Game Preview: Blackhawks vs Rangers 12/9/2024

The Blackhawks take on New York tonight. If the Hawks want to break their losing streak, they're going to have to get creative.

How many have the Blackhawks dropped in a row now? 5? It's going to end soon... right? I mean things could always be worse. We could be a team that has playoff aspirations but is playing like dogshit, winning 2 in their last 9. Oh, hello there New York.

Shout out to NHL Out of Context on BlueSky for the cover photo.

The Rangers

The Rangers are 3-7-0 in their last 10. They lost 7-5 to the Seattle Kraken and gave up 5 goals in 6 minutes—ugly stuff. A big part of that was because of defensive zone breakdowns and poor goaltending from Jonathan Quick. That's been their primary reason for their stretch of losing: giving up high-danger chances.

The Rangers have given up 109 high-danger chances and 12 high-danger goals in their past 10 games, which ranks near the bottom of the league.

The Rangers play man-on-man in the D-zone. Their system allows them to take away cross-ice passes and provide excellent shot suppression. On Sunday's game, the Rangers gave up 22 shots on goal, had 37 shots, and owned a 69.27 xG%. They still lost 7-5. Why? Because their system leads to breakdowns and disastrous chances.

On Brandon Tanev's goal, he drives to the net and receives a nice pass from Mitchell Stephens. NYR91 and 20 are preoccupied with their man, both indicated by the blue arrows. You can watch the play here.

Most NHL teams tighten up when the puck is below the goal line to prevent creative and fast plays like the play above. The idea for the Rangers is to take passing lanes away, pressure the puck carrier, and suppress shots. To counter this, teams have to play creatively and create motion to confuse the Rangers' defense.

Man on man: Here's how the Rangers take advantage of teams who make a lot of cross-ice passes. In this scenario, the puck carrier makes a blind pass across the middle. Because they don't crowd the strong side, F2 will be the first on the retrieval.

If only the Blackhawks had some creative players in their lineup...

The Blackhawks

I'm more concerned with Connor Bedard scoring a goal than the Blackhawks breaking a 5 game-losing streak. Bedard only has 1 shot on goal and 7 shot attempts at 5v5 in his last 3 games. Anders Sorensen's main job is to get this kid going. I'm not confident his line will facilitate that. We still have Philipp Kurashev on Connor's wing with Ilya Mikheyev flanking on the right. There are rumors that Frank Nazar could get called up and replace Mikheyev, which changes things.

https://twitter.com/Mario_Tirabassi/status/1866136564172042247

Mikheyev is a fast player and he isn't bad on the forecheck. If Ilya does end up playing with Bedard, the only reason he's on this first line is to get the puck. Is Mikheyev creative enough to create plays for Bedard? No. But Nazar is.

Sorensen is implementing his 2-1-2 forecheck, which I talked about here. This would facilitate creative zone entries if Frank does get the call-up. Otherwise, we rely on Athanasiou 2.0 Mikheyev to help drive offense alongside a pass-first Kurashev. The Blackhawks must get creative to take advantage of the Rangers' d-zone breakdowns.

This team struggles to find open space for Bedard to create chances. The defensive system that the Rangers play generates a lot of pressure which could prevent the Hawks from setting up. Typically, teams will swarm Bedard and take the puck away from him. They don't have to worry about anyone else. More than likely, Bedard will have to make passes to an open teammate and set them up to score. The Rangers like to take away cross-ice passes and they don't overload on the strongside. This will make chances for Bedard to score even harder.

How teams swarm Bedard: Typically, once Bedard (F1) has the puck, all the opposition needs to do is swarm him. Since the Rangers play man-on-man defense, they may adjust their DZ approach or take any passing lanes away from Bedard and leave Shesterkin to take Bedard's shot.

It will be interesting to see how the Blackhawks generate any offense tonight. Specifically, they're going to have to get creative in the OZ.

Let's Go Hawks.