Stanley Cup Playoff Preview: 12 things about Blackhawks vs. Wild
Both the Chicago Blackhawks and Minnesota Wild needed six games to advance out of Round 1, leaving the Nashville Predators and St. Louis, respectively, behind. Now it’s like an old-timey Norris Division match-up, if only the Wild had the franchise history of the North Stars…
So are the Blackhawks in the middle of another Stanley Cup run to continue their half-decade of dominance or do the Wild have something special going on?
1. So we meet again?
This will be the third straight postseason postseason meetings between the teams. The Blackhawks have won both — 4-1 in the opening round in 2013 and 4-2 in last season’s second round.
2. Moving forward
The usual suspects are leading the Blackhawks. Jonathan Toews is second among all active players in scoring with 8 points. Patrick Kane looks pretty much 100-percent recovered from his broken clavicle and recorded 2 goals and 7 points in Round 1. Marian Hossa and Patrick Sharp have each chipped in five points.
Depth up front has been a key to Chicago’s success over the years. After Toews, Kane, Sharp and Hossa, the Wild and Devan Dubnyk will have to worry about Brandon Saad (2 goals), a semi-lifelike Brad Richards (3 points), Teuvo Teravainen (if he’s in the lineup) and Bryan Bickell, whose history against the Wild we’ll get into a little later.
While he may not score much anymore (1 goals since Feb. 14) Antoine Vermette was back to being strong in the face-off circle, winning 58.2-percent of his first round draws. Meanwhile, Kris Versteeg, Andrew Desjardins and Andrew Shaw have combined for 37 shots, they’ve only scored two goals between them.
Minnesota can match the production of Chicago’s top line with their go-to of Zach Parise, Jason Pominville and Mikael Granlund, who combined for 6 goal and 17 points against the Blues. Beyond that trio, Nino Niederreiter has continued his fine season with three goals in Round 1.
Mikko Koivu, Charlie Coyle and Jason Zucker each have a goal apiece, while Chris Stewart has yet to light the lamp after five shots. Thomas Vanek has been on a third line with Coyle and Zucker, and that trio will need to get going offensively if Minnesota needs to rely on its secondary scoring.
Hey, remember that Sean Bergenheim deadline deal? Yeesh.
3. Let’s not get defensive here
Both teams went with only six defenseman in Round 1 and both relied heavily on their top-four pairings.
Duncan Keith is tops among all defensemen with 7 points and averaged 32:03 against the Predators. Keith, Brent Seabrook (4 points, 25:14 TOI), Niklas Hjalmarsson (1 goal, 25:45 TOI) and Johnny Oduya (25:49 TOI) are the standard top-4 Joel Quenneville trusts. But issues provided by the third pairing of Kimmo Timonen and Michal Roszival in Round 1 caused the head coach to split them up in favor of better partners at times.
Minnesota has allowed the third-fewest shots per game (26.5) and Ryan Suter (26:05 TOI) and Jonas Brodin (22:30 TOI) will see a lot of Chicago’s top guns. If the Blackhawks can’t take advantage of that pairing, they probably will find success against Jared Spurgeon and Marco Scandella. The duo didn’t have have the best possession numbers against the Blues (45-percent) and saw majority of their starts come in the defensive zone, per War on Ice.
Matt Dumba and Jordan Leopold form the third pairing, which, like Chicago’s, sees a heavy drop off in ice time from the top-4. Dumba’s just under 15 minutes a game, while Leopold has seen 12:30 per game through one round, which is probably a good thing for the moment.
4. New face in net for Wild, old guard for Chicago
A Niklas Backstrom injury during warm-ups before Game 1 in 2013 forced Mike Yeo to put Josh Harding in. Chicago prevailed in five games. Last year, Ilya Bryzgalov took over the reigns after Darcy Kuemper was injured in Round 1. Chicago again prevailed in six games. But Devan Dubnyk will provide a tougher opposition for the Blackhawks. The Vezina Trophy finalist has been one of the NHL’s best second-half stories since being dealt to the Wild in January and enters Round 2 on a roll, stopping 66 of the 68 shots he faced in the final two games against St. Louis.
