Are things turning around in Chicago?

Are things turning around in Chicago?

still a work in progress. Yes, they are going to compete more. Yes, they are better than a year ago. But this is still a long way away for the Chicago Blackhawks. Uh let’s bring on the James Lipton of the hockey space. He is uh Steve Peters. You know him well from inside the coach’s room. Many saying it’s the inside the actor’s studio of hockey YouTube channels. And uh many people call him my friend. Hi Steve. The only thing you got right there is that I am your friend. The rest of it H not not so sure this early in the season. Wanted to have you on. Wanted to discuss the Chicago Blackhawks because two straight wins for them. They ran the Blues out of their own building last night with an A3 win. Connor Bard, Frank Nazar look awesome to begin the season. Also, Tabo Terrain, I’ll throw in there. Spencer Knight looks like the guy. We always want the Blackhawks to get exciting and good. Are they getting there? What do you think of them so far? This is This is hard. Yes, we want to be excited about a team that is young and getting better. And you look at some of their young players like you mentioned, Nazar Nazar was fantastic, but Dard’s getting all the points. He had more points last year through five, but we won’t say that. Their young players are good. The the reality is this team’s still going to finish in the bottom five in the league this year. They’re still going to be a team that’s in that lottery pick. They’re young and they’re going to make a lot of mistakes. They turn the puck over a tremendous amount in the defensive zone. They’re still learning the defensive zone system by Blashel. Still a work in progress. Yes, they are going to compete more. Yes, they are better than a year ago, but this is still a long way away for the Chicago Blackhawks. What needs to happen for this season to be a good season for them? I I I think you need to see little improvements in different areas. And one of those things that we talked about with these young players, you’re going to see that eb and flow of of good solid hockey and you’re going to see that eb and flow of big mistakes. And I think you need to see some of those guys take a step forward. We already have. I I think that Frank Nazar, when you talk about an exciting forward in the National Hockey League right now, when he’s on the ice, things are happening. A and I think Chicago fans wanted to see that out of number 98. I think when when Bard’s on the ice, you want to see that. But we see that he Bard’s a different player. Bedard distributes a puck. Great play along the wall, makes the pass to get the the second goal of the game. Last night, he gets three assists. He is a puck distributor. Nazar is going to get to the net. So, I think you need to see those young players take that step forward. And I think Renzel is another one of them that he’s a riskreward guy. Offensively, he’s been great. Defensively, he’s still struggling with rush reads, defensive zone reads, and turnovers, but that will come. So, if I’m the Chicago Blackhawks management, I’m going, okay, those little successes. We we let’s not finish 32nd. That would be a good start, but we need to find those young players that start to take those winning habits and doing it continually. And when I talk about that, it’s Bard 200 foot and it’s Re Renzel learning defend to defend. Levino learning to defend. Nazar playing both ends of days. Those little rewards and those little little steps are going to be huge for this team. They just have to compete and be in games more often than they were a season ago. Do you sense any like shift in the culture there? cuz I feel like this year that team has each other’s backs a little bit more. And I mean, we saw a little bit of the returns last year in terms of Baddard’s compete and the quote unquote on his ass when things were going um against them. Like I feel like Baddard has come out of his shell a little bit more and I feel like that team has established more of a culture that lends to winning hockey. I 100% agree. And Bard, one of the things that you could talk about him, especially his rookie year and and cut him some slack. He’s a young kid and he was getting pushed around a little bit more. He is playing with a little more grit and he is a guy that after a couple of the scrums last night, he’s staring down the opponent. You want to see that grit, but absolutely I think Blastel has been a big key in bringing a different culture and I hate the word culture. I know it’s overused, but accountability maybe is a better word for Chicago right now in that I think this group is starting to pull together and understand that you have to play a certain way to be successful. And and I think one of the things there’s two things defensively that they’ve done better. They changed their neutral zone from a 122 to a 113, which allows them to defend the rush much better and t start to eliminate those opportunities for their opponent. And secondly, they’re really putting an onus on defending in front of the blue paint and protecting their goalender. And I think they’re giving up fewer grade A scoring chances because of it. And there’s a lot less confusion. Last year you’d see Chicago and they’re looking around and pointing who’s got who. I think there’s more structure in their defensive zone game. And that brings accountability and that brings Hey, when you have good structure and somebody makes a mistake, you know it. And I think that those two things defensively have really helped the Chicago Blackhawk team figure out their accountability in the defensive zone.

Connor Bedard, Frank Nazar and the Chicago Blackhawks look like they could be reaching a new level early on in the NHL season, so what should the expectations be for the young group? NHL analyst Steve Peters joins the show to discuss early returns in Chicago.

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