One of the few good moments for the Blackhawks on Thursday — during the hideous first two periods of their 3-1 loss to the Stars — came late in the second period on the penalty kill.
After passively defending in their diamond formation for about 40 seconds, forward Nick Foligno anticipated a pass, jumped into the lane and got a stick on the puck.
That broke up the continuity of the Stars' cycle, allowing defenseman Wyatt Kaiser to pressure Matt Duchene into making another errant pass out of the zone a few seconds later. Foligno then beat Stars defenseman Thomas Harley to the loose puck, chipped it past him, raced in on a semi-breakaway and drew a slashing penalty to flip the man advantage.
That type of aggressive penalty-killing has been one of the Hawks' few relative strengths for several years now under coach Luke Richardson, and it was very effective early on this season. Then they lost some of that aggressiveness for a few weeks, and they paid the price, allowing at least one goal to opponents' power plays in seven consecutive games.
Before their win Sunday against the Ducks, assistant coach Kevin Dean held a special-teams meeting emphasizing the need to return to their former level of aggressiveness. The Hawks have done so — yet again effectively — over the last three games, going nine-for-10 on the kill (with their only goal conceded being completely meaningless with four seconds left in the Ducks game).
"There are many factors that lead into why you might sag a little bit," said Jason Dickinson, who leads Hawks forwards in shorthanded ice time. "You start to feel like you're giving up seams or back-door passes. In L.A., they score on the back door, so what are we going to do? We're going to think about that more often, so maybe that will lend more toward us being compact.
"But we had that conversation saying, 'No, we need to go. We need to get on them. We need to get pressure points, so they don't create those sets, so they don't create a lot of zone time.'"
Due to that one cold streak, the Hawks enter their day off Friday unremarkably tied for 19th in the NHL with a 77.8% kill rate this season. Their analytics, however, are better. They rank 10th in shot attempts allowed, 10th in expected goals allowed and 17th in scoring chances allowed per minute on the penalty kill.
That middle-of-the-pack ranking in the scoring-chance category reflects their up-and-down performance this year. As of Oct. 21, they had allowed 0.70 chances per minute, fourth in the NHL. Between Oct. 22 and Nov. 4 (Monday), they allowed 1.18 chances per minute, 30th in the NHL. And in the last two games, they've allowed 0.81 chances per minute.
When a power play is trying to break through the neutral zone, the Hawks' penalty kill is designed to maintain not only a blue-line trap but also some pressure on the puck. Many teams do the former but not the latter.
And once a power play enters the zone, the Hawks' so-called "pressure points" — when they're willing to break out of the diamond — are whenever there's a rebound or a fumbled pass.
"You've got to read when to pressure," forward Teuvo Teravainen said. "When one guy pressures, everybody has to follow up and pressure. ... It's hard, but when you do it right, it works really good."
Said Dickinson: "When you're reading the play well, you can strike early and efficiently. Because even if they bypass you, there's a second guy that's reading it and he's striking early and that second puck is now contested. It creates this revolution of us being able to pressure, pressure, pressure and never let them get set."
