Broken Bodies and Broken Souls

Table of Contents

• Weekly News
• Game Recaps
• Sickbay
• Week Ahead

Don't worry. All the bad news is down below. The good news is that you already know the bad news.

Before we talk Blackhawks hockey, a quick update about the blog, all the Playbook stuff will be coming in a separate post. The main blog post will still be posted every Monday. Playbook stuff will be a bit more irregular. This gives me more time to deep dive into the tactics stuff.

I'm very aware that the Hawks suck at playing basic hockey right now and deep diving their strategy is nothing ground-breaking.

Weekly News

Where do we begin?

If you thought the Hawks injury roster couldn't get any worse. I have terrible news.

Anthony Beauvillier hurt his wrist after taking a hit in the Nashville game on Jan. 2. He was placed on Injured Reserve (IR) and recovery time is unknown.

Kyle Davidson (KD) claimed defenseman Jaycob Megna to combat the already hurting roster. The 31-year-old from Northbrook comes in with 144 games played, 4 goals, and 22 assists.

I already know what you're thinking. Why did KD sign a defenseman to a roster hurting for forward depth? I wondered the same thing. Here's a good breakdown on the signing by SecondCityHockey.

On Jan. 5, Connor Bedard was selected as the All-Star for the Blackhawks. This makes him the youngest player to become an NHL All-Star.

Connor Bedard fractured his jaw against the Devils on Jan. 5. This shouldn't be news and if you're finding out from this blog I recommend not living under a rock.

I talk about the hit a bit down in the recap below. No set timeline for his recovery, however, you can expect around 6ish weeks. Anything less would be fast.

Nick Foligno also fractured his finger in the same game, most likely from opening up a can of whoop-ass on Brenden Smith, the player who hit Bedard.

This prompted KD to take action on getting some forwards. Davidson traded a conditional 2026 7th round pick to the Penguins for forward Rem Pitlick. Pitlick is 26 and hasn't played an NHL game this season. In 4 seasons in the NHL, Pitlick has 123 games under his belt, 21 goals, and 33 assists.

On Jan. 6, Zach Sanford was claimed off of waivers from Arizona and debuted on Sunday against the Flames. The 29-year-old forward has 317 NHL games played, 49 goals, and 52 assists.

Just going to leave this here.

Tankathon | 2024 NHL Draft Order & Lottery Simulator

2024 NHL Draft order tracker updated after every game. NHL lottery simulator to determine the top overall pick. View traded picks and playoff matchups.

Tankathon

Game Recaps

All games go back to last Monday (1/1). Stats are from Natural Stat Trick. A glossary of advanced stats terms can be found here.

On to the games.

The Hawks played 4 games this week and won one of them.

Hawks @ Predators 1/2
3-0 Hawks Lose

This team is hurting and it took another blow when Beauvillier took a hit. He’s out with an injury and at the time of this writing, we won’t know when he’s coming back.

The second line consisted of Foligno-Dickinson-Guttman. I point that out to highlight how shallow this team is. And it only got worse from here

On to the notes.

• Beauvillier looked like a scooter dog when his skate broke.

• The Preds did what they are good at and clogged the neutral zone once they had a lead. The Blackhawks struggled to get through.
• Arvid Soderblom let in a pretty weak goal about 5 min. into the game. Otherwise, he actually looked decent and made some wild saves. He stopped 33 shots of 35.
• The Preds stifled Bedard really well and limited him to only 2 shot attempts. His line with Beauvillier and Philipp Kurashev had a 15.38 Corsi For (CF%).Which is to say that they were pretty ineffective. When Ryan Donato joined the line things didn’t look much better at a 28.57 CF%.
• Their 3 power plays were pretty bad. They’re back to slingshots and double late entries which isn’t helping. They can’t even get set up when they have a man-advantage. They had 1 shot on goal and 7 shot attempts for all PP attempts.

This one can be memory wiped.  

Hawks @ Rangers 1/4
4-1 Hawks Lose

There’s not a whole lot to say about this one. The Hawks are in desperate need of healthy players. What’s there to discuss? Well, aside from pointing out the obvious, not a lot. So, I will point out the obvious. It’s what I’m good at, after all.

• Jaycob Megna debuted in his first game as a Blackhawk and his first game of the season. He logged a secondary assist for Colin Blackwell’s goal. Megna is a big dude. He made a wonderful breakout pass which would lead to the lone Hawk goal. In terms of fancy stats, he didn’t look bad. At 5v5 he posted a 53.33 CF% and an expected goals against (xGA) percentage of .38, which was the lowest of everyone. To be fair, he skated the lowest of all defensemen with 14:48 minutes of ice time.

