Day 1 of a fresh season usually teems with optimism, especially through the rose-colored view from the front office.
In the Chicago Blackhawks’ case, the preseason might have served as a red alert. They lost five of their six exhibition games, including twice being destroyed by the Minnesota Wild.
“It could’ve gone better, but preseason you have to take with a grain of salt to some extent,” said general manager Kyle Davidson, who spoke to reporters at Delta Center in Salt Lake City on Tuesday before the season opener against the Utah Hockey Club (9 p.m. CT on ESPN). “You don’t want to overreact. If you had a great record, you don’t want to sit on that and feel too overly optimistic.
“It’s about getting into the season and seeing what we’re dealing with. That’ll give a more true sense of where the team’s at.”
The counterpoint is that the Hawks made sweeping changes to the roster, so expect to see some signs of improvement from last season’s second-to-last-place finish.
Davidson appeared more focused on “enhanced execution” than immediate results.
“We talk a lot about how we want the team to compete, but that’s a baseline, right?” he said. “That needs to happen. And then you’d like to see further execution and hopefully just more wins and more productivity with the puck.”
Davidson noted the Hawks start with 10 of 15 games on the road: “That’s not easy.”
“We’ll get a pretty good indication of how we handle adversity, not having the last change and going into these arenas like the one we’re in tonight where the fans are fired up for a new season,” he said. “I’m optimistic how it’ll go and we’ll make adjustments as we need as the season gets going.”
Here are five other things we learned from Davidson on Tuesday.
1. The Hawks still have faith in Lukas Reichel.
The forward started the season as a healthy scratch, and it’s fair to wonder the limits of the Hawks’ patience.
Last year, after a stint in Rockford, the former first-round pick looked more confident and showed some glimmer of the offensive promise he had when the Hawks drafted him at No. 17 in 2020.
But he looked stagnant during training camp despite working on his game, diet and practice habits during the offseason.
“For Lukas, if he’s in the lineup, it’s his job, and he’s been around long enough to know he’s got to play well enough to keep that spot,” Davidson said. “If he’s not in the lineup, he’s got to work and get to the point where if an opportunity opens up, he’s going to jump in and take advantage of it.”
2. Could Kevin Korchinski’s demotion be a confidence killer?
The defenseman played in Chicago the entirety of his rookie season, but the Hawks have admitted it was out of necessity, not performance.
After the lessons of Kirby Dach, Adam Boqvist and others, they opted this year to send Korchinski to Rockford to let him develop properly, at his own pace, and earn his way back eventually.
Asked whether it would hurt his confidence, Davidson said, “Not at all.”
“That’s where communication is super important,” he said. “It’s really key to make sure he knows what the plan is for him, how we’re going to work with him and what our intentions are.”
When the Hawks acquired veterans such as Alec Martinez and T.J. Brodie, the writing was on the wall for Korchinski.
Korchinski possesses natural offensive talent but often scrambles on defense. Davidson wants him to work on all aspects of his game.
“When you’re a 19-year-old, one of the youngest defensemen in the NHL, it’s a tough league,” he said. “He got some really good experience last year, but it’s about being able to play not the same game he played in junior but with the confidence that he played with in junior up at the pro level.”
That means “offensively getting up the ice, making plays. Defensively honing in on his skills and habits to make sure that he can come up and defend,” Davidson said.
“With Kevin and all our defensemen, we don’t want them to be specialists. We want to play them whether we’re up a goal with a minute left or down a goal with a minute left and we need offense.”
3. Davidson weighs in on Boxin’ Bedard.
We already know coach Luke Richardson was skittish about Connor Bedard getting into a scuffle during the preseason finale, but how did Davidson feel about his young franchise player tussling with opponents — especially ones bigger than him?
“No, no,” he said with a smile. “Hopefully we can leave that up to some of the other guys. We don’t need that out of him.”
“He’s a fiery player, he plays with passion, and it’s good for people to know that he’s not going to back down,” Davidson said of Bedard. “It’s good for his teammates to see he’s not going to back down.”
However, defenseman Kevin Korchinski also jumped into that fray, and like Bedard, he’s not exactly a heavyweight.
“We don’t want any of those guys, Korchinski or (Lukas) Reichel or (Philipp) Kurashev to be dropping the gloves or mixing it up,” Davidson said. “But it’s good for the group to see that they’re willing to jump in and kind of show that in defense of a teammate.”
On Monday, Bedard thought better of his actions, too.
“I definitely would lose in a fight to most guys, so I’m not trying to do that,” he said. “But I think just physicality is part of the game, and that goes to everyone.”
4. The Hawks are searching for net positives.
Net-front presence has been an ongoing issue for the Hawks. To boil it down, being a threat in the crease not only creates another source of goals but frees up space for mid- and long-range shooters.
Last season, the Hawks took about 2% fewer high-danger shots on goal (559) and scored about 2% worse on those chances (17.4%) than the league average, according to NHL statistics. Their overall shooting percentage of 8.3% was also about 2% worse than the league average.
The Hawks addressed that area with the 2023 trade for Taylor Hall and Nick Foligno, and added players like Tyler Bertuzzi and Craig Smith this offseason.
But it’s not just about goals.
“There are things in our game that we wanted to improve upon from last year, one of them being the ability to recover pucks and go into those 50-50 battles and come out with them,” Davidson said. “I don’t think it was specifically because they score around the net.
“But having said that, versatility is good, and I don’t think that was an area we were excellent at last year, outside of maybe Nick.”
5. What’s the game plan for Isaak Phillips — and other young defensemen?
Nolan Allan made the final cut and was set to make his NHL debut Tuesday. His defensive partner, Phillips, was placed on waivers.
That means the Hawks risked losing a big, young blue-liner with a year left before arbitration-eligible free agency, but Phillips cleared waivers.
Wyatt Kaiser is ahead of several defensive prospects in the pecking order, and the Hawks are just waiting for him to return from an illness and see how he fares in the lineup.
Davidson said, “Once Wyatt’s back, he can go down, Nolan can go down and Isaak can go down. We just wanted the optionality, especially with the fact that we thought Nolan did play so well in camp that he earned a spot.
“(It) just to give us more options on clearing a spot once we become fully healthy.”
