Luke Richardson’s structure a big reason for Chicago’s early success

Many expected the Chicago Blackhawks to be a lottery contender this season, especially with how their offseason looked, and yet they sit at 5-5-2 and just a point out of a playoff spot.

Now, some of it is because of some high shooting percentages from some of their players, but there have been some good signs from this early start, something the Frank Seravalli and Colby Cave took a look at today.

Colby Cave: “It’s as easy as the last question you just asked, and what’s been the most impressive, it’s been Luke Richardson as the head coach. He came to training camp Day 1 with a plan, and I watched that plan unfold every day in training camp, and he had structure, structure, and more structure. They worked on the defensive zone, they worked on the neutral zone, and they split it up throughout camp, and they would work on it for 45 minutes, not long sessions, not a lot of whiteboard time.

And that’s what he focused on, he focused on structure because he realized that the roster was not a skilled enough roster to go out and get into horse races with teams. It’s impressive! I get to be between the benches, and I get to watch this from five-eight feet away from me, and the way these players are responding to Luke’s structure and Luke’s coaching messages, they’re playing hard, they’re playing physical.

And their special teams, they’ve got a boatload of shorthanded goals, their power play has been as high as fifth or sixth in the league. It’s been in a little bit of a lull, so they’ve dropped down to the middle of the pack, 12th, something like that, 13th I think we have it somewhere on the screen. But ultimately, this is a physical hockey team that is playing in your face, and they’re playing like Luke Richardson was as a player.”

Frank Seravalli: “Well, and the structure has certainly been impressive, but I mentioned to you what is the most intriguing part, and when you look at this group of guys that are on the scoring list. Obviously Dickinson has seen a resurgence in terms of his confidence, I don’t know with that cap hit that he’s going anywhere, but Max Domi, Sam Lafferty, he’s gotten some of those shorthanded goals, Athanasiou has been impressive, and Raddysh. If you were someone who was looking at this Blackhawks team, to pluck one of those guys toward the trade deadline on March 3rd, and they may all go, which guy would it be?”

Colby Cave: “Oh man, that’s a really tough question. I think Max Domi probably, because I do think there’s still people that see that first round talent in Max Domi, and now he’s getting an opportunity to play on a line with Patrick Kane and Athanasiou, and that line has slowly gotten better. They struggled with chemistry early, but they’ve slowly gotten better.

Now here’s the sleeper of the group: Sam Lafferty. If he continues to play the way that he has played through this first month of the season, month and a half, this is a guy who’s going to fetch you something decent, because he’s very valuable in the bottom six. You look at teams that win the Stanley Cup Finals, and they usually have a really quality third and fourth line. They usually do, the fourth line we talked about it year after year in those long seven game Stanley Cup Finals, and I think he’s going to have a lot of value come trade deadline.”

You can watch the full episode here…