Chicago Blackhawks

What the Quant Says

226 goals and dead last in the league in creating chances at even strength: 2.14 expected goals per 60, with the club in 31st at 2.51. Not 32nd by a whisker — 32nd by a distance.

Connor Bedard had 67 points at 19. Ryan Donato scored 31 on a 17 per cent rate after never clearing 20. Teuvo Teräväinen had 43 assists on a team that scored 226 goals, which is the most impressive individual number in this chapter. Tyler Bertuzzi scored 23 with 51 per cent of his shots taken from inside 20 feet and Ilya Mikheyev 20 with 46 per cent inside.

The club finished 8th in the league in finishing, 10.7 goals above expectation — so this attack was helped rather than hindered, and still scored 226. Donato's 31 and Bertuzzi's 17.6 per cent rate are the two numbers most likely to disappear.

What the Scout Says

One player who can beat anybody, one who can find him, and very little in between.

Bedard is 5-10 and thicker than he looks and goes to the interior more than a player of his size and value should have to. The 70 penalty minutes at 19 read as a young man losing patience with his circumstances rather than as a habit. Teuvo Teräväinen plays a patient half-wall game and holds the puck until a defenceman commits — 43 assists on a club that scored 226 goals — and at 5-11 and 191 he does not win a puck back from anybody.

Ryan Donato has a genuinely quick release and better hands than his journeyman record suggests, and the distinction that matters is between a player who found a role and one who found a linemate. Tyler Bertuzzi does everything within 20 feet of the goaltender: cross-checks, talks, stands where he is not wanted, does not leave. Ilya Mikheyev is among the faster wingers in the league and the hands do not keep up with the feet.

Frank Nazar is the one to watch. He already gets to the right places — 40 per cent of his attempts inside 20 feet — and the skating means he can be the man who makes Bedard's minutes survivable. Lukas Reichel skates and is evasive and cannot do anything with it under pressure at 170 pounds, and four seasons have produced 22 points at best.

What the Quant Says

296 goals conceded — second-most in the league — and 29th at even-strength expected goals against, 3.01 per 60, with a 32nd-ranked chance share in front of it.

Alex Vlasic played 82 games at 23:16 a night with a 41.9 per cent chance share, the 4th percentile, and his on-ice goals were 59-83 against an expected 47-65. He also took 12 penalty minutes across the whole season at 6-6, which is the single best reason to believe there is a genuine defenceman in there. Connor Murphy, at 32, posted the best share on the blue line at 45.3 per cent and was on for 65 goals against an expected 48.

Wyatt Kaiser had 8 points in 57 games at 18 minutes a night. Ethan Del Mastro, at 22, had a better chance share in 24 games than almost anybody ahead of him. Matt Grzelcyk arrives with 39 assists and 1 goal, which is a genuinely useful thing on a club that cannot leave its own zone.

What the Scout Says

A group being asked to defend the most one-sided minutes in the league, and one man in it worth watching.

Alex Vlasic uses 6-6 exceptionally well — he closes at the blue line, defends his net front, and is difficult to get around — and the 12 penalty minutes are what a defenceman with good reads takes. Everything else about his season is a team number. Connor Murphy clears his crease, blocks shots and finishes checks, and at 32 has cleared 75 games twice in twelve seasons.

Matt Grzelcyk escapes a forecheck by turning away from it and runs a breakout as well as any small defenceman in the league, and at 5-10 and 180 cannot clear a net front, and his release is soft enough that killers do not respect it — 1 goal on 94 attempts is not variance any more. Ethan Del Mastro at 22 does not lose the puck in his own zone, which on this roster distinguishes him, and took 6 penalty minutes in 24 games.

Wyatt Kaiser skates well and has produced 4 assists in 57 games at 18 minutes a night, which is one of the lowest returns in this edition. Louis Crevier is 6-8 and the reach ends plays that most defencemen would chase, and he cannot recover when a forward gets outside him.

