Blackhawks forward Jason Dickinson knows how to read eyes.
His ability to do that has been one of the keys to his defensive dominance for years now. When he’s defending another NHL player one-on-one, his pupil-tracking acumen enables him to keep ‘‘watching what he’s seeing without seeing what he’s seeing,’’ as he explains it.
But now that Dickinson has evolved into a legitimate offensive threat in addition to a shutdown center, he’s hoping to take advantage of that knowledge about what eyes can reveal and flip the script on opponents trying to defend him.
‘‘[I’m using] more deception, more scanning the ice,’’ Dickinson said. ‘‘[I’m] looking where I don’t want the defender to be to try to make him think something else.’’
That kind of high-level deception isn’t new in the NHL — elite playmakers have been perfecting it for years — but it’s still relatively rare. It’s certainly not something players such as the old Dickinson, who never had scored more than nine goals before last season, typically do.
Dickinson’s 2023-24 season changed everything, though. He erupted for 22 goals, tying Connor Bedard for the team lead, delivered tremendous defensive analytics and improved in the faceoff circle. Out of nowhere, he finished 12th in Selke Trophy voting — and deservedly so.
It represented a remarkable degree of mid-career growth for a player who turned 29 this summer, and it unlocked the next level of hockey development for him.
‘‘Maybe it does have a little bit to do with success and confidence,’’ Dickinson said. ‘‘Everything else was flowing, [and] I didn’t need to . . . think as much on certain aspects, so I was able to focus on minute details and on the little areas that sometimes went overlooked because I was more worried [in the past] about the big details I was having gaps in.’’
That process of narrowing his attention to minutiae continued this summer. He spent it at home in the Toronto suburbs, but he still was receiving clips and tips from Hawks skills coach Brian Keane all the while — clips and tips regarding details such as stick manipulation.
‘‘You can open your blade a certain way, so a guy is expecting you to throw [the puck] one way, and then you snap it the other way,’’ Dickinson said. ‘‘Things like that [are what] I’ve tried to focus on intentionally.’’
So far in training camp, Dickinson has skated on a line with Nick Foligno and new addition Ilya Mikheyev, which well might remain the Hawks’ checking line all the way into their season opener Oct. 8.
That trio’s defensive reliability will be what coach Luke Richardson relies on most, but the three also have been trying to generate offense by moving the puck smartly and effectively down low.
‘‘It’s not rocket science: Our line has always been about grinding it up the wall, spinning it down and creating something off the cycle,’’ Dickinson said. ‘‘Or [about] a forecheck, where you get the puck on the go, come around the net and find guys coming down the pipe or coming down the wall.’’
In those tight spaces down low, deceptiveness can be most valuable because it sometimes is the only way to open passing lanes through traffic.
Dickinson has a knack for approaching hockey’s various challenges with enough intelligence and cleverness to overcome any skill advantages others might have on him. This serves as yet another example.
‘‘If he matches his game from last year, that’s awesome,’’ Richardson said. ‘‘And if he can take it another step, that’s great. I’m glad to see a player that individually has the drive because I know he’s going to do everything that we, as coaches, ask him to play [in] the team system. He just executes his own game plan within that.’’