The Chicago Blackhawks have some problems on a collective level, as evidenced by their presence in last place in the Central Section of the National Hockey League (NHL), and one of the solutions could be rookie Connor Bedard.
As the Chicago Sun-Times newspaper pointed out, defender Seth Jones complained on Sunday that the team’s players had too long sequences. Additionally, Bedard ranks third among NHL forwards in averaging 60 seconds of ice time per game time, behind Kirill Kaprizov and Mats Zuccarello of the Minnesota Wild.
The recruit tried to defend himself in this regard. “Certain presences happened on the power play. “Without saying that I don’t have to reduce them, that is a factor,” explained the man with five goals and two assists in eleven games this season.
Nevertheless, shorter sequences should in principle help everyone, regardless of the game situation. Of course, if the opponent gets the puck once when the Hawks are exhausted, the chances of conceding a goal are higher. And head coach Luke Richardson is aware of the need to emphasize brevity, particularly in the middle phase when the dugout is further away from the defensive zone.
“It’s all about making the right decision at the end of the sequence so as not to commit a turnover deep in the opponent’s zone and be forced to retreat quickly to play in our zone,” he said. Who wants to play defense the whole game?
“Especially in the second half, such a situation, which ends with a presence of 1 minute and 45 minutes, unbalances the playing time but also tires. That makes the club chaotic.”
The Hawks will visit the Tampa Bay Lightning on Thursday.