The Blackhawks latest power-play breakthrough showed Teräväinen's potential in role

The Chicago Blackhawks power play has been a work in progress as they sit second-worst in the NHL with a 10.8 percent success rate.

One of the big talking points around the power play has been about Teuvo Teräväinen, because he has been playing the point on the first power-play unit, while defenseman Bowen Byram out with an upper-body injury.

However, the Blackhawks' power play finally converted against the LA Kings on Oct. 27, after going 0-for-17.

Is there reason to believe that Teräväinen playing the point is going to work moving forward?

How Teräväinen has fared at the point

When it comes to Teräväinen on the power play, head coach Jeff Blashill said what went into that decision included his smarts, his experience with it, while also not disrupting the other unit.

I spoke with Teräväinen at practice on Oct. 20 and asked what he was seeing from his reps, "That's one of the biggest things. If you win the special team battles in the games, a lot of times you come out as a winner of the game, so it has to be clicking. And for right now, when Bo (Byram) is out, I've been there playing blue line. It's actually a really fun spot. Been playing that a little bit before too, but you can see a little bit [of] everything there, and I got so much skill on either side, so I just try to give them the puck."

He is one of the Blackhawks more responsible two-way players, so, you could see the logic of how it could work.

It wasn't getting the desired results, but Blashill wanted to stick with it, noting other blips contributing to the power-play struggles. He said pregame on Oct. 27 about Teräväinen on the power play:

"Ultimately, the power play has to score more than it has. That's a fact. It goes back to what I just talked about. We can say there's good chances, things like that, but you got to score eventually, and it's not scoring. Is that on Turbo? I actually think he's done a pretty good job of what we've asked him to do. I think he's distributed it the right way. I think he's shrunk the zone when he needs to shrink it. I think he's moved the puck to the right person.

"For the most part, any of the shorthanded chances we've given up, which has been way too many, haven't really been his fault at all. Maybe one last game that I actually thought Spence (Knight) could have got the puck. But other than that, they haven't... We gave up two breakaways on the other unit that has a defenseman on it. So it's not necessarily that. I think he's a really savvy player up there. With that said, we need to start producing. So we made a little tweak today in terms of alignment. If we don't produce with that tweak, then we'll have to look at moving people around."

One of those changes was Patrick Kane and Connor Bedard switching sides, with Kane on the left and Bedard on the right flank.

Roman Kantserov scored a power-play goal in the second period to tie the game 1-1 against the Kings, with Bedard and Teräväinen getting the assists. They ultimately won the game 2-1.

It showed how Teräväinen can produce in that role, as he made a good passing play at the point off the faceoff win by Kantserov, and the play progressed from there.

Sometimes a five-forward power play in the NHL can be an adventure, but maybe this was a case of just a swap that benefited everyone.

Overall, the Blackhawks got the results they wanted last game, and Teräväinen will likely continue to play the point until Byram returns.

They snapped a cold streak. But now all eyes will be on if they can get more results as they face the Detroit Red Wings on Oct. 29. The Red Wings have the third-worst power play in the NHL at 65.9 percent.

It's a good opportunity for the Blackhawks to build on it.

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