NEWSLETTER
Following their 6-4 loss at the hands of the Arizona Coyotes, the worst team in the NHL, the Blackhawks players held a closed door meeting. Whatever that means to you.
https://twitter.com/johndietzdh/status/1479323135916883969?s=20
The Blackhawks have lost their last six games, allowing 21 goals over their last four losses in the new year. Interim head coach Derek King is now 10-9-3 behind the bench for the Blackhawks. It is safe to say that his honeymoon phase after replacing Jeremy Colliton is now over.
It was a lengthy players-only meeting after the game. The door was closed and Derek King didn't go in.
— Mark Lazerus (@MarkLazerus) January 7, 2022
Chicago is far from contention for the postseason, 11 points out of the second wildcard spot in the Western Conference and seven points behind the next team directly in front of them in the standings, the Dallas Stars. It’s seemingly too late to be thinking that the season might be slipping away from the Blackhawks. No, it’s fully out of their grasp, even with 48 more games to play this season.
Toews on Blackhawks' postgame locker room talk tonight:
"There's clearly times the past few games where we're playing good hockey, and then we just decide to take a few shifts off… We've got to find ways to commit to each other and not have those lapses in energy and focus."
— Ben Pope (@BenPopeCST) January 7, 2022
It would be easy to say that the Blackhawks can move on from their loss to the Coyotes, if it weren’t for the fact that Arizona had just two wins at home prior to their win over the Blackhawks and just six wins all season before Chicago came to town and laid a stinker at the Gila River Arena. If you can’t beat the Coyotes, what are you hoping starts to click?
Toews: "We don't want this little skid to snowball into something bigger than it is. Just trying to flush a couple of those down the tube and move onto the next game and know that if we keep playing as a team and more consistent with our effort, things are gonna start clicking."
— Mark Lazerus (@MarkLazerus) January 7, 2022
Of Chicago’s next 13 games on the schedule before the NHL All-Star break, only two come against teams below them in the league standings. Eight of those 13 games are against teams in a current Stanley Cup Playoff spot.
The idea of the “players only” meeting is often romanticized in sports. You get the imagine from the movies of some inspirational speech where everyone comes together, there’s some sort of musical element, and then a montage of the team going on to kick the crap out of their next opponents, all while clips of them being best friends outside of the games are spliced into it.
But this isn’t Disney, this isn’t Hollywood. These are the Chicago Blackhawks, who are 27th in the NHL based on points-percentage since their last appearance in the non-pandemic-adjusted Stanley Cup Playoffs, which was a four-game sweep in the first round against the Nashville Predators in 2017, if you forgot. Excluding the Seattle Kraken, they are only better than the Coyotes, Sabres, Red Wings, and Senators.
Maybe it sparks something with the players, maybe it does nothing. We shall see.
