CHICAGO — Anders Sorensen got his desired response from his first practice as the Chicago Blackhawks’ interim coach.
“He brings a good level (of) intensity for us, especially the first practice today was pretty high-paced, a lot of energy out there,” Blackhawks defenseman Alex Vlasic said afterward. “I think it’s a good start for him.”
Forward Joey Anderson said, “(His message to us) was get the compete going and have fun doing it. It’s going to suck. It’s not easy, but enjoy that and being on each other, just find that fun in winning. He goes, winning is fun and find that fun in the compete and the battle and the way we prepare and the way we address things. I think today was a good day out there. Guys were up-tempo and guys were positive. You got to keep moving forward.”
Sorensen will only have Friday’s practice before the Blackhawks play their next game, a Saturday afternoon matchup with the Winnipeg Jets. He doesn’t have a lot of time to alter systems and do much of anything to alter how Luke Richardson was approaching things as coach.
There are some changes Sorensen can make quickly and others that will need more time. Here’s a look at five areas Sorensen could focus on to improve the Blackhawks:
1. Jump-starting Connor Bedard has to be the priority. There are a lot of different ways to go with that.
For one, Sorensen needs to restore Bedard’s confidence and aggressiveness with the puck. Bedard’s recent goalless streak seemed to mess with his head, and that’s led to fewer chances overall. He’s had two or fewer shots on goal in 10 of his last 12 games. That happened just four times in his first 14 games this season.
Going beyond even the number of shots, you could look at the type of shots and where the shots are coming from. He’s not getting many one-timers, which probably has to become a strength of his in the NHL. He’s also shooting more from the right side this season as opposed to where he had more success on the left side last season. From Chris Watkins’ research, Bedard took 41 percent of shots on goal from the left side last season, had a 19 percent shooting percentage and scored 66 percent of five-on-five goals from there. On the right side, he took 59 percent of his shots on net last season and just had a seven percent conversion rate. Now this season, he’s had 77 percent of his shots on goal from the right side and just 23 percent from the left. All of that might explain why Bedard has just three goals in five-on-five play through 26 games.
Bedard is also carrying the puck less into the offensive zone. Based on Corey Sznajder’s tracking data, Bedard has only averaged three entries per game since November. There were times early in the season when that number was close to 10 per game.
Here’s a look at all of Bedard’s tracking data from Sznajder:
Neither Sorensen nor Bedard went into much detail about how they’ll go about improving Bedard’s game, but Sorensen did mention something interesting about getting Bedard the puck in motion.
“We talked briefly on the ice and we’re going to try to get together here,” Sorensen said. “I’m curious to hear his thoughts a little bit. He’s one of those guys we have to get him up the ice and get skating. That’s when he’s at his best. We all see what he can do when the puck’s on his stick. We have to get a way for him to get the puck in motion. That’s the biggest thing right now.”
That may be Sorensen recognizing it could be easier to get Bedard going off the rush than off forechecking and the cycle. He can create chances off his entries. If Sorensen can unlock that again and get some players up the ice with him, that could start pushing Bedard in a positive direction again.
2. One of Richardson’s tactical achievements this season was making the Blackhawks less susceptible to odd-man rushes. He was able to do that by making his defensemen more preventive than aggressive.
While that did have a positive defensive effect, it also had a negative offensive effect. The Blackhawks defensemen have been less involved in the cycle offense. There isn’t a five-man attack going on with the Blackhawks. Their cycle/forecheck offense wasn’t great last season, and it’s been even worse this season. To improve that, Sorensen needs his defensemen to be more engaged in the offensive zone and less worried about getting back to defend. Because Bedard likes to play up so high in the offensive zone, there could be space for those defenders to step into and get more involved in the offense. They’re mostly attached to the wall or the blue line, though.
“I think a lot of times that’s a mentality, so we want to encourage our D to be up in the rush and we did some stuff like that in practice today,” Sorensen said. “We need to get skating here. We have a team that can move and we have some guys that can really fly out there, so try to play to their strength. Just encouraging guys to be up the ice more and defend on the front of our foot with our forecheck and be up versus waiting.”
