LOS ANGELES — Coach Jeremy Colliton hatched a Blackhawks lineup even more hodgepodge than usual for the game Saturday against the Kings:
Jonathan Toews with Brandon Saad and Alex Nylander, David Kampf with Patrick Kane and Dominik Kubalik, Ryan Carpenter with Alex DeBrincat and Dylan Strome and Andrew Shaw with Kirby Dach and Zack Smith.
Previously this season, Saad-Toews- Nylander had played together for only 37 seconds and Smith-Shaw-Dach for only 12 seconds. Only DeBrincat-Carpenter-Strome had been seen with any regularity, and even that trio seemed strange when first united a few games ago.
So how does Colliton come up with these seemingly random combinations?
“We throw ideas around, different combinations, the pros and cons, all those things,” Colliton said. “Ultimately, we’re trying to match. I guess balance is the better word. We want to win on that night but also make sure there’s justice as far as the guys who are playing well should be playing more, the guys who aren’t playing well should play less. And it’s a balancing act.”
Colliton’s ultra-young cast of assistant coaches, as one would expect, have a say in the decision-making process.
The players aren’t given voices to chime in directly, but things Colliton has heard from them in conversations are incorporated into the discussion. Understandably, the team’s veteran core members have a bit more influence than the rest of the roster.
“Sometimes players have suggestions that are good for them but not always what’s best for the group,” Colliton said. “That’s our job, to sift through that, make the best call.”
“He kind of tells me certain ideas he has and different things,” Patrick Kane said. “He’s a super-smart hockey mind, and I think he wants to put you in the best position to succeed, so it’s not like he’s just putting lines together [and saying], ‘You’re just going to be playing with these guys.’ There are certain situations he wants to put you in on the ice, playing with different guys, too.”
Kane added an intriguing comment about something we’ll see going forward: in-game line flexibility without permanently breaking up the predetermined trios.
That’s part of an increasingly desperate search for ways to escape this loss-laden start and scoring drought.
Kane, for one, would probably appreciate more game-to-game stability line-wise, even if it requires some shift-to-shift instability. He has been tossed all around the Hawks’ lineup, although he’s far from the only one.
Just look at Drake Caggiula, for example.
Caggiula played with Carpenter and Smith the first two games, Toews and DeBrincat the next three and Carpenter and Nylander the next three, then was scratched for one game, returned for two games with Toews and Kane, then was scratched again Saturday. He basically has been riding a roller-coaster.
The obvious hope is that the Hawks will soon be able to avoid this level of turbulence. A few wins would be helpful.
“We don’t have all the answers right away,” Colliton said. “You’ve got to work through it and come up with different things and debate it back and forth, and I think that’s when you come up with the best plan.”
