We’re on a mission, folks.
This one’s significantly less divine in nature, though.
Our objective within this space is to try and find something – anything! – that was good about the Blackhawks last season: some sort of statistical area where they excelled, because there’s absolutely nothing which comes to mind initially. We’d even settle for average if we can find it.
The simplest stats are all bad, which is to be expected of a team that finished tied for 30th in a league of 32 teams:
- 2.46 goals per game (worst in the league)
- 3.65 goals against per game (28th)
- 16.38% power play percentage (28th)
- 76.19% penalty kill percentage (22nd)
- 9.1% shot percentage (29th)
- .892% save percentage (22nd)
Not off to a good start. Hopping over to Natural Stat Trick for possession-based stats during 5-on-5 play will not help that cause:
- 43.90% share of shot attempts (31st)
- 43.56% share of shots on goal (31st)
- 42.49% share of expected goals (31st)
- 41.58% share of scoring chances (31st)
- 41.25% share of high-dancer chances (31st)
… at least they were consistent?
Perhaps looking at the numbers as rates instead of whole numbers will unearth something positive. Let’s start with 5-on-5 offense:
- 47.88 shot attempts per 60 minutes (32nd)
- 25.50 shots on goal per 60 (32nd)
- 22.65 scoring chances per 60 (32nd)
- 9.11 high-danger scoring chances per 60 (32nd)
- 2.12 expected goals per 60 (32nd)
- 2.01 goals per 60 (32nd)
NOPE! Dead freaking last in every category. Will the defensive numbers tell us anything different?
- 61.18 shot attempts against per 60 (29th)
- 33.05 shots on goal against per 60 (30th)
- 31.83 scoring chances against per 60 (29th)
- 12.97 high-danger scoring chances against per 60 (28th)
- 2.88 expected goals against per 60 (28th)
- 3.09 goals against per 60 (29th)
Last season, in the portion of the season with Derek King behind the bench, the Blackhawks were somewhat better in that portion of the data, although the offense was still woefully inept at everything except generating shots, chances and goals off of the rush. But even those small areas of success from the prior season were not around this season.
Let’s check out special teams data next. The overall conversion rates of the PK and PP weren’t great, as identified above. But perhaps a closer look can tell us something new. Let’s start with the power play, using rates to account for the variance in power-play times among NHL teams:
- 90.18 shot attempts per 60 (27th)
- 50.6 shots on goal per 60 (27th)
- 43.05 scoring chances per 60 (31st)
- 17.82 high-danger chances per 60 (30th)
- 5.74 goals per 60 (28th)
- 5.97 expected goals per 60 (29th)
So the Blackhawks’ power play failed to generate both shots and chances which also meant it failed to generate goals. Surprising? Of course not!
Let’s look at the penalty kill next:
- 100.45 shot attempts against per 60 (11th)
- 57.28 shots on goal against per 60 (22nd)
- 58.58 scoring chances against per 60 (18th)
- 25.64 high-danger chances against per 60 (20th)
- 8.92 goals against per 60 (23rd)
- 7.84 expected goals against per 60 (16th)
That’s not terrible! Even one statistical category that, with some friendly rounding, could be considered in the top third of the league!
There we have it, folks: the Blackhawks’ PK was sort of OK at limiting the rates of shots, chances and goals against. That’s about the only place where a hat can be hung from this season.
One other data source worth exploring is the excellent work compiled by Corey Sznajder (aka @ShutdownLine on Twitter), one of the hockey world’s stat gurus – and one-time SCH podcast guest! Sznajder’s work tracks very specific parts of hockey such as the success of zone entries for and against or how often teams generate shots off the rush or off of sustained possession. This data is behind a paywall – sign up here! – so it won’t be fully shared here but suffice it to say that the Hawks data is dreadful. Here’s a quick snippet:
About the only thing that the Blackhawks did well last season was retrieve the puck when other teams dumped the puck into the Chicago end of the ice. Everything else was bad: gaining zone entry, preventing zone entry, exiting the defensive zone cleanly, retrieving the puck after dumping it in at the opposing blue line – it was all varying degrees of bad. And when all of those little pieces of data are added together, it paints the bigger picture of the Blackhawks struggling to succeed in just about every facet of the game.
Conclusion
The obvious counter argument here is that the Blackhawks were a team assembled to lose and did just that – although not well enough to secure the top draft lottery odds. Still, this data won’t be surprising to anyone who watched this team. But it would’ve been nice if there was an aspect of the game which could be used as evidence that something was done well by this Blackhawks team which could be used as support that Luke Richardson has coaching skills beyond the painfully low bar of having his players among the league leaders in grit per 60.
This season can be dismissed, given the circumstances. But there should probably be some signs of progress – preferably as soon as next season – for the guy behind the bench to look like a viable long-term option.