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Examining the Blackhawks’ defense: Lessons from futility

A look at what the 2026-27 Blackhawks defense can offer based on what we learned during the 2025-26 season.

Posted on by Steve Kwiatkowski
Credit: David Banks-Imagn Images

Diagnosing the Chicago Blackhawks’ defense from last season is easy: they were bad. The Hawks finished 31st in 5-on-5 expected goals against and 30th in actual 5-on-5 goals against (only slightly improved thanks to Spencer Knight). The blue line was young, and Jeff Blashill’s man-on-man defense probably didn’t help (as we’ll see, it didn’t). Do we really have to look under the hood to check out the ugly details? No. But doing so briefly keeps us aware and helps us paint a picture as to which trends fall on the shoulders of the players and which land on the coaching staff.

Let’s start with the players.

The Defensemen

Sam Rinzel started the season looking overwhelmed in his own end. This earned him a trip to Rockford, where he scored 14 points (2 G, 12 A) in 23 games played. According to Hockey Stats’ model, he ranked in the 25th percentile in even-strength defense during his 54 games played in Chicago. While we care much more about Rinzel on offense, some of the other offensive-minded defenders also struggled in their own end: Artyom Levshunov bottomed out in the first percentile.

Levshunov is an offense-first player, but to ignore how he performed on defense is foolish. Just because a player leans offense doesn’t mean that we can just brush aside d-zone mistakes. Levshunov was a liability: he crumbled under pressure, passed to empty spaces or opposing forecheckers and made numerous communication errors (dog-ear this for when we look at man-on-man defense). Yes, he’s young and young defensemen screw up in their own end. But these issues glared.

If Levshunov was drafted with the hope that he’d become the future No. 1 defenseman, it’s possible mistakes like the ones Levshunov consistently made last season are what pushed Kyle Davidson to secure one in the market. Bowen Byram, with his 25th-percentile ranking at even-strength defense, will be taking charge of the top pair. Byram will help Chicago’s offense out, but his defense is certainly a worry. And being a No. 1 defenseman requires both offensive and defensive acumen. Part of his inconsistency in his own end comes from the fact that if there’s runway, Byram will take it and place the defensive onus on his partner.

From the first day of training camp, Alex Vlasic was paired with Byram, making the No. 1 defenseman play on his off-hand. Byram played on the right side at times in Buffalo with Owen Power: the pair played 586 minutes together at 5-on-5 and posted a 49.04 percent expected goal share. Vlasic was in the 72nd percentile according to Hockey Stats’ defensive metrics and played most with Louis Crevier (who was in the 20th percentile). Vlasic and Byram are the most ideal partners, given Byram’s tendency to join the rush from the defensive zone and Vlasic’s ability to play as Byram’s safety.

Let’s bring the forwards in and tie them in with Blashill’s defensive system.

Blashill’s System

A lot of mistakes that led to goals were made in the offensive zone. With offensive-minded defensemen who liked to pinch, the high forward needed to be aware when they had to load up the vacant spot. Too often, the Hawks paid the price on an ill-timed offensive zone pinch that led to an odd-man rush.

On the goal below, both defensemen pinched, leaving Connor Bedard — not a defenseman! — alone against a 2-on-1:

The F3 (or the high forward, with F1 and F2 deeper in the zone) has the responsibility of covering for a pinching d-man or hauling ass on a back check. While Bedard sometimes looked like he tried in these moments, his issue was more limited to what was going on in his own end. Too often, Bedard was cheating up the ice looking for an outlet pass. Even though the game may be shifting towards position-less hockey (meaning that, even though a player is a center, it’s the one nearest the puck who assumes the F1 role), Bedard is still a center and needed to play like one.

Blashill played a hybrid man-on-man and assistant coach Anders Sorensen was charged with handling defensive zone responsibilities. In last season’s system, the weak side forward protected the slot and presented himself as an outlet pass option. The d-men pressured the puck carrier and released their man when the puck carrier hit the face-off dots.

A man-to-man defensive system in hockey is very demanding. It requires active communication, situational awareness, and high conditioning. The point of this system is to kill the play before it begins. It actually facilitates a team with offensive-minded defensemen, because killing a play can cause a turnover, which creates a transition play the other way and a defenseman can get involved in the ensuing odd-man rush. For that to happen, though, plays need to be killed quickly, and the Hawks often failed to do this, spending a lot of time in their own end. This exhausted players, which compounded the mistakes and communication errors.

In the clip below, Levshunov actually plays decent defense while some putrid neutral-zone play keeps the Hawks stuck in their own end.

Clean zone entries by opponents into the Blackhawks defensive zone usually led to prolonged defensive zone shifts. While some players were fine with gapping up in the neutral zone, others conceded the blue line too often. We saw a lot more giving up of the blue line as the season wore on and Blashill tried to have the team hold on to a one-goal lead. To Blashill’s credit, though, this was an issue he identified, as explained in an excerpt below from that linked Sun-Times article:

Blashill discussed the science of gapping (defensemen pressuring opposing puck-carriers in the neutral zone) during exit interviews in April, and he reiterated this week he was “disappointed at the end of the year that we weren’t a better gapping team.”

There were some games last spring in which the Hawks were burned for trying to gap vertically instead of laterally. Blashill believes the team has the potential to improve due to their speed and mobility.

“[We need to] practice it more,” he said. “It’s something we had in our heads last year, but maybe not something we worked on enough.”

So what? What does this all mean for the upcoming season?

In Closing

Regardless of the system, significant and plentiful questions remain regarding the Hawks blue-liners: Byram needs to prove that he isn’t a defensive liability and an actual No. 1 defenseman. Rinzel and Levshunov (and Korchinski, too) are all still developing but need to show more signs of progress than they did last season. The forwards need to smarten up in their own end and help the defense out. This roster has the speed to make a man-on-man defensive system work, but they need to use that speed to kill opposing plays quickly and then move the puck up and out of the zone. It’s a lot to ask out of this team. And, ultimately, it could be a lot to ask out of Spencer Knight, who might be facing another season with an intense workload.

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