Chicago Blackhawks: Time to fix putrid defensive play now

The Chicago Blackhawks really need to fix their defensive play or 2020-21 will be the same.

The Chicago Blackhawks were a poor team more often than not in 2019-20. They had guys like Patrick Kane, Jonathan Toews, Dominik Kubalik, and the goaltenders play well enough where they squeaked into the return to play format that the NHL put in as a result of the COVID-19 pause. That doesn’t mean that there are some major issues with this team and the biggest one is the defense and play in their own end. They were legit one of the worst looking defensive teams in the history of the NHL’s playoffs.

They were absolutely clueless defensively against the Vegas Golden Knights. In the series before against the Edmonton Oilers, it was more of a run and gun series and they were able to score enough to shadow the bad defensive play. That wasn’t the case in Vegas because they have better structure, better defenseman, and better goaltending. The Blackhawks looked like a mess as Vegas continued to attack in waves and there was nothing the Hawks could do about it.

There are some numbers that came out of the series that are very problematic for the Hawks. Vegas had 305 shot attempts while Chicago had 202. 158 of those attempts ended up on the net for Vegas while only 96 for Chicago. The Golden Knights had 62 high danger chances to the Hawks 32 which is very scary as it was literally double. The expected goals also favored Vegas 13.4 to 6.9. As far as actual goals, Vegas scored 13 and the Hawks scored 8. These are troublesome numbers as Vegas clearly dominated the play all series long.

These numbers make Corey Crawford‘s numbers look even better. He was outstanding as the Golden Knights just didn’t stop coming as you can see. If he was just average, this series would have been even more ugly for the Chicago Blackhawks.

So where does the problem lie? Well, everywhere. Calvin de Haan and Connor Murphey would make a fine second pair on a good team. Duncan Keith was good against Edmonton and gave it his all but in the Knights series was tough for him. He is getting up there in age and clearly isn’t the elite player he once was.

Adam Boqvist did not look good on most occasions. He is great with the puck on his stick and on the power play but he is an absolute mess in his own end and can’t defend. He might make a fine specialist and bottom pair guy but that is tough from a top-ten pick. There is more development to go but that certainly is worrisome as of now. The Hawks need to address this defense right away. Stan Bowman isn’t the guy for the job so that makes the idea even worse but this group isn’t the one good enough to defend in the playoffs. Something has to be done soon.