What the Quant Says

Arvid Söderblom stopped .8979 across 36 games and Petr Mrázek .8912 before being traded. The club's goaltending came in 21.9 goals worse than the chances faced, 29th in the league.

Set against a finishing figure that was 8th in the league, that is the whole of the difference between a bad team and the worst one in the conference. Spencer Knight arrived in March in the Seth Jones trade and stopped .9011 — 32 points of save percentage clear of Söderblom on the same club in the same season — and he is 24 with no full season as a starter behind him.

A club rebuilding around a 20-year-old centre cannot keep giving away 20 goals a year in the crease, and Knight is the first serious attempt to stop.

What the Scout Says

The position where the club has actually made a decision, and it looks like the right one.

Spencer Knight's game is structural rather than athletic — deep enough to take the top of the net away, square, reliant on being in the right place rather than getting there — which at its best is efficient and calm, with good rebound control. The weakness is a scramble, where the recovery is slower than the modern game demands, and behind a club conceding this many second chances that is precisely the wrong flaw. He stepped away from the game in 2022 and has rebuilt himself from an uncertain future to an NHL starter at 24, and there is no record of a bad night becoming a bad stretch.

Arvid Söderblom is reactive rather than positional, quick and moving a great deal, and square less often than he should be. The rebound control is the specific weakness — pucks come back into the slot and he makes the second save from a scramble — and on this club that compounds every night. Four NHL seasons, three of them under .900, and no stretch in the record that looks like a starter.

What the Quant Says

29th at 5.91 expected goals per 60, over 3:56 a night — the second-fewest power-play minutes in the league. Bad at it and rarely given the chance.

Bedard led with 11 power-play goals, Bertuzzi 10, Teräväinen 7, Donato 5. That is a real shooter, a real net-front presence and a real distributor, and the unit still finished 29th. Some of it is the fifth man — there is no defenceman on this roster who forces a killer to respect the point — and some of it is that a club with the ninth-fewest drawn penalties never gets enough repetitions to build anything.

What the Scout Says

The right pieces and no fifth man.

Connor Bedard on the off wing is already one of the most dangerous power-play threats in the league — the release does not need time and the angle changes late. Tyler Bertuzzi is exactly the man for the blue paint: he takes the cross-checks and stays, and 10 of his 23 goals came here. Teuvo Teräväinen runs it from the half-wall with the patience the arrangement needs.

What the unit lacks is a defenceman who forces a decision. Matt Grzelcyk moves it well and has no shot at all — 1 goal in a season — so a killing box can slide toward Bedard without paying for it, and nobody on this blue line makes them pay. The other problem is repetition: the second-fewest power-play minutes in the league, on a club that has no other way to score.

What the Quant Says

21st at 6.79 expected goals against per 60, over 4:37 a game. The least broken phase on the roster, which is not saying much.

Vlasic and Murphy do the defensive work and both are genuinely capable of it — Vlasic's reach closes plays at the blue line and Murphy clears his crease. Jason Dickinson takes the hardest defensive-zone draws on the club, and Mikheyev's speed produced 3 shorthanded goals.

The discipline is reasonable by the standards of this edition: Bedard's 70 penalty minutes at 19 are the highest total on the roster and read as frustration on a club that lost 57 games.

What the Scout Says

Competent, and the only part of this team not in the bottom five.

Alex Vlasic's reach is a genuine asset shorthanded — he ends plays at the blue line rather than retreating from them — and Connor Murphy clears the front of his own net properly. Jason Dickinson starts nearly every shift in his own zone against the other club's best line and is the reason the forward rotation works at all, whatever his chance share says.

Ilya Mikheyev's straight-line speed produced 3 shorthanded goals and makes a careless breakout expensive. Nick Foligno at 37 still blocks shots and goes where it hurts. The discipline is reasonable by this edition's standards and the unit's 21st-place rank is, remarkably, the club's best.