Hawk Thoughts: Luke Richardson
Thoughts on Blackhawks Head Coach Luke Richardson 18 games in the 2024 regular season.
This sucks. Losing sucks.
It's not a shocker by any means. I did have them getting around 70 points by the end of the season. But there are intrusive thoughts about this team that float in my head making war with the more serious intrusive thoughts.
On one hand, this is to be expected and all that jazz. On the other, there are concerns that pop up and I can't tell if I should actually be concerned or not.
Before I move on, I think there are a couple of important things we need to keep in mind here:
This team was never going to be good. The only way this team was going to even be near playoff talk was by some miracle. Some fans did think this was a good enough roster to make the post-season, and that's ok. That's their opinion.
They were supposed to be competitive... whatever that means. You can argue that they've been "competing." They've kept games close enough to make you think they can win a few. But playoff aspirations were for the brave few who dared to dream. And dreams aren't reality.
Last but not least, Luke Richardson is not going to be fired. Kyle Davidson made that clear. So whether you like him or not, we are stuck with him.
On to the gong show
There's a lot of noise about Richardson's coaching on the interwebs. And I'll be the first to say that I don't think the root of the problem is Luke.
Now, I'm not saying he's our guy. Far from it.
Luke is a defensive-minded coach first, and it shows. The defense looks a lot better than last year. The Hawks have an expected goals against (xGA) rate per 60 at 2.69, which is 26th in the league1. Last season, the Hawks had an xGA rate of 2.84, which was 30th. It's not a huge jump but if you watch the Hawks play in their end, things look more tight. Wyatt Kaiser looks better, despite a few hiccups. And as far as numbers go, he has an xGA rate of 2.59, which is 120 of 212 players with over 100 minutes of icetime.
Now, I'm not saying that Kaiser being a middling defenseman is the product of Richardson. As far as defense goes, what my eyes tell me doesn't stray too far from the data. And we won't really know how Luke develops young players for a couple of years. Despite some glaring concerns.
And no, Alex Vlasic being a solid defenseman doesn't count as a win for Luke and we can't really tell if Rockford is the reason Vlasic is who he is... let's be real.
I'm going to hold off on offense for one second because there is something about Luke that I don't like.
The line changes.
I am not a fan of the blender of line changes that he has put this roster through. How many players has Connor Bedard played with? 100? Yeah, the consistency thing sucks.
Ben Pope pointed out that the lines have changed after every regulation loss so far. That's 11, by the way.
How do we expect any one to develop chemistry? More importantly, how can Bedard develop chemistry with anyone? While there isn't a whole lot of talent on this team, aren't there a couple of players who were brought on for that sole purpose? Why not just let Teuvo Teravainen and someone else cook with Bedard?
Connor and Turbo had a 47.73 Corsi together at 5v5. Not great, but that's because Bedard can't win a faceoff to save his life and gets hemmed in the DZ. He's got a 29.30 FO% and starts 22.3% of his shifts in OZ. That's a lot of OZ time lost to losing at the dot. But when they do get things going, it looks solid. A 50.27 xG% isn't eye-popping, but it's technically more than half...right?
And for what it's worth, the best line that had 84 minutes together was the Foligno-Bedard-Teuvo line with an xG% of 57.1% and an expected goals rate of 3.13 per 60.
But no one is scoring.
Luke says all the right things. He's very good at explaining the x's and o's to the press. But what he's talking about is far different from what we see on the ice. So have the players tuned him out or what?
The roster is a lot better than what we had last year, and you can see the difference if you're paying attention to the game. But there are a few players that are not playing anywhere near expectations. Mostly, all the veterans that Kyle Davidson brought on.
Tyler Bertuzzi has been a ghost and needs to do the thing he was brought in for (going to the net). Taylor Hall was healthy scratched because he needs "practice." Pat Maroon, although he had that cute story about Lukas Reichel stealing his dip, is like watching a manatee on ice.
An argument can be made that these players are mostly new to Luke's system and need time to adjust. Sure. I bought that. But it's November. Luke's "system" isn't some wild idea that players can't grasp. It's about as basic as it can get. So no, I don't buy that the players can't adjust to Luke's simple system.
But here's the thing, Luke was brought on to coach a rebuilding team. Not win playoffs. Could he be the guy? Well, that's what Kyle Davidson is looking at this year. Let Luke coach until his contract is up in 2025 and if he's a good fit, let him ride out his conditional year. And if you're on the fire Luke train, it's going to take something really bad for that to happen.
So yeah, all these criticisms of Luke do matter because they'll be added to the final sum of his tenure with the Blackhawks.
But that's not what matters a whole lot in the near term. Connor Bedard matters. His development matters. And it's not really his play that has me concerned. It's who he's playing with. And that's a finger that gets pointed at someone else.
At the end of the day, it's getting very stale watching this team. These losses have an explanation. It's not a mystery. This team stinks. But losing gets old fast, and that's what comes with a rebuild. No matter who's coaching.
Of course, you only know about this if you are able to watch the games.
CHSN... what the hell are you doing?