Have Depth Issues Closed the Chicago Blackhawks' Stanley Cup Window?
The Chicago Blackhawks won their sixth straight game on Sunday, overcoming an early lead by the Dallas Stars and ultimately triumphing in overtime. The victory pushed the team to 9-3-1 on the season, which is a good start for any club. It's a particularly strong beginning for a team with the salary cap issues the ‘Hawks have had over the last few years.
Yet the ultimate test for general manager Stan Bowman’s roster isn’t to be found in October or November. He’s been forced to make sacrifices in assembling his team, and despite the impressive record, it isn’t hard to find the impact of those painful decisions.
The simplest approach is to compare this year’s team with previous editions of the Blackhawks. There have only been two kinds of Blackhawks in recent years, and the 2016-17 group doesn’t fit either mold:
Successful Chicago teams over this span, without exception, have been strong even-strength clubs. Every version of the Blackhawks to enjoy playoff success has been dominant, both by goal differential and by shot attempt differential (better known as "Corsi"). They outshoot the opposition, and they outscore the opposition.
There have been three versions of the team we can identify as unsuccessful, relatively speaking: the 2011, 2012 and 2016 iterations. They all bowed out in the first round of the playoffs. These teams all had weaker five-on-five shot and goal metrics during the season, and those weaknesses manifested themselves in early playoff defeats.
This year’s team, like the successful Blackhawks squads, has been good at running up the score. In fact, no Chicago team of the current era has been as effective at outscoring the opposition.
However, like the unsuccessful Blackhawks teams, this one does a bad job of outshooting the opposition. No Chicago team of the current era has been as bad on the shot clock. It's also unsettling to note that the 2015-16 and 2016-17 teams lag well behind the 2010-11 and 2011-12 clubs by Corsi.
For most hockey numbers people, there’s an easy prediction here. Our 5-on-5 goals sample for 2016-17 consists of 37 events (26-11 in Chicago’s favour). Our 5-on-5 Corsi sample has more than 1,000 events (513-511 for Chicago’s opponents). It’s not hard to figure that the 1000-plus Corsi events give us a better window into the future than those 37 goals do.
Leaving the numbers aside for a moment, anyone familiar with the Blackhawks should spot the common link between our "unsuccessful" versions of the team.
After winning the Stanley Cup in the summer of 2010, Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane saw their entry-level deals expire, forcing Bowman to juggle furiously to find room for their pricey new contracts. The same thing happened after the Cup win in 2015. The second contracts awarded to Toews and Kane expired, and again Bowman had to make hard decisions in the service of finding cap space.
These three Chicago teams all suffered from their hard-pressed GM having to strip down their supporting casts. On the salary front, there's no question that this year’s Blackhawks have more in common with those three unsuccessful versions of the team.
According to Cap Friendly, 14 of the 24 players currently on the roster (including the injured Trevor van Riemsdyk) have a cap hit of less than $1 million. Nine of the 24 have a cap hit of more than $3 million. The only exception to this extreme stratification is defenceman Brian Campbell, whose one-year/$1.5 million deal was the best bargain in free agency this summer.
With that kind of salary structure, it’s essential that the team correctly identify a core capable of carrying a disproportionate share of the load when it comes to winning hockey games. With a few exceptions, Bowman’s done this well, something that distinguishes him from L.A.'s Dean Lombardi, Loyalty contracts have repeatedly burned the Kings GM.
Yet even with a ruthless general manager, there’s only so much money to go around. That makes it essential to get production from cheap players. Chicago hit the jackpot in that regard last year with Artemi Panarin (whose entry-level deal expires this summer). But too many of its other depth pieces look problematic early:
- Gustav Forsling has a 43 percent Corsi rating on the season. His most common defence partner, Campbell, has an on-ice Corsi of 53 percent with other partners. That is down to just 41 percent when he’s paired with Forsling. The Blackhawks are currently outscoring the opposition nearly 2-to-1 with Forsling on the ice.
- Tyler Motte has decent scoring numbers, but he’s struggled to keep up with more high-profile partners. When he’s present either on Marcus Kruger’s defensive zone specialty line or on Toews’ top trio, those forward units see their shot metrics fall. Chicago presently outscores the opposition more than 3-to-1 when Motte’s on the ice, despite being outshot.
- Vinnie Hinostroza is one of the few near-constants on the fourth line and to some degree personifies the entire unit. When he’s on the ice (generally in soft minutes), foes out-Corsi Chicago by 15 events per hour. Yet the goal differential is 1-1.
The Blackhawks’ typical approach to handling these weak links has been two-fold. First, head coach Joel Quenneville mixes and matches his lines. He blends weaker and stronger players, making it more difficult for opponents to exploit weak matchups. Second, Bowman has typically been active at the trade deadline. The GM brings in rental players to shore up weak spots at a point in the season where only a small portion of their salary counts against the cap.
Both Bowman and Quenneville are at the top of their respective fields. If anyone can turn Chicago’s scant cap space into enough talent to paper over the holes, it’ll be Bowman. If anyone can then goose that roster over the finish line, it will be Quenneville. Even so, this team seems more likely to be bound for playoff disappointment.
That isn't the worst of it, though. When we look at shot metrics alone, the 2015-16 team and the early 2016-17 club look to be a step down from the 2010-11/2011-12 Blackhawks. That means the needed improvement to contend again is greater, even as the core ages and the cap space problem grows more acute.
Bowman and Queneville have worked wonders in the past. But they'll need to be even more impressive in the future if they're to keep 2015 from being the end of an era.
Statistical information courtesy of Corsica.Hockey, Stats.HockeyAnalysis.com and Hockey-Reference.com.
Jonathan Willis covers the NHL for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter for more of his work.
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