Stats are from Natural Stat Trick and are even strength unless otherwise noted. Click here to view a glossary of terms (xGF, Corsi, Fenwick, etc)
The Blackhawks resigned their two remaining on July 29. Both Isaak Phillips and Quebecois-giant Louis Crevier were signed to 1-year, 2-way deals with a $775k cap hit.
That’s pretty much all there is all to say about them, but then I went down a rabbit hole after looking at their stats. And viola, now you get this mess. It’s the breakdown you never asked for.
These two young defensemen don’t really fit in the Blackhawks’ future plans other than being potential trade chips/backups. You could argue that Phillips can be a No. 7 defenseman on the Hawks, but he won’t have a whole lot of opportunities to prove himself this upcoming season. With 5 roster spots currently taken up, it’s highly unlikely Phillips will take that 6th or 7th spot unless injuries happen.
Either way, I thought it would be interesting to look at their past season.
Phillips
Drafted in the 5th round in the 2020 draft, Phillips made an earlier-than-expected NHL debut due to COVID (remember the taxi squad?). In the 2021 season, he played 4-games and didn’t look horrible. With 16 games in 2022 and 33 games last season, Phillips has already exceeded expectations as a 5th round pick.
He can move. His first (and only) NHL goal perfectly captures his acceleration, speed, and passing. From the 2022 season, watch as Phillips (CHI41) leads the rush from the DZ and scores:
He had his fair share of mistakes in the DZ, remember, he’s a young defender. My only gripe is that he was punished for those mistakes which saw Jarred Tinordi get more ice-time. In this game against Calgary, Phillips leaves Nazem Kadri (CGY91) open to score a goal. Isaak would be punished and only saw a total of 5:56 of icetime that game, a career low.
Looking at the numbers, the Hawks had an expected goals share (xGF%) of 37.21% when he was on the ice. The impact here is that the Hawks xGF per 60 minutes dropped by 6.83% with Phillips. Not great, but he also spent most of his time with either Tinordi or Connor Murphy.
Phillips also had a hit rate of 6.30 hits per 60 minutes, which ranked 9th overall on the Hawks. With only 1.52 takeaways per 60, I expected a little better from him (last season he had 1.93 takeaways/60 over 49 games). He also had a giveaway rate of 2.45 per 60, ranked 6th worst on the Hawks. The Hawks also gave up 4.43 goals/60 min. when he was on the ice, 3rd worst on the team for players with over 20 games played.
Here’s a solid shift from last season against Colorado’s top line. The part I want to highlight is at the end of the clip, where Phillips (CHI41) battles to get the puck out of the DZ and away from Valeri Nichushkin (COL13). Throughout the whole shift Phillips’ head is on a swivel. He is alert and antcipating the next play.
Earlier in the same game:
Phillips had the right idea of getting involved offensively, if he had better shot selection the puck would have gotten past the Colorado defender. Unfortunatly, Murphy gets blown out by Jonathan Drouin (COL27).
Crevier
6 feet and 8 inches while weighing in at 227 pounds. He’s a giant.
For Louis, his sample size is much smaller at 24 games. Crevier debuted on December 3 as a result of the injury slaughter the Hawks were just begining to face (aren’t you glad that this season is behind us?).
Crevier most likely won’t see any NHL time this season (or ever, if we’re being cynical and real). However, much like Phillips, Crevier outplayed his draft spot as he was a 7th round pick in 2020. Does he have a future in the NHL in general? Who knows.
What I do know is that he looked ok at times. Other times, there were some pretty ugly defensive mistakes. The Hawks’ xGF% was down by 12.12% when he was on the ice, and that xGF% was 31.72%. Crevier had a rate of goals against of 3.96 goals per 60 min., he faced the most shot attempts per 60 at 77.58, and faced the most shots on goal at 38.19 per 60. These numbers point out that he was hemmed in the DZ for far too long.
Below is a compilation of some clips. When Crevier is good, he’s using his size to body opponents, otherwise, he makes costly mistakes. Just a heads up, ran into some audio issues when putting this together, so there’s no sound.
Both signings are good for depth and help out Rockford. Neither player is really a part of the Hawks future success.
Phillips could pan out into a 7th defenseman, but realistically I can see him being used in a trade. The Hawks have a lot of young defensemen on the left-side, and even if all of them pan out (unlikely), some of them are good trade chips.
For our French-Canadian friend, Crevier showing up in the NHL as a 7th-round-pick isn’t a result of him being some late draft hit, the Hawks were ravished by injuries which forced Crevier making an earlier than desired NHL debut. Granted, he looked good at times. I would be very surprised to see him in an NHL lineup in the future.
Let’s Go Hawks.