The Chicago Blackhawks Have a Huge Problem

Entering their game in Denver on Thursday, the Chicago Blackhawks are playing the best hockey the franchise has seen in almost 20 years. Currently ranked fourth in the Western Conference in points, the Hawks look like a good bet to make the playoffs as the youngest team in the NHL.

But the Blackhawks have one flaw, and it's enormous.

This Hawks team hasn't lost a game in regulation since November 29th, in Los Angeles. In fact, they won every game they played in December. They've beaten quality opponents such as Calgary, whom they trail by one point in the West, soundly during the stretch. And the teams the Hawks are supposed to defeat, like Phoenix, they've destroyed.

So what's this huge problem?

Oh, wait—let's look at that schedule again. There's a shootout loss on December 6th. And a regulation loss on December 30th. And a regulation loss on January 1st.

The Chicago Blackhawks are playing well enough to beat every team in the National Hockey League except the Detroit Red Wings.

As the old saying goes, to be the best, you have to beat the best. And the Hawks have beaten everyone they've played this year, except Detroit.

The problem isn't that the Hawks have lost to Detroit, but it's how they've lost. The two shootouts earlier in the year, one each in Chicago and Detroit, were hard-fought games in which the Hawks blew a multiple-goal lead in the second or third period to force the eventual overtime.

In the first trip to Detroit, the Hawks opened the game by establishing a solid lead and then played what might have been their best period, the second, that any Hawks team had played in probably eight years. However, in the third, the veteran Red Wings picked apart the Hawks defense to force the overtime and subsequent shootout.

In the third game, on December 30 in Detroit, the Hawks were riding a franchise-record nine-game winning streak. In that game, the Red Wings took the Hawks completely out of their game and shut out Chicago four to zero.

A team that had been calm, cool, collected, and dominant for the better part of four weeks looked young, inexperienced, and naive while getting thoroughly beaten.

Then at Wrigley Field on New Year's Day, the Blackhawks again opened the game with a great first period. Brent Seabrook might have had the check of the year when he sent Dan Cleary into the second row of the Hawks bench, and the goals seemed too easy less than 48 hours after being shut out.

But in the second, Cristobal Huet looked dumbfounded by the Red Wings attack. When the blitz finished after three periods, Huet had been replaced, Patrick Kane was on his way to the bench for a couple games with a bum ankle, and the Hawks' confidence looked rattled.

Yes, the Hawks came back to destroy the Flames and Coyotes in their next two games by a combined score of eleven to two. But that further illustrates the issue at hand: There is a mental block killing the Hawks when they face their arch rivals from Michigan.

If the Hawks are going to make the next step, the one that takes them from good to great, the one that moves them from the playoffs to competing for a championship, they need to beat Detroit.

Plain and simple, Detroit has the Hawks number. The king shall stay throned until someone takes it away, and the Red Wings are king.

The young core is as good as there has been in recent memory in the NHL, for an entire roster with an average age of just-past-puberty. But what the Hawks need is someone who has been there.  

The Hawks need a calm, solid veteran presence to show the kids what it means to have a championship chip on your shoulder, and how to lower that shoulder for three periods against the Red Wings.

As this season progresses, Hawks GM Dale Tallon has the excess pieces available to move to make a deal for that veteran skater. Whether it's another center, or another veteran defender to play with James Wisniewski, is to be seen. But until the Hawks find that edge, they will continue to search for a winning formula against the Red Wings.