How Ilya Mikheyev’s ‘nonstop effort’ keeps Blackhawks’ overworked penalty kill afloat

TAMPA, Fla. — During some penalty-killing shifts this month, the Blackhawks probably didn’t need four players on the ice to defend the opponent’s five.

They just needed one: Ilya Mikheyev.

Hyperbolic or not, that’s how effective Mikheyev has been shorthanded. He will tirelessly hound the power play’s puck-carrier into passing, then hound the guy he passed it to, then force a turnover, clear the zone and race down the ice to forecheck.

Goalie Spencer Knight is probably the Hawks’ MVP so far this season, and he’s getting the attention he deserves. Mikheyev, on the other hand, has been the Hawks’ most underrated player. He’s their difference-maker in the shadows, and he deserves more attention.

“He’s a workhorse,” Ryan Donato said Wednesday. “[He has] one of the craziest engines I’ve seen. He’s just nonstop effort.”

Coach Jeff Blashill chuckled for a moment while gathering the right words to describe Mikheyev’s impact.

“He works and competes every shift,” Blashill eventually said. “And he knows how to win puck battles. He’s relentless in his desire to win those types of battles.

“The game of hockey … a lot of times comes down to winning one-on-one puck battles. What he has is the maturity to understand that you can’t take off offensively [until you] actually win the puck. When you’re younger, you want to kind of get it and go. Whereas the reality is, most times — if there’s any kind of 50/50 — you have to slow or stop and win the battle, and then go.”

Mikheyev was a bright spot for the Hawks last year, too, reaching the 20-goal threshold for the second time in his career and finishing as their only player with a positive plus/minus rating.

The 31-year-old Russian winger has been just as good if not better this October, though, not only tallying four points in seven games but also leading all NHL forwards in shorthanded ice time (30:55).

The Hawks’ lack of discipline, having committed a league-high 41 penalties, is a factor there. But so is the coaching staff’s trust in Mikheyev individually, since no other Hawks forward has logged more than 18 minutes of shorthanded ice time.

His efforts are a major reason why the Hawks’ penalty kill has been solid — they’re tied for 13th in the league with an 81.8% kill rate — despite being so overworked while simultaneously learning Blashill’s new system on the fly.

During training camp, Blashill suggested the unit might need an October grace period to figure things out (based on the Lightning’s results last year), but no such grace has been necessary.

“It’s a new system, but I play a similar style on the ‘PK,'” Mikheyev said. “For me, I don’t care. I feel good with ‘PK.’ I’ve played whole life on ‘PK.’ I feel confident.”

Mikheyev’s tirelessness doesn’t disappear during five-on-five play, either. He starts the vast majority of his shifts in the defensive zone and/or against opponents’ best offensive lines, yet the Hawks have outscored opponents 4-1 and managed a 49.1% expected-goals ratio during his five-on-five shifts so far.

The key to that is Mikheyev’s forechecking ability, which amazes Donato every day.

“He always takes good angles on the puck,” Donato said. “He’s smart with his stick. He’s always in the right spot. He’s not just going fast and hard; he’s also methodical. He’s thinking about where he can cut off some guy’s hands or poke the puck away from him.

“You see guys get tired at the end of a shift and you think that he has nothing left to give, and then he finds it for another 15 or 20 seconds.”

With Jason Dickinson, the Hawks’ best defensive forward, likely to miss a second consecutive game due to injury Thursday against the Lightning, the Hawks will continue heavily leaning on Mikheyev.