• Other defensemen that looked ok were Alex Vlasic and Nikita Zaitsev. Vlasic looked like his usual shut-down self. Zaitsev seemed to have an ok game with smart defensive plays. Nothing ground-breaking.
• Kevin Korchinski continued his journey of learning in this game. He had a lot of opportunities to shoot the puck and opted to pass it. A reminder that he is 19 years old.
• Tinordi got into a fight. That’s the only thing he’s good at. He had some moments that were pretty painful to watch, like falling on his ass.
• In the second period, Connor Bedard made a soft pass that was intercepted. He had a couple of mistakes in this one. That’s ok as it’s part of the process. The only reason why I point that out is to remind everyone that Bedard is an 18-year-old kid. Tired of me pointing out people's ages yet?
• The other mistake(s) was in the first period. A turnover at the blue-line which led to a goal by Artemi Panarin and Bedard should have been smarter on the backcheck. Again. These mistakes are bound to happen and there is no reason to worry about them. Bedard will learn.

Hawks have 6 losses in their last 7. (Loads up tankathon.com)

Hawks @ Devils 1/5
4-2 Hawks Lose

I’m going to let you in on how I type these. The morning after every game, I’ll type up some thoughts, save the draft, and maybe edit a thing or two before I post on Monday.

While I was typing up the Rangers recap, I finished with “I don’t think we’ve really hit rock bottom yet.” But I deleted it. I genuinely thought “You know what, this team really can’t get any worse than this.

Well friends. Connor Bedard fractured his jaw and Nick Foligno fractured his finger in this one.

You’ve all read the news. There’s really nothing more for me to say other than a large amount of profanities.

As for the game…

• This was a fun one to watch because of the violence that ensued on the ice. Kurashev tackling Smith, Foligno beating Brendan Smith’s soul into the ice, Reese Johnson turning into the equivalent of a meatball wrecking ball. It was fun, but not for the right reasons (being that Bedard got hurt).
• Hits were even and not as high as I thought they would be. 14 for both teams.
• Was the Brendan Smith hit clean? Oh boy. Open ice hits in the middle of the ice are dangerous. Even more so when you don’t have your head up, like Bedard. Bedard loves going through the middle because he’s good at it. Skilled players enter the OZ through the middle. There’s just that danger of being hit. Was the hit malicious? Eh. I can’t say. The only thing that looked sketchy to me was that it looked like Smith’s shoulder hit Bedard’s head. Should he have known better? Sure. But hockey is a hitting sport, right? All I know is that the Hawks fan in me has a vendetta against Smith. Clean hit or dirty.
• Jason Dickinson scored on the powerplay and Boris Katchouk scored a nice goal on the PK. Special teams were looking good.
• The Hawks' possession metrics were against them, 39.82 CF%, an expected goals share of 37.38%, 45 shot attempts for and 68 shot attempts against,25 shots for and 32 against.
• Soderblom didn’t look awful. That first goal he let in by Simon Nemec was one he could have saved. Otherwise, not horrible.
• The Hawks now lost 14 road games in a row.

Be prepared for a long 6ish weeks Hawks fans.

Hawks vs Flames 1/7
Hawks win 4-3

Our first look at how the Hawks can play in their current decimated state came on Jan. 7. Another “Best Day Ever” game where children announced goal scorers and Vosters showed us cringy dancing. This game was reminiscent of last spring when Patrick Kane was already traded and Jonathan Toews was out. Only this time the current roster is much worse. And they still pulled off a win.

• Colin Blackwell scored 2 goals including a powerplay goal and an assist. He’s had a good comeback since his recovery.
• Zaitsev had a decent game. Beyond his 1 goal, he was actually making some sound defensive decisions.
• Let’s talk about Alex Vlasic. He’s been taking the brunt of icetime since Seth Jones has been absent. Tonight he led with 22:16. At his age, he is a solid shutdown defenseman who makes great breakout passes. His offensive game isn’t bad either. I’m not saying he’s a future top pairing defenseman, but he’s making a solid case for a middle pairing d-man.
• I’m hoping that Lukas Reichel will take advantage of the injuries. He only put 2 shot attempts and 2 shots on goal. For comparison, Blackwell put on 9 shot attempts, 3 shots on goal, and has 3 points to show for it.
• Cole Guttman had a good game too. 3 shots on goal, 6 shot attempts, and some decent chances to include a breakaway.
• Zach Sanford got an assist in his first game as a combat replacement. 
• Hawks were out-possessed with a 44.32 CF% in 5v5 situations.  In all situations, they faced 31 shots on goal to their 21.

Good game. Thought this would be a sleepy blowout but they put up a good effort. Get hyped for Blackwell, that’s all we have.

Sickbay

Information from Cap Friendly, updates in bold.

• Taylor Hall – Knee/Out for season
• Andreas Athanasiou – Lower body/week-to-week
• Samuel Savoie – Femur/Out for the season
• Lukas Philp – Achilles/6 months
• Seth Jones - Upper Body/unknown recovery time
• Joey Anderson - Shoulder/unknown recovery time
• Tyler Johnson - Undisclosed/Unknown
• Taylor Raddysh - Lower Body/Unknown
• Anthony Beauvillier - Wrist/unknown
• Connor Bedard - Jaw/unknown
• Nick Foligno - Finger/unknown
                                 

Week Ahead

• Hawks vs Oilers 1/9 6:30 PM
• Hawks @ Jets 1/11 6:00 PM
• Hawks vs Stars 1/13 6:00 PM
• Hawks vs Flames 1/7 2:00 PM

Let's Go Hawks
DirtyThird