CHICAGO — The Chicago Blackhawks said at the outset of Derek King’s promotion from the Rockford IceHogs that he wasn’t expected to make wholesale changes to the existing schemes but just be a different voice than Jeremy Colliton’s.
It’s debatable how much difference that change in voice has made — the Hawks are 24-38-11 with an eight-game losing streak Tuesday’s 5-2 home loss to the Los Angeles Kings — but there’s no arguing that King has refrained from overhauling the system.
Since he was named interim coach Nov. 6, King has been in some ways a caretaker for a team that never had more than dim hopes of making the playoffs and in other ways a coach auditioning for the permanent gig.
King acknowledged Tuesday that given the chance next season, he would make significant changes from the way Colliton ran things on the ice — and not just behind the scenes.
“We would take a look at it and make some adjustments,” King said. “But me coming in here, not knowing the league, not knowing the players, not knowing their systems ... I could’ve come in here and said we’re going to do a 1-3-1 neutral zone, we’re going to forecheck four guys and have one (defenseman) stand back in front of our net, or in the D-zone we’re going to play man-on-man or we’re just going to stand there and (everyone) play your quadrants. I could’ve done a lot of that.
“But the guys I felt just needed a little tweak, a little change. I said, ‘D, don’t chase guys up over the blue line.’ In the neutral zone, it’s a 1-2-2 — that’s what you switched to — so I wasn’t going to switch them again. We needed to just keep honing that.”
King made a tweak in mid-March by having a more aggressive forecheck and keeping the “F3,” the third forward, higher up in the zone for offensive and defensive support.
“The only thing really we did was I got our forecheck a little stronger and had our ‘D’ pinch the walls just to create some more offense. And had our F3 high,” King said. “That kind of stuff would probably stay the same. I’d maybe change the neutral zone if I’m back.”
King may have some tinkering — or teaching — to do with the defense, which contributed to Tuesday’s loss in which the Kings put up 33 shots on goal. The Hawks’ eighth straight loss leaves them one short of their franchise-record 0-7-2 stretch of futility to open the season.
Phillip Danault’s goal banked off Caleb Jones’ leg. Jordan Spence’s goal appeared to deflect off Seth Jones, Caleb’s brother and fellow defenseman. On Blake Lizotte’s goal in the second period, Alex Vlasic lost a couple of puck battles, then chased his man behind the net, giving Lizotte a clear shot at the net from Vlasic’s side.
Taylor Raddysh and Patrick Kane scored for the Hawks, and Philipp Kurashev had two assists.
King has emphasized throughout his tenure that his coaching style has been collaborative with associate coach Marc Crawford, who handles the defensemen, and assistant Rob Cookson, who helps King with the forwards.
“Whoever I’m with if I am back, whether it’s Crow and Cookie are back again or other people, I would definitely sit with them and pick their brain,” King said. “I’m not just going to come in and (say), ‘This is what we’re doing and that’s it.’ I like to get some info on what other staff members think.”
General manager Kyle Davidson said last month he didn’t expect — nor did he want to see — an overhaul of the scheme from King.
“It’s very hard to change midstream,” Davidson said. “You don’t want to change too much.”
Without going into detail, Davidson said he liked some of the small improvements King implemented “with the understanding that you can’t come in and say, ‘OK, we’re doing something completely different.’ I think that’s fairly unrealistic.
“But we understand that too. That’s all part of the evaluation process with Derek knowing that ... he didn’t have an offseason, he didn’t have a training camp to teach what maybe he would like to do.”
King explained how defensive zone coverage has been an ongoing effort to reset how aggressive the defensemen play coming out of their zone — and knowing their responsibilities.
“We’ve worked on it quite a bit this year, and communication is the No. 1 rule,” defenseman Seth Jones said last week. “If you’re not sure, communicate.
“The guy on the puck needs to be assertive that he’s on the puck carrier and then talk from there. Sometimes we get mixed up with switches and things like that.”
King has tried to simplify things: “It’s more just stay on your side. We don’t need to be running around chasing. When I first got here, our ‘D’ would be chasing their guy up over the blue line, and we don’t want that.”
That can lead to getting burned on the counterattack, especially if the forwards turn over the puck — which they often have.
“Sometimes in the D-zone you’re close to a guy and he’s moving up the boards,” King said, “and you feel you have to stay with them instead of taking them so far and then switching them off to the forward or an interchange or talk. We just weren’t doing that.
“When I first got here, that’s the way maybe they were doing it with Jeremy, that they could keep their more man-on-man type of D-zone, chase their guy up and stay with him. We don’t want that. We want defensemen staying in front. We don’t want forwards standing and trying to play defense in front of our goalie.”
