The Blackhawks have waited years to have a forward lineup like the one they dressed for their overtime win Thursday against the Jets.
With Connor Bedard healthy, they have a first line with three dangerous scoring threats: Bedard, Patrick Kane and Roman Kantserov. They have a smart, heavy second line — featuring Anton Frondell and Tyler Bertuzzi — that can be effective offensively and defensively.
They have a checking line — Ryan Greene centering Jordan Greenway and Cole Smith — that understands its job and performs it well. And they have three useful players in Frank Nazar (now back from suspension), Oliver Moore and Ryan Donato left over to create the final line, although their chemistry remains a work in progress.
Compared to many NHL teams, that lineup is nothing special. The Hawks still lack the Oilers’ star power or the Hurricanes’ depth, for example. But at least it is comparable to most NHL teams now.
„The more really good players you have in there, the better chance that — when someone is not having their best game — somebody else is having a really good game,“ coach Jeff Blashill said Thursday. „This lineup up front is, on paper, the best lineup we’ve had.“
Now the Hawks need to prove that on the ice. And there’s one particular thing they need to prove they can do: possess the puck.
The Hawks have spent lots of time in their defensive zone — and relatively little time in the offensive zone — so far this season. They entered Thursday ranked 28th in offensive-zone time and 32nd in shot attempts per minute (the latter stat being influenced by a strange hesitance to shoot).
But a roster this competent shouldn’t get swamped as much as previous iterations did. That needs to change.
Blashill stated the reason why succinctly and honestly back on Oct. 5: „If we spend a whole bunch of time defending, all the warts that we have defensively will show up.“
There certainly are defensive warts. With Bowen Byram still trying to find a rhythm in Chicago — and now sidelined by an upper-body injury — the Hawks don’t have a clear No. 1 defenseman to rely upon. Nor do they have an established shutdown center like Jordan Staal or even Jason Dickinson.
Instead, they have one of the league’s youngest, most inexperienced defensive corps — and one of the league’s youngest, most inexperienced groups of centers.
Hawks management is aware of that weakness, which is impossible not to notice. The Hawks frequently make mistakes with defensive-zone coverage and frequently commit turnovers when trying to exit the zone, and that’s probably just the way things are going to be for a while.
Management is also aware of the team’s strengths: speed and work ethic. Their plan to utilize those strengths to minimize that weakness is predicated on aggressive forechecking, which in theory controls the puck and the pace of play.
„We want to be a team that is on top of people,“ Blashill said Thursday. „We want to use our speed to pressure. We want to be a puck-pursuit team.“
The Hawks primarily use a 2-1-2 forecheck, although they can retreat into a passive 1-1-3 depending on the situation.
In the 2-1-2, two forwards pressure the opposing defenseman circling back to retrieve the puck. The „F3“ provides a second layer of support, and if the first two forecheckers contest the puck, he has the freedom to spring down and join them.
It’s also important for the Hawks’ two defensemen to provide a third layer of support — such as stepping up to meet pucks cleared up the boards — but they should do that only if the „F3“ is high enough to cover for them.
None of that worked properly during the first few games. The Hawks were either too passive (accomplishing nothing), too aggressive (conceding odd-man rushes the other way) or a mixture of both (preventing players from anticipating teammates’ decisions).
„If you hesitate for more than half a second in this league, it’s too late,“ Donato said.
They’ve improved as October has gone on, setting a new high water mark Tuesday when Frondell and Bertuzzi’s perfect forecheck set up Teuvo Teravainen’s opening goal.
hyvää iltaa Hawks fans 👋 pic.twitter.com/VttD8NMsfn
— Chicago Blackhawks (@NHLBlackhawks) October 14, 2026
Blashill pointed out that rolling four lines with short shifts is another key component of the strategy, since pressuring is tiring, so having four increasingly stable lines to roll should help.
But there’s still ample work to do. Shot attempts aren’t a perfect proxy stat for possession time, but they’re a decent proxy, and the Hawks have attempted fewer shots than their opponents in seven of eight games this season.
Last season, they had fewer in 54 of 82 games. In 2024-25, they had fewer in 61 of 82. In 2023-24 — Bedard’s rookie season — they had fewer in 66 of 82. It’s difficult to even imagine the Hawks consistently controlling possession considering how long it has been since they did so.
Can they change that pattern this season? This lineup should be capable of it. It will come down to execution.
But about breakouts…
Although the Hawks recognize the defensive zone might not be their strength this season, they’ll need to at least orchestrate defensive-zone breakouts more cleanly to give themselves opportunities to forecheck.
For young defenseman Sam Rinzel, who has committed a few egregious turnovers this month, the strategy to reduce turnovers is to be more selective about when to take risks on breakouts.
„You can get caught in a tough spot in the ‘D’-zone sometimes,“ Rinzel said. „If you really can’t skate out of anything, it’s OK to eat [the puck] and puck protect, use your body and find a play that way.“
If there is enough time and space to move the puck but there aren’t any forwards open, Blashill has encouraged to the Hawks to flip it aerially into the neutral zone or bank it off the glass — which they call „space plays.“
„We’re fast, so any time we can make a space play and get in a footrace, we kind of want to do that,“ Rinzel added.
„You don’t want to lose the game yourself. That’s something we’ve ran into a little bit when we’ve lost, like against the Islanders. You feel like you control the game, but just a few mistakes cost you it. We can’t beat ourselves.“
Can Blackhawks’ full-strength lineup use its speed to pressure like Jeff Blashill wants? 2026
IUSTITIA.BG – Investigations 2009-2026 2026-10-16 12:30:01
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