The Blackhawks’ preseason game against the Red Wings on Sept. 17 was as irrelevant as every other preseason game.
But for Slater Koekkoek, it marked what may turn out to be a watershed moment in his career: the first time he played right-side defense.
“The coaches came up to me before the preseason [game] and said, ‘We know you’ve never really played the right side, we’re just going to test you in case something happens during the season,’” Koekkoek said Sunday, thinking back. “So I was happy to have that experience.”
Koekkoek, who obviously plays left-handed, manned the right side that night next to short-lived Philip Holm. The pairing was not exactly a smash hit in the Hawks’ 5-3 loss. Koekkoek suffered a 20-11 shot attempt deficit and 8-4 scoring chance deficit and did not register a point.
Yet months later, that first toe-dip into right-side defense has given way to a multi-week stint on the right side — during the Hawks’ hottest streak of the season — and Koekkoek’s most impressive results and most constant playing time in a year.
“That was the only experience I had, and now to be there and feel super comfortable...[it’s] funny,” he said.
After playing in just 16 of the Hawks’ first 44 games, and just two of 14 between Dec. 10 and Jan. 7, Koekkoek has been in the lineup for six straight games — and five straight wins — and averaged a sizable 17 minutes, 36 seconds of ice time in them.
It’s because of his (at least temporary) switch to the right side that Koekkoek has been able to bump Dennis Gilbert from the Hawks’ lineup and form a surprisingly dominant pair recently with left-handed Olli Maatta, who also struggled somewhat in December.
While alongside Maatta over the past six games, Koekkoek (at 5-on-5) has enjoyed a 59.9 percent on-ice shot attempt ratio and 66.0 percent scoring chance ratio, two off-the-charts percentages.
Even though Patrick Kane, Jonathan Toews and Dominik Kubalik have received the lions’ shares of credit for the Hawks’ surge, Koekkoek actually owns significantly better underlying stats over this stretch than any of them.
“This latest opportunity that he’s had, he’s found another level to his performance and he’s made it impossible for us to take him out,” coach Jeremy Colliton said Sunday. “Him and Maatta, since they’ve been reinsterted, they’ve been great and really added some depth to our group and [become] a big part of why we’re having success lately.”
Koekkoek even recorded a three-game point streak with assists in all three games of the Hawks’ Eastern Canada road swing, perhaps not-so-coincidentally jumpstarted by the presence of “a ton of Koekkoeks” in his hometown of Ottawa.
In Montreal the next night, he was even better, making a number of noticeable plays and beautifully assisting on Zack Smith’s second goal. In the two games combined, Koekkoek was on the ice for 16 Hawks chances and only four against.
Making this recent success even more notable is that Koekkoek seemed like such an odd-man out for the entire first half of the season. Yet it only took a switch to his off-side — with just one preseason game’s worth of prior experience — and a well-suited ‘D’ pairing to bring out his untapped stability.
“[I] love the way that Olli and I are moving on the ice,” he said. “Whether it be neutral zone regroup or in the defensive zone, we’re moving well together and that’s what it takes.”
