The Blackhawks played three games in four days right off the hop, but are currently in a stretch where they'll play only two games in 10 days. It's a little bit of a buzzkill after starting the season 2-0-1 and wanting to build on that momentum.
At the same time, it gives them a good chunk of practice time to focus on shoring up the holes defensively after allowing 14 goals through those three games (4.67 per game).
"We seem a little bit scrambly," Brandon Saad said. "Giving up four, five, six goals a game is going to be tough to win. We're happy with the way we salvaged some points and got five of six but it's definitely to tighten things up defensively."
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That comes in different forms. Allow Duncan Keith to explain.
"There's lots of little things all over the ice," he said. "Defense isn't just in your own zone, it's awareness with the puck in the offensive zone, good positioning, good stick in the neutral zone, so it's lots of different things. But obviously in the defensive zone, when a breakdown or a mistake happens it can be more costly right away in the sense that there could be a scoring chance sooner. All over the ice we've got lots to work on."
And it's not just the defensemen, either. Over the last decade, especially during their Stanley Cup runs, the Blackhawks were suffocating to play against because of their firepower on offense and four-line rotation up front.
But the forwards also prided themselves on playing responsible defensively and exerted just as much energy backchecking than they did scoring goals.
NHL
"As a team whether your defense or your forward take pride in being on the ice when you give up a goal knowing, hey you can always do something different," coach Joel Quenneville said. "You can learn from that. As a group of five we can always be better and aware defensively. Whether it's the whole league right now, the shooters have the advantage early on in the season that's traditionally true. But I think we can all help one another out in that area.
"Some of the goals we've given up have been high quality. Some of the goals we know we can't give up open side plays. That's not the goalie's fault at all and we'll get a couple of those creeping into games and that's too much. So we can get better in that area. Let's look to keep it out across the board out of our net. "
Cam Ward's save percentage this season at 5-on-5 is .871, which is way below average. While he certainly should shoulder some of the blame as the last line of defense, the breakdown in his save percentage by the types of shots is more telling: .969 (low danger), .900 (medium danger) and .647 (high danger), according to corsica.hockey.
The Blackhawks have given up the seventh-most high-danger scoring chances (28) through the first week, and Ward is having a difficult time bailing his teammates out. That's where the absence of Corey Crawford is felt because he had an astounding .859 high-danger save percentage last season and has been one of the best in that category for years.
"No matter what team you are, goaltending is everything," Quenneville said. "If you don't have to worry about it, it's not a problem. But when it's a problem, it kind of creeps into every part of your team game. It's a situation where we didn't have to worry about it in the past. I think [Crawford] is a big reason why we never had to be concerned about it. He was always predictable and dependable, and the bigger situation he always got it done.
"But when teams are struggling, one of the first things you look around the league is probably their goaltending has tough a little stretch. Everybody's going to have one of those over the course of a season. Some stretches might be longer than you like because it's tough to get out of it."