deficit, the Blackhawks let it slip away again and lost to a much worse hockey team. Following the loss to the Kings, they played the San Jose Sharks who are one of the elite teams in the National Hockey League. They are good enough to win the Stanley Cup.

The Blackhawks were able to keep up with the Sharks for most of the game, but eventually, San Jose pulled away and showed what an elite team can do to one that is mediocre at best.

So what’s the deal? Why are they all of the sudden struggling after that huge tear? They couldn’t lose a game for about a month there, and now they are struggling. The Hawks have lost four of their last five games. In those four losses, they did not lead the hockey game one time.

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One of the major reasons that the luck may have run out, is that Patrick Kane’s hot streak came to a halt. That is not to say that he is playing bad, but he was doing things that started whispers of him winning the Hart Trophy as the NHL’s most valuable player. That likely won’t happen unless the Blackhawks make the playoffs, but he sure gave it a run.

His point streak of 20 straight games led the Blackhawks to many of their wins. He was so good that the team was literally on his back, but when he’s not at that out-of-this-world level, the team doesn’t have enough depth to compete with the elite teams every night.

Not to mention that even when he is at that level, they cannot defend to save their lives. Kane is now point-less in three of his last four games. This is not for a lack of chances, either.

Pat Foley, the Chicago Blackhawks’ announcer, made a comment about Kane’s ice time last night during the San Jose game and it resonated with some people. He led all forwards in ice time which is not rare because he’s Patrick Kane.

He is one of the best players on planet earth so why not let him play more? Well, 23:34 is a lot of ice time for a forward, especially a winger. There have also been games where he was not only the Blackhawks’ ice time leader amongst forwards, but all players. That’s a pretty unusual move by head coach Jeremy Colliton.

You might think putting your best scorer out there longer than any other player would be ideal, but unfortunately, that is not how hockey works. Multiple defensemen usually have more ice time than every forward on a well-balanced team. That could be why Mr. Foley thinks Kane might be a bit tired compared to his normal self. Maybe a more well-rested Kane would have jumped back onto a new point streak.

Are the Blackhawks completely out of it? No. They are eight points back from the final Wild Card berth in the Western Conference with 16 games remaining. It is, however, a steep hill to climb at this point of the season.

Now, they pretty much have to win close to all of their games to get it. If they won out, that would give them 95 points, and that might not even be good enough to qualify, depending on how the other teams finish. With 32 points available to be taken off the table, they better take most of them and hope that those around them in the standing start to fall off.

There is hope for next year. Jeremy Colliton will have a full training camp with his squad without the Joel Quenneville hangover. They have a bunch of nice young pieces up front, but they need some help on the back end. This is a team that has been retooling on the fly, so it will be interesting to see how the rest of the season goes and moves into the offseason.