After turning to Scott Darling for four starts against Nashville, Joel Quenneville went back to Corey Crawford as the Blackhawks closed out the Predators in six games. In Crawford, the Blackhawks know what they’re getting. He’s a goalie who helped win them a Cup two years ago and one who’s had plenty of experience in the tension-filled postseason.
Crawford stopped all 13 shots he faced in relief of Darling during the series-clincher in Game 6, but what becomes of the Blackhawks if Quenneville has to call on Darling again?
5. How advantageous has been the man-advantage?
The Blackhawks finished with a top-10 penalty kill during the regular season, but the Predators took advantage of them during Round 1 scoring six times on 22 opportunities (72.7-percent). That needs to change quick for Chicago as the Wild hold the best power play through the first round, cashing in on 4 of 12 chances (33.3-percent), an improved showing from their 27th-ranked output during the regular season.
Chicago’s power play scored three times in 19 opportunities versus Nashville and will face a tough test against a Wild kill unit that finished first in the regular season and was 9-for-11 against St. Louis. Minnesota has the ability to take advantage of a disjointed power play having scored four shorthanded goals during the regular season and one in the postseason — Parise’s individual, bad-angle beauty on Jake Allen in Game 6.
6. Quenneville vs. Yeo
Joel Quenneville has 103 career posteason wins and two Stanley Cups to his name. He’s been through the battles and seen it all this time of year. He has a veteran group in front of him, including a number of players who won it all in 2010 with him. While Q has been criticized for his line juggling, the talent on the roster has overcome his questionable decisions at times.
Mike Yeo was not far from scanning the job listings back in January when he went off on his struggling Wild team in front of the media. Then Devan Dubnyk arrived and things finally started to fall into place and work together. The Wild have been one of the NHL’s hottest teams and are peaking at the right time. Dubnyk and Yeo had question marks around their future just months ago. Now things seems a lot more secure.
7. Bickell’s time to shine?
It’s playoff time, which means Bryan Bickell should be ready to heat up. As the Chicago Sun-Times’ Mark Potash pointed out, Bickell has 15 goals and 20 points in 23 games (including playoffs) against the Wild over the past two seasons. We’ve all seen how productive Bickell can be come playoff time and with 0 goals through six games, it’s about that time.
8. The fancy stats (via War on Ice)
Score-Adjusted Fenwick (possession):
Regular season: Chicago – 52.8 vs. Minnesota – 52.4
Round 1: Chicago – 50.3 vs. Minnesota 45
Shot on goal differential:
Regular season: Chicago – +199.6 vs. Minnesota – +189
Round 1: Chicago – 14.5 vs. Minnesota -13.8
Offensive zone starts:
Regular season: Chicago – 1382 (first) vs. Minnesota – 1260
Round 1: Chicago – 131 vs. Minnesota – 95
Penalties drawn:
Regular season: Chicago – 219 vs. Minnesota – 223
Round 1: Chicago – 14 vs. Minnesota -14
9. Home sweet home
The Wild have failed to leave United Center with a postseason win, losing all six in the past two seasons. Chicago is 2-3 at XCel Energy Center in those two previous series.
10. Ju(i)cy Lucys vs. deep dish pizza?
There’s no edge here. We all win.
11. It wouldn’t be the postseason without some playoff anthems
(This is from 2014, but still works.)
12. Prediction: Blackhawks in 7
The two teams were similar possession teams during the regular season, as judged by their score-adjusted Fenwick numbers and the fancy stats you saw above. The Blackhawks showed in Round 1 they could prevail despite issues in net. We’ll see which Corey Crawford shows up against the Wild; and that question mark, along with the play of Devan Dubnyk will be the reason this series goes the distance. Minnesota may not be as deep as Chicago, but they’ve certainly received timely production when they needed it up and down their lineup. The Blackhawks aren’t perfect and are vulnerable, but their experience will win out.
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