Not Qualified To Comment » What’s Going on with the Blackhawks?

What’s Going on with the Blackhawks?

March 10, 2009 at 3:00 pm | Chicago Blackhawks, NHL
By: StevieY19

The weekend for the Chicago Blackhawks was so bad, I had to take a day to let it soak in before posting about it. The Hawks were outscored by a total of 10-4 in losses to the Bruins and the Avalanche.

With the two losses, the Hawks have now lost six of eight games and are 13 points behind Detroit in the Central and only five points ahead of Vancouver for the fourth seed in the West.

So what has the problem been for Chicago lately? In my mind the two biggest factors in the skid have been injuries and poor defense. Injuries have slowed the Blackhawks for a while now it seems. The first that comes to mind is Duncan Keith and his absence’s effect on the power play. Now the Blackhawks are dealing with the loss of Khabibulin and Patrick Sharp.

The loss of Khabibulin is a big one; the goaltender was in top form before the injury and the Hawks had found a nice balance between him and Cristobal Huet. Huet has struggled with the everyday responsibilities since Nikolai went down. It looks like the Hawks will have their number one guy back in a week or two.

Sharp was leading the team in goals before his injury, a distinction that now belongs to captain Jonathan Toews. Of course, when one of your top goal scorers goes out with an injury, that is going to be evident in your production. What is overlooked is the impact on the team as a whole when guys like Keith, Khabibulin, and Sharp go down. All of the sudden guys are playing on different lines, playing more time, and feeling more pressure to produce. Every team deals with injuries, but I think that sometimes with a young team, you’re going to feel the impact a little more.

To make matters worse, Martin Havlat got dinged up this weekend sustaining a “lower body injury.” I love hockey for that kind of stuff. Anyway, Havlat had been playing arguably the best hockey he has played in Chicago before the injury. I haven’t heard anything specific, but let’s hope this is only a week or two, because that’s one guy Chicago will need down the stretch.

Even with all those guys back, the Blackhawks won’t be successful without good defense. Pahlsson will help that from the forward spot, but it’s on the blue liners to pick it up. There is too much talent back there to be giving up so much space that leads to so many goals. It’s hard to say exactly what they’re doing wrong now, but they just seem a step behind where they were a month ago.

The Hawks had the day off yesterday and I’m sure they’re having a very serious practice and film session today before taking on Carolina tomorrow night at the United Center. Lulls in the season happen and this actually isn’t a terrible time for one, but Chicago better start to turn it around, because they want to be playing their best hockey pretty soon.