Blackhawks experimenting with Seth Jones, Alex Vlasic's roles on power play
DENVER — The Blackhawks probably wish Seth Jones was left-handed.
It would make their preferred power-play arrangement work better if he was. That's because right-handed Connor Bedard, who plays on the left flank, would have an easier time passing up to him at the point if he was.
Think about it: Jones' right-handedness means his stick blade is positioned about three feet to his right, away from Bedard. If Jones was left-handed, his blade would be about six feet closer to Bedard while standing in the exact same spot.
Last Tuesday at the United Center, the Canucks designed their penalty-killing plan to exploit that small incongruity. They frequently double-teamed Bedard from below, forcing him to look toward Jones. Jones then shifted to his left to give Bedard an open lane, which trapped both of them in the top corner of the offensive zone with nowhere to go.
"I would like to stay in the middle of the ice, but with me being a righty, I have to get over a little bit more for him, so sometimes that takes me out of the good ice," Jones said. "[The penalty killers] can recover a little bit quicker. That three feet matters."
Hawks coach Luke Richardson responded by testing out left-handed defenseman Alex Vlasic, whose offensive capabilities are expanding remarkably quickly for a shutdown guy, as the point man on the top power-play unit in the Hawks' next game — last Friday against the Predators.
That didn't go particularly well either, though, because of Vlasic's inexperience with the breakout and zone-entry patterns. With him quarterbacking, the Hawks struggled to get set up long enough for his handedness to matter.
"I honestly didn’t like the way I played," Vlasic said that night. "[The Predators] did a good job on their forecheck, and we weren’t able to break the puck out the way we wanted to. A lot of that’s on me. It’s tough. I’m still trying to figure out how it all works out and who I should be passing to."
The experiment didn't last long; Richardson reinstated Jones up top in the last two games against the Stars and Avalanche. But that means the Hawks still have the original problem with Bedard and Jones' right-handedness.
Richardson has told the players in the bumper and down-low roles (Tyler Bertuzzi and Lukas Reichel on Monday) that they need to move immediately to give Bedard other outlets when they see him getting double-teamed.
"If he has two guys on him, it's a four-on-two in the rest of the ice, so we need to take advantage of that," Jones said. "The quicker we move the puck around, the more confused [the penalty killers] get.
"I've been [telling Connor], 'When you see two guys coming at you, it's for a reason. You're a great player and they want to take that option away.' ... He needs to have three options that he readily sees so we can make plays out of that."
The Hawks have also worked on some set plays off faceoffs where they move the puck down low without Bedard touching it at all or where Bertuzzi temporarily slides into the left-flank position instead.
Meanwhile, Vlasic made a fantastic play on the second unit Monday against the Avalanche to snap the Hawks' power-play drought. He singlehandedly carried the puck into the zone, fired a shot on goal, gathered the rebound, circled behind the net and found Philipp Kurashev for a slap-shot goal.
If Vlasic continues doing things like that and growing his power-play confidence, he could eventually receive another opportunity on the top unit. Richardson mentioned the Hawks need more practice time to figure out a plan, and they will get that Wednesday (before facing the Sharks on Thursday) and Friday (before facing the Kings on Saturday).