Chicago Blackhawks coach Anders Sorensen was asked before his first game Saturday if he was going into his new job thinking about the playoffs.
Sorensen looked at me like I was on hallucinogens or had just stepped on the team logo in the locker room, the cardinal sin for media members.
I couldn’t blame him. The Hawks, after all, have the NHL’s worst record and are in a rebuild that’s progressing like the bottom step of a broken escalator.
“Yeah, we’re taking it one day at a time here,” Sorensen said. “The biggest message for us is we’ll try to get better today, and then tomorrow we’ll get better again. Improving every day is a big part of it. If it’s 1% per day, then over 30 days that’s 30%. We’re trying to get to that.”
It was a ridiculous question, naturally, but it had to be asked after center Jason Dickinson said Friday the coaching change was made with enough time left for the Hawks to contend.
Dickinson insisted it’s “on the players now” to get things fixed.
“It’s not that (the switch was) surprising,” he said. “There’s not a good time you need to make the decision. It’s not too late in the season. There’s still hope. There’s lots of hockey. You can win a lot of games in a row and put yourself right back into the conversation. It’s maybe a little bit better sooner rather than later, because that way you’ve still got a chance.
“Whether we make the playoffs or not, that’s still to be determined. But to see growth and some sort of potential coming out of the latter half of this season, that’s really what is possible here. If you wait until the last few weeks of the season, maybe you’ve got some guys that are checked out, guys that are just moving on, (saying) ‘it’s over.’ Right now there is still hope, there’s still a lot to play for.”
Dickinson is technically right. The Hawks have 3½ months left this season to figure things out.
It would take a complete and unforeseeable turnaround, which is what the Edmonton Oilers did last season, starting out 3-9-1 before replacing their coach and eventually going on a 16-game winning streak that launched them to a 104-point season and Stanley Cup Final appearance.
Now back to reality, already in progress.
According to The Athletic’s projections, the Hawks have a 15% chance at the No. 1 draft pick and less than a 1% chance of making the playoffs. Based on their current status and a lackluster 14-shot effort in Saturday’s 4-2 loss to the Winnipeg Jets, there’s nothing for Hawks veterans to play for but a chance to escape at the trade deadline.
And for Connor Bedard and the youth corps, it’s just a chance to prove the team has a bright future.
The Hawks will begin a three-game New York/NewJersey trip on Monday at Madison Square Garden against the Rangers with a league-worst 8-17-2 record.
With 18 points, they’re already 13 points out of a wild-card spot, and starting goaltender Petr Mrázek went on injured reserve Sunday with a left groin injury incurred during Saturday’s game. Drew Commesso was called up from Rockford to back up Arvid Söderblom in net, and the Hawks also recalled defenseman Kevin Korchinski.
Of course, if they do improve 1% every day, as Sorensen hopes, they’ll be 118% better by the final regular-season game April 15 in Ottawa.
So there’s that.
General manager Kyle Davidson believed the team he assembled was significantly better than last season’s, or else he would’ve let coach Luke Richardson continue to lose under the pretense of rebuilding. Whether Davidson is deluded by his own genius is to be determined. No one else considered this team a huge upgrade.
The last time the Hawks brought up a Rockford coach to the big league was six years ago, when the dynasty era officially ended. The Hawks fired coach Joel Quenneville on Nov. 6, 2018, after they failed to make the playoffs for the first time in his reign and replaced him with IceHogs coach Jeremy Colliton, who was 12 games into his second AHL season.
“A decision like this isn’t made on one game, one play or one specific thing,” then-GM Stan Bowman said. “It’s sort of a collection of things.”
Davidson gave the same general response to Richardson’s early season firing, saying it was “more of a big-picture number of different things.”
The Hawks have been to the postseason only once since Quenneville’s dismissal, and that was when they were gerrymandered into the 2020 playoffs due to the COVID-19 regular-season cancellation in March. The NHL went straight to the playoffs when play resumed in May with an expanded 24-team field. The Hawks had a 2.5% chance of making the postseason until the format change, which is only a little better than this season’s chances.
If Sorensen’s strong suit is developing young players, it makes sense to bring up top prospects such as Korchinski and Frank Nazar, whom he had in Rockford, to get the pipeline flowing. Based on the general malaise of Hawks fans who slept through Saturday’s game at the United Center, most of them would rather watch a prospect-laden team lose while learning than the current iteration.
There’s no player besides Bedard whom fans are excited about, but some of the prospects might inject some life into the stadium. A cacophony of noise over the p.a. system, from rock songs to in-game deejays, is what the Hawks marketing department uses these days to drown out the silence.
While surrounding Bedard with veterans might have sounded good in theory, it hasn’t worked. In his second season, Bedard’s progress is the only reason to pay attention to the Hawks, assuming you even can watch them on your cable provider or streaming service. Bedard also has to take more chances with all eyes on him.
Sorensen said Saturday he has a plan for getting Bedard going.
“Just encouraging him to find those areas where he can get a shot off and utilize his shot,” Sorensen said. “Playing that quick, give-and-go game so he can get to those spots is a big part of it. I think there were moments there where you started seeing it today and then it didn’t flourish, unfortunately. But we’ll keep working at it.”
The Hawks remain a work in progress, their default mode since the dynasty ended. Wake us up when they’re ready to change.