The Blackhawks big night on special teams hopes to carry forward

The Chicago Blackhawks needed something, anything to go right for them after their 1-5 start.

It was said as much in a conversation I had with defenseman Bowen Byram on Oct. 11: "I think it's no secret that it hasn't been good so far, but you have to find ways to take pauses from things and keep working on things, and the hope is eventually it'll turn around, right? Like, it just seems like right now everything's going against us. You know, like the second goal last night [Carolina Hurricanes game on Oct. 10] is a great example of that. I have a chance to get a really good shot on goal. My stick breaks, goes the other way, they score. Things like that are happening, and sometimes you just need a bounce or something to click to really get out of that..."

Against the Pittsburgh Penguins on Oct. 13, they found something that did click: special teams. It was a big story in their 5-3 win.

How the special teams came together against the Penguins

The Blackhawks' power play has needed some help. Going into the Penguins matchup, their power play had one goal in 14 attempts, which gave them a 7.1 percent success rate, which was 31st in the NHL.

The player who scored that lone power-play goal was defenseman Sam Rinzel during the Blackhawks home opener against the St. Louis Blues on Oct. 6.

I spoke with Rinzel at Blackhawks' morning skate on Oct. 13, and since he has been on the second power-play unit, I asked him how he he felt on the unit:

"It feels good. Obviously, hopefully Beds (Connor Bedard) is back soon. That obviously helps the power play a lot, having a guy like him. So, I think once we get all the guys kind of in the right spots, and you're able to kind of get the chemistry going, [that's] kind of where you want. And once you're reading off each other, and you're kind of playing off your instincts, obviously that's when good things happen. So, just be able to take advantage of it. I think if you win the special teams battle, you can win a lot of games for sure."

That is exactly what happened against Pittsburgh. Bedard returned from his shoulder surgery recovery, and he and Byram assisted on Roman Kantserov's power-play goal that put them up 3-1 in the second period.

That goal ended up being big for them, because even though the Penguins tied the game 3-3 in the third period, it gave them enough cushion and momentum to win.

Patrick Kane said postgame on the power play, "The way they (the Penguins) kill, they kind of play like that diamond, so you got to be patient with it. You got to rotate the kill a little bit. I thought we did that a couple times. We had some entries, we had some chances, we had some other looks that could have went in, too. So I thought possession was better, too. You know, getting pucks back and just being patient with it. Sometimes against that kill, it looks like things are open, but you don't want to force things. You want to kind of rotate a little bit and make sure we're getting a good look."

The Blackhawks went 1-for-2 on the man advantage, which was encouraging.

Then there is the penalty kill, which was a perfect 4-for-4 on the night. As it stands, their penalty kill ranks 24th in the NHL at 75 percent. They have not allowed a power-play goal in their last two games, with players like Anton Frondell, Wyatt Kaiser, and Jordan Greenway getting heavy minutes.

Frank Nazar, who is one of their significant penalty killers and power-play guys, will return from his two-game suspension against the Winnipeg Jets on Oct. 15. This should give them another big boost.

Overall, the Blackhawks needed a bounce, and they got it from their special teams. It's only been seven games, but especially with Bedard and Nazar back, it should boost confidence in how both the power play and penalty kill can get stronger going forward.

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