The Chicago Blackhawks Are Not A Stanley Cup Contender
The Blackhawks lost again on Saturday night, in what was, once again, a lifeless effort against an LA Kings squad that was pumped up due to the arrival of their new acquisition, Jeff Carter.
The defense was sloppy, special teams were a disaster, the offense only generated 19 shots, and Corey Crawford was pulled after allowing four goals on 10 shots, which won’t do much for his confidence, even if they weren’t all entirely his fault.
In a way, that game essentially summed up what we’ve seen from the Blackhawks in the past couple of months. After a strong start to the season, that had many forgetting about their Stanley Cup hangover of the 2010-2011 season, the Hawks have slid right down the rankings, and are likely not going to be taken as a serious contender to recapture the Stanley Cup this season.
Sure, you could make the argument that they were without Jonathan Toews. But that argument is futile when you look around at some of the other firepower on this team. They have plenty of offense to get it done, and the intensity was there against Detroit, before the they turned in back-to-back low-energy contests against a pair of Pacific Division teams, in the Kings and the Dallas Stars.
As it stands right now, the Blackhawks are not a real contender to win their second Stanley Cup title in the last three years. And it’s for several reasons.
The first is that lack of fire we see from them. Just like they were last year, the Hawks are incapable of playing a complete game, typically against lesser opponents, whether the captain is in the lineup or not. We saw it against Dallas, and we’ve seen it throughout the year. Unless the Blackhawks are playing a top tier team, they play down to their opponent, with the loss to Dallas earlier this week serving as the perfect example.
In order to be taken seriously as a contender, you have to be strong in the special teams department. The Blackhawks are strong in neither their power play or the penalty kill. While the latter had looked to improve of late, it experienced a total meltdown against the Kings on Saturday night. The power play’s disastrous run is well known, with their 0-fer reaching levels not seen since the 2006-2007 season.
Defensively, the issues are a plenty. Both Steve Montador and Niklas Hjalmarsson are out of the lineup, and the team has had to rely heavily on a pair of guys that have barely cracked their 20s, in Nick Leddy and Dylan Olsen. Add those two on top of the fact that John Scott‘s two minutes a night are forcing Duncan Keith to crack 30 minutes almost every night.
On paper, the Blackhawks have one of the best teams in the league. But when you don’t bring the energy to the ice on a nightly basis, and your gameplan is one that includes extreme failure on both special teams, you’re not going to be very successful. Which is why the Hawks currently find themselves with the sixth seed in the Western Conference, with several other teams nipping at their heels.
That’s not to say that this team can’t turn it around in the last month of the regular season and make a deep playoff run. But if special teams continue to contribute absolutely nothing and the Hawks don’t get things together defensively, it’s going to be very difficult for them to do much of anything once the postseason rolls around, assuming that they are included.
The pressure is on not only the team, but Stan Bowman as well. The trade deadline is barely over 24 hours away, and there has yet to be even a whisper of the Hawks being involved in some sort of deal. If he stands pat at the deadline, something looking alarmingly likely, things will get even tougher for a Blackhawks squad already at something of a crossroads.
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