What did we learn about Louis Crevier during his first full NHL season?

Did you know that the oldest defenseman on the Blackhawks right now is Louis Crevier?

This ignores Matt Grzelcyk, who\'s almost certainly not going to back with the team next season, but at the ripe old age of 25 -- which he reached on Monday -- Crevier is the elder statesmen among Chicago blue-liners right now. That\'s going to factor into the discussion ahead, as Crevier\'s age is part of the big picture here, and his age suggests there may not be as much development left ahead in his career as compared to, say, the still 19-year-old Artyom Levshunov. It\'s also worth nothing that Crevier just turned 25 a few weeks after his first full NHL season, which is probably on the high side for players who have longer NHL careers.

Still, the 78 games he skated with Chicago this season more than doubled his career output of 56, split between the 2023-24 (24) and 2024-25 seasons (32). So what do we know about the towering Crevier now?

It was a frequent mention during CHSN broadcasts this season, but we learned that Crevier has incredibly powerful shot, one that ranked among the hardest in the league. Below are the top-10 shots clocked this season:

And it\'s an extremely useful weapon when it can be fired on net, and Crevier did that better than anyone on the Hawks blue line. He was credited with 232 shot attempts at 5-on-5 by Natural Stat Trick, with 107 of those attempts on net: a 46.1 percent rate that was tops among the seven Hawks D-men who skated in at least 20 games this season.

The power and accuracy of Crevier\'s shot means it can be useful for deflections into the net:

GOAL: Colton Dach tips in Louis Crevier's shot from the point to give the Blackhawks the lead! pic.twitter.com/PzXJvSKGny

— BHF (@BlackhawksFocus) November 16, 2025

Or he can just power it past the goalie himself:

GOAL: Louis Crevier with a blast from the point for his second goal of the game: pic.twitter.com/SIn2HI2qSp

— BHF (@BlackhawksFocus) April 16, 2026

That goal above was Crevier\'s second of that night in the season finale against San Jose, which made him the season leader for goals among Blackhawks defensemen. We also learned he skates pretty well for a player with a 6-foot-8 stature, with his first goal from that night serving as evidence. Watch Crevier skate hard to the back post and be rewarded when Connor Bedard finds him with a pass:

GOAL: What a pass from Connor Bedard who sets up Louis Crevier with the game-tying goal: pic.twitter.com/kZpiTBmkG6

— BHF (@BlackhawksFocus) April 16, 2026

Crevier also showed off some nifty hands on this shorthanded goal from December:

GOAL: Louis Crevier HOW DO YOU DO! Wow! pic.twitter.com/WVTrpoV45A

— BHF (@BlackhawksFocus) December 11, 2025

That skating ability was cpatured by the NHL\'s EDGE data, which has Crevier in the top fifth of the league in categories of max skating speed, burst of speed over 22 MPH and in the 20-22 range.

Let\'s not get too carried with the offensive side of things, though, because Crevier is not the second coming of Cale Makar. The shot and skating ability will be useful tools in seasons ahead, but it\'s not the full Crevier story from this season. We learned he\'s not perfect on the defensive side of the ice, where there were plenty of miscues by Crevier that directly led to goals against.

Here\'s Crevier losing Alex Tuch on the ice, resulting a breakaway goal from Chicago\'s penultimate game of the season:

Tuch scores off a stretch pass from Dahlin: pic.twitter.com/QmD2MNv6DB

— BHF (@BlackhawksFocus) April 14, 2026

And here\'s Crevier giving up inside positioning to Toronto\'s Nick Robertson, resulting in a Leafs goal:

ABSOLUTELY LOVE THIS SHIT That’s big bad Nick Robertson driving the net and getting good body positioning on 6’8 Crevier. pic.twitter.com/WhxYRc75Mf

— Rink Rat Report (@RinkRatReport) November 16, 2025

One more Crevier gaffe that led to a goal against:

Tough start for Louis Crevier as he can't find the puck in his skates and it leads to a Capitals goal pic.twitter.com/bIeFuZkytd

— BHF (@BlackhawksFocus) December 18, 2024

We could do this all day, finding a string of positive or negative highlights as evidence for whichever side of the Crevier argument was being made.