3. How the Blackhawks get into the offensive zone could also matter to sparking some offense. Under Richardson, the Blackhawks have largely been dumping and chasing. They have a low carry-in entry percentage. Although some teams might be able to get away with that, the Blackhawks’ forecheck pressure isn’t strong enough, especially if the defense isn’t supporting it.
The Blackhawks have some players who can carry the puck into the zone with success. They need the puck on those sticks. Bedard is one. Taylor Hall is another. Lukas Reichel does it well. But on top of that, they need the other players to be more supportive. It can’t just be one good puck carrier on each line and praying that works. Playing faster might also help. While the Blackhawks have improved at breaking out from the defensive zone, they struggle when they’re forced to reset and regroup because they don’t have a ton of players who can create those clean entries.
If players like Bedard, Hall and Reichel are the ones who are best at carrying the puck through the neutral zone and into the offensive zone, Sorensen can try to have players like Philipp Kurashev, Teuvo Teräväinen, Tyler Bertuzzi and others get up ice sooner and give those puck carriers easier routes whether through bump passes or just helping back off the defense earlier.
My takeaway from the Hawks is they’ve made some incremental improvements, but they can only create off the rush & their team structure is focused around dump-and-chase. Their defense has gotten better at breaking the puck out but there’s a stop sign at the red line. pic.twitter.com/0LEhxMN3Ll
— Corey Sznajder (@ShutdownLine) December 6, 2024
4. Linemaets and defense pairings do matter. It helps when players can complement and understand each other’s games.
Sorensen didn’t promise he’d never change lines, but he shared some of his philosophy.
“Chemistry is a big part of it,” Sorensen said. “We want to try to be patient with some of the guys, but there has to be an accountability, too. If you’re not playing the way we want you to play or not putting the effort in, there are times you’ll have to change the lines because of that. The other thing, we have some lines that are working, too, so we want to keep those guys together. Sometimes when you take a guy off a line that’s working to help somebody else out, that messes everybody up. We’re trying to build some continuity in that area, for sure, but we’ll see how it goes.”
Sorensen went with Kurashev and Teräväinen on the top line during Friday’s practice. The second line was Bertuzzi, Ryan Donato and Taylor Hall. The third line was Foligno, Jason Dickinson and Ilya Mikheyev. The fourth line continued to be Pat Maroon, Reichel and Craig Smith.
We’ll see how much more confidence Sorensen has in Reichel than Richardson. There is a lot of familiarity between Sorensen and Reichel from the IceHogs.
“We had a lot of meetings and watched a lot of shifts of my game,” Reichel said. “He helped me a lot, especially away from the puck. He helped me a lot. He’s one reason why I’m with the Blackhawks now.”
With that top line, Sorensen obviously needs Kurashev to be more of an offensive threat. He hasn’t nearly been the player he was last season. Of the 350 forwards who have played a minimum of 200 minutes in five-on-five play this season, Kurashev is 329th at 0.61 points per 60 minutes. Teräväinen fared well early with Bedard, but hasn’t played with him as much lately.
5. How the Blackhawks defend in the defensive zone might also be an area where Sorensen can look to get more offense. Under Richardson, the Blackhawks liked to stay very compact and around the net in the defensive zone. It’s another reason why the defensive metrics have improved.
The Blackhawks will want to be careful not to eliminate some of their strengths this season, but it might be something to tinker with. If Sorensen can loosen up that defense and try to create more counterattacks and rush chances, the Blackhawks could be a bit more dangerous offensively.
Sorensen will have to figure out that line between getting more offense and not giving a ton more. The Blackhawks have been in nearly every game this season. The defense can be credited largely for that. On the other hand, they haven’t won a lot of those games. For that, the lack of offense is at fault.
It’ll be interesting to see what changes Sorensen makes in his first game on Saturday.
(Photo: Scott Powers/ The Athletic)
