Blackhawks hoping to force more turnovers on forecheck and in neutral zone this season

SALT LAKE CITY — It shouldn’t be surprising to hear the 2023-24 Blackhawks weren’t very effective at forcing turnovers in the offensive or neutral zones, because the 2023-24 Blackhawks weren’t very effective at anything.

Nonetheless, those were two of the many areas in which they struggled. In terms of forechecking and forcing offensive-zone turnovers, they ranked 26th in the league in terms of successful puck retrievals as well as shots generated after those retrievals, per All Three Zones data.

And in the neutral zone, they forced even fewer turnovers. Instead, they allowed their opponents to successfully cross into their defensive zone at the second-highest rate in the league and allowed the most scoring chances off of those zone entries.

It also shouldn’t be surprising to hear the 2024-25 Blackhawks are trying to improve in those regards, since their desired climb up the standings won’t just happen by itself.

They need to generate more offense this season, and forcing turnovers in the offensive zone — which can create instant scoring chances — or in the neutral zone — which can led to breakaways and odd-man rushes — are two excellent ways to do so.

Beyond Connor Bedard, the Hawks won’t be able to match most opponents talent-wise, so they’ll have to rely on well-designed systems and proper execution of those systems to bridge the gap.

Their forecheck did have its moments in their season opener Tuesday against Utah. It nearly produced a tying goal with about 10 minutes left, for example, when Philipp Kurashev dumped the puck in, Kurashev and Hall hounded both Utah defensemen below the goal line, Alec Martinez pinched down the wall to force a turnover and feed the puck into the slot and Tyler Bertuzzi just missed the net on a wide-open shot.

“When we did it right, it worked,” coach Luke Richardson said.

Their neutral-zone defense wasn’t particularly tight, however. Seconds before Dylan Guenther scored Utah’s first-ever goal, for example, lead forechecker Bertuzzi failed to squeeze Utah’s breakout toward one side of the ice. Then Kurashev and Hall were both caught flat-footed and lost their men in the neutral zone, which created a four-on-two rush for Utah out of nowhere, and Guenther took advantage of the open space.

Richardson said he wants, in the future, for the “F2” and “F3” — the two forwards behind the lead forechecker, as in Kurashev and Hall on that play — to angle the breakout “like a wedge,” pushing it toward the wall and ultimately forcing the opposing team to dump the puck in before reaching the blue line.

In practice Thursday — ahead of a back-to-back set of road games against the Jets and Oilers, two of the Western Conference’s best teams last season — the Hawks worked on exactly that.

“It’s definitely more of a point of emphasis to be above and stay above [the puck],” Jason Dickinson said. “We don’t need to get sucked too low on the forecheck and expose the middle [of the ice] and expose too much gap between the forwards and defensemen.”

Then again, the Hawks don’t want to become too conservative and abandon forechecking altogether, so it’s a fine balance they’ll need to strike. It’s worth noting that Richardson apparently liked the efforts of the aforementioned Hall-Kurashev-Bertuzzi line, despite their one breakdown, enough to make them the one forward trio not altered after just one game.

The same can’t be said for Bedard’s line, where Ilya Mikheyev’s tryout as the first-line left winger didn’t last long. Nick Foligno will receive the next opportunity to serve as Bedard and Teuvo Teravainen’s designated forechecker and rebound-hounder.

Meanwhile, Andreas Athanasiou appears slated to make his season debut Friday, but Lukas Reichel remains a healthy scratch. Backup goalie Arvid Soderblom is scheduled to start in goal against the Jets; Petr Mrazek will face the Oilers.