Looking at season totals, sometimes it’s not obvious which players are tearing it up for extended stretches. Week to week a few players will go on serious hot streaks that will turn heads, but often there’s a player or two who’ll go on a strong run for a longer period of time and get less noticed for it.
Sometimes those hot streaks are relatively random where nothing fundamentally changes in a player’s performance before and during their streak, but the puck luck just swings in their favour for a short while. Other times a player either figures something out, changes their game a little, or finds chemistry with a linemate that allows them to truly break out.
With this in mind, let’s turn our attention to the Chicago Blackhawks, who are making an absurdly improbable run towards a wild card spot out West. They’re 15-6-0 in their past 21 games, which is the seventh-best record in the league over that time.
Outstanding offensive performance is mostly what’s behind this streak because the Blackhawks remain one of the worst defensive teams in the league. They allow the fourth-most high danger chances against and the fifth-most scoring chances on net against in the league, not to mention that only two teams allow a higher proportion of their shot attempts against from the slot at 43 per cent.
To win despite that you’ve got to manufacture a lot of offence, and Patrick Kane is getting the most credit for that right now, which makes sense because he’s the Hawks’ best scorer. But did you know that since Jan. 1, Alex DeBrincat has scored 20 goals in 29 games? Only Leon Draisaitl has more over that time.
DeBrincat had a great rookie season last year and this year he’s not just feeding off the great years being put together by Kane and Jonathan Toews. In fact, DeBrincat’s currently forming one of the most explosive third lines in the league with Dylan Strome. Having Kane on one line, Toews on another, the duo of DeBrincat and Strome on a third and watching each of them score at a point-per-game pace or better gives the Hawks the ability to be terrible on defence and still win.
So what’s behind the offensive explosion from that third line?
Surprisingly, both Strome and DeBrincat are getting fewer scoring chances now than they were in the first half of the season or so — the biggest change for both players is a drop in high danger chances.
That’s usually not something that coincides with a huge increase in goal or point production, but the important thing to note is that since these two were united their style of play has completely changed.
Both players were primarily attacking off the cycle in 2018 whereas in 2019 they’re favouring more rush chances, attacking with speed and putting defenders on their heals. This is a good strategy for most players who can skate well, but even more effective when you consider their line is bound to be facing the lower half of opponents’ lineups for the majority of their minutes played.
For teams with defenders who are especially vulnerable due to foot speed problems or weak blue line defence, you can bet they will attempt to hide them a bit on their third pair. But against Chicago, those teams will run into a third line that scores like a first line.
Further to Strome and DeBrincat’s changing style of attack is a huge increase in playmaking for both players. They’ve been connecting on more passes into the slot and more off the rush, which complicates things for defenders and makes the shots they do take significantly more dangerous.
When Strome and DeBrincat are on the ice right now, the puck is zipping around the offensive zone more efficiently than not just most third lines, but a fair amount of first lines around the league, too.
Since the New Year Strome is 23rd among NHL forwards in scoring chances created per 20 minutes at 8.04, and DeBrincat is 55th at 7.06. That puts both players comfortably within the top-93, which makes them top line offensive producers at 5-on-5.
Things are a bit different on the power play.
When he was in Arizona, Strome seemingly played the same position on the power play that DeBrincat does in Chicago. So to keep the two of them together in order to take advantage of their chemistry, they can’t play the same way in Chicago.
Playing on a unit with Patrick Kane running the show, there’s not as much opportunity for Strome to be a playmaker, so his big asset is actually jumping on rebounds that come to his side more than running things like he does at even strength.
DeBrincat, meanwhile, increased his shot and scoring chance rate as his playmaking has gone off the charts. If he doesn’t have a shot, he’s going to move the puck either to another Blackhawk in the slot or force the goalie to move laterally with an East-West pass.
The even strength production of this duo probably wouldn’t be possible for either player if they weren’t playing behind Toews and Kane and beating up on the middle or bottom half of opposing lineups. But it’s telling that the Blackhawks want both players on their top power play unit even if Strome’s skillset may not be tailor made to the role he’s playing.
It’s unlikely that Chicago will get to the playoffs this season and even less likely they’d contend if they did pull it off. But the rise of Strome and DeBrincat paints a promising picture for the Blackhawks’ future. Their emergence, combined with continued dominance from Kane and Toews could allow Chicago to retool quickly and give themselves another short window to win if they can remake their defensive group as well.
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