The data on Crevier from Corey Sznajder\'s All Three Zones Project probably has more red on it than blue, although it\'s fair to point out that the zone entry department -- which is Crevier\'s worst below -- isn\'t an essential part of his game. And the sections on defending zone entries and retrieving pucks/exiting the defensive zone are closer to the league-wide median in the middle.

Here\'s where we begin drifting back towards the discussions on Vlasic from earlier in the week , as we look at Crevier\'s season-long summary of the Hockey Stat Cards data, which you may recognize from the game score cards that were part of every SCH recap this season.

The part to highlight here is the quality of competition/teammates section, where the degree of difficulty of Crevier\'s ice time is best indicated. Crevier and Vlasic routinely faced the top lines of Chicago\'s opponents this season and often did so beginning in their end of the ice. The top five opponents Crevier was on the ice against this season during 5-on-5 play were, according to Hockey Stat Cards\' website : Mark Scheifele, Kyle Connor, Robert Thomas, Quinn Hughes and Connor McDavid. No Blackhawks defenseman had a lower percentage of zone starts in the offensive zone than Crevier at 31.8 percent, and that was the second lowest total in the entire league, among the 244 defensemen who skated at least 250 minutes of 5-on-5 ice time last season. There wasn\'t really more difficult ice time out there than what Crevier faced this season.

Similar to the conclusion on Vlasic, we didn\'t really learn enough about Crevier to definitively conclude anything about him just yet.

We know he can skate and shoot, and we know his height and impressive reach are extremely useful tools on the defensive side of things, which is why the idea of him as a shutdown defenseman is so tantalizing. We also know he was prone to mishandling the puck or losing body positioning or misreading plays, all of which led to goals against as a result. That Crevier wasn\'t completely caved in on the scoreboard given his incredibly difficult ice time is credit to him: Crevier was on the ice for 55 goals against and 48 for, a differential of minus-7 at 5-on-5 that was fourth among Chicago\'s top-seven defensemen.

And Crevier was an overall steadier performer than Vlasic was, with less variation between his best and worst stretches, as compared to Vlasic. That\'s why their player cards have such differences in categories like WAR and even-strength defense despite those two being each other\'s most common on-ice partner this season.

But Crevier would still need to post better results overall to be considered a true shutdown defender. There are players who had similarly tough deployment as Crevier and produced better results overall, names like Mike Matheson (MTL), Ryan Pulock (NYI), Jake Sanderson (OTT), Jake McCabe (TOR) and (... sigh) Gustav Forsling (FLA). This isn\'t say to that Crevier is -- or ever will be -- on the same level as some of those players, but it is an indication facing an opponents\' top line consistently doesn\'t have to be a death sentence for a defenseman\'s possession numbers.

The Hawks didn\'t fully commit to the shutdown defensive bit this season for Crevier (and Vlasic). Crevier\'s top forward on-ice teammate was Ilya Mikheyev, which would be part of that commitment, considering Mikheyev\'s effective two-way play. The next two were Tyler Bertuzzi and Ryan Donato, which was not part of the same commitment. A full commitment to the bit would\'ve seen Jason Dickinson out there with Crevier (and Vlasic) as much as possible, and other two-way forwards like Mikheyev or Teuvo close behind.

Perhaps we\'ll get that next season, with Vlasic and Crevier as the primary defensive-zone starters on the Chicago blue line and a trio of defensively responsible forwards in front of them as often as possible so that this quintet can focus on gaining possession of the puck and then getting off the ice for the more offensively oriented players like Bedard and Nazar and others to work their magic at the other end of the ice.

Then we\'ll learn a little more about where Crevier fits into this long-term puzzle.

Talking Points