Coach Joel Quenneville often says the style and system the Blackhawks play aren’t overly complicated. But some players who come and go never quite grasp how to play the Hawks way.
This season, with multiple new defensemen, the issue is more important. Newcomers Connor Murphy, Jan Rutta, Cody Franson and Jordan Oesterle are likely to make the opening-night roster, with Murphy expected to play a significant role replacing Niklas Hjalmarsson.
Murphy and his fellow defensemen have been using training camp to retrain their bodies to play how the Hawks want.
“It has definitely been different here,” Murphy said. “There are different rules that are in place that D-men have that definitely — I mean I’ve heard of before but aren’t used to. It’s something you have sometimes when you’re on the ice in games, your body naturally wants to do something and you have to try and fight that to get into the way we play here.
“But the best part about it is that it all makes sense.”
Murphy said his biggest tweak has come during odd-man rushes. His previous team, the Coyotes, played passive when defending rush opportunities. The Hawks want their defensemen to be selectively aggressive during those situations.
“It’s making sure you know at what times to go and instead of the old-school way of defending with how you’ve been brought up just skating backwards and letting the rush come, sometimes it works out to be more aggressive and taking space away before they even come into our zone,” Murphy said.
Franson said the Hawks play more of a zone defense in the defensive zone while he is used to more of a man-to-man strategy.
“We were in Buffalo and it was extreme man-on-man for the most part,” Franson said. “You end up chasing your guy anywhere around the D-zone and just lock on to him, whereas here it’s more of a zone. There are more switches, more communications, different areas where you take a guy to a certain point and pass him off.
“Retraining your brain to think that way and not getting locked on to people is taking a minute, but it’s coming along.”
Rutta, meanwhile, said he has had to play more of a defensive game since coming from the Czech league, where there is a larger rink and he had more of an offensive role.
“I’ll have to change a lot of things,” Rutta said. “In Europe I was sometimes like a fourth forward. I’m not doing that here.”
Quenneville said the defense will be a work in progress early in the season, and part of that means having the defensemen reconfigure their instincts. It’s a process that won’t end when training camp does.
“When they tell you something they want, you see the positives out of it,” Murphy said. “Even though it’s not your natural tendency right now, when it looks like the right thing to do, it’ll end up feeling the like the natural, right thing to do.”
Twitter @ChristopherHine
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