Blackhawks Defense Gets Early Test As Season Begins

If you ask any coach, any player, what the most important thing is at the start of the season, the majority of the time the answer is, “a fast start”.

The Chicago Blackhawks will have quite the challenge in front of them to complete that task as their season begins with eight games against heavy caliber opponents.

Points

Home vs.

Pittsburgh Penguins

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Columbus Blue Jackets

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Toronto Maple Leafs

40271595Away vs.

Montreal Canadiens

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Minnesota Wild

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Nashville Predators

41291294Away vs.

St. Louis Blues

4629799Home vs.

Edmonton Oilers

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Some experts do not have the Blackhawks making the playoffs this year.  Some may say they are “starting the back nine” and are slowing down.  Their defense definitely looked old, slow and small last year in the playoffs.  This year, they have gotten younger, somewhat faster and bigger.

Last year, the Blackhawks gave up 31.4 shots per game, the most they have allowed since the 1982-83 season.  That resulted in a lot of scoring chances that kept both, Corey Crawford and Scott Darling busy.

Will that change with this new regime?  Possibly not, but with the addition of Franson and Murphy on the blue line, opponents will find themselves on their posterior more often.  Opponents were not intimidated at all when crossing the Blackhawks’ blue line last year.

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The defense is one of the biggest questions heading into this year for the Blackhawks.  Their penalty kill was horrific to start the season last year and had to work hard to finish 24th in the league.  So out went Assistant Coach, Mike Kitchen, in came Ulf Samuelsson.

Samuelsson has ties with Head Coach, Joel Quenneville, dating back to when they played together with the Hartford Whalers for seven years. Assistant Coach, Kevin Dineen was also a player with the Whalers at that time.

During a pre-season game this year, Samuelsson stressed something that the Blackhawks penalty kill had been lacking for the last two seasons, “aggressiveness”.  That should be enough to get Blackhawks fans excited.

Samuelsson and the rest of the Blackhawks will get their chance to show what they have as they start their season with the first of these eight games against the two-time, defending Stanley Cup Champion, Pittsburgh Penguins, Thursday at the United Center.

So do these first eight games tell a season?  No, but we will see how prepared they are to prove people wrong on how much this team has in its tank after the embarrassing exit to last year’s playoffs.

Next: Chicago Blackhawks Predictions on the Upcoming Season

LET’S GO HAWKS!!!