During the third period of Saturday night’s game against the Florida Panthers, Blackhawks coach Jeremy Colliton broke up the top line of Brandon Saad, Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane.
Correlation may not equal causation here, but the results were undeniable. After being dominated in possession for two periods, the Blackhawks flipped the script and battled back from a 4-2 deficit en route to a 5-4 overtime victory.
It worked on Saturday night. And it might work again in the future.
Judging from the line combinations at Monday’s morning skate, Colliton is sticking with that plan for the immediate future. And that’s good., because …
It’s time to leave the Saad-Toews-Kane top line combination in the past.
This isn’t a shot at the Blackhawks trio of top-six forwards. It’s more about those three players being cast for roles that aren’t meant for them.
There are several examples of teams loading up their top line with the most offensive talent it can muster. But the ones that are thriving in the NHL this season are a little different than Chicago’s top trio. Let’s look at some of those other top line combinations in the NHL:
- The Colorado Avalanche have Mikko Rantanen (38 points in 23 GP) with Nathan McKinnon (35 in 23) and Gabriel Landeskog (26 in 23). MacKinnon and Rantanen were over a point-per-game pace last season, and Landeskog wasn’t far behind (62 points in 78 games).
- In Tampa, the Lightning keep putting Nikita Kucherov (100 points in 80 games last season) and Steven Stamkos (86 points in 78 games last season) together on the top line.
- The defending Stanley Cup champions in Washington boast Alex Ovechkin and Nicklas Backstrom on their top line. Each of those players have topped 100 points in their careers. /
Each of those lines have, at a minimum, two players who are among the game’s best offensive players. Kane fits that mold. While Toews and Saad are each having resurgent seasons, they’re not quite in the realm of offensive prowess occupied by guys like Kane, Ovechkin, Stamkos and others.
And that’s fine! They don’t have to be!
But the Blackhawks can’t keep using them like they are and expect to turn things around, either. If Chicago is going to get back into the playoff race, they need to split up that top line and get back to something closer to the lineup that was used in the first few weeks of the season: creating two lethal scoring lines. Maybe it’s putting Toews and Saad with Alex DeBrincat, and using Kane opposite Dominik Kahun with newly-acquired Dylan Strome in the center. Or maybe it’s continuing with the line combinations that coach Jeremy Colliton used for the third period of Saturday night’s game against the Florida Panthers: Toews and Saad with John Hayden and a second line of DeBrincat-Anisimov-Kane. Perhaps Anisimov gets bumped down to the third line and the Hawks hope to rekindle some Erie Otters magic with DeBrincat and Strome on a line, with Kane handling the McDavid role (I’ll sign up for this, personally). Colliton has options.
Loading up one line can work in the current NHL, if a team has a couple of truly dynamic offensive talents to use. The Blackhawks do not. So the next best option is to create two quality scoring lines that can combine to outscore an opponent. It worked quite well for the Blackhawks over the first few weeks of the season, when Chicago went 6-2-2 in its first 10 games.
And it’s time to give that type of lineup another look.