Before Blackhawks morning skate Saturday, new coach Jeff Blashill and forward Ryan Donato stood together talking intently and gesturing around the ice for several minutes.
That wasn’t an uncommon sight during former coach Luke Richardson’s tenure either, but those on-ice conversations are apparently less chatty and more pointed under Blashill.
“He’s very honest and upfront with his players, and he’s also very smart and knows the game very well,” Donato said later. “If we can learn as much as we can from him in these early stages, it’ll benefit us in the long term. And the quicker we learn these things — even if sometimes the messages are hard — the better off we’re going to be.”
It turned out Blashill was instructing Donato about how to approach playing on a checking line Saturday with rookie Ryan Greene and Ilya Mikheyev — without center Jason Dickinson, whom Blashill estimated will miss a week due to an upper-body injury.
“[Donato] understands that, [in order] to win, you’ve got to check for offense,” Blashill said. “So I wanted to make sure he knew what the role would be.”
The first week of the regular season has also revealed a few other interesting Blashill tendencies, stretching beyond his enduring love for the phrase “winning habits.”
Seven defensemen on the road
Blashill pulled off a lineup surprise Thursday in Boston by scratching Sam Lafferty and inserting Louis Crevier, thereby dressing 11 forwards and seven defensemen instead of the conventional 12 and six.
He explained later he’s fond of sometimes going “11 and seven,” particularly on the road. For starters, Crevier’s presence allowed him to reduce Sam Rinzel’s ice time from an excessive 25:18 in the opener to just 19:03.
And Blashill was also able to double-shift Connor Bedard with different linemates, making it more difficult for the Bruins — even with the home team’s “last change” advantage — to always match up their best defensive players against him. Bedard ended up on the ice against Charlie McAvoy for less than half of his total five-on-five time as a result.
The decision paid off in one sense (both Bedard and Crevier scored goals) and backfired in another: Dickinson’s injury forced the Hawks to play the third period with only 10 available forwards.
The odd numbers of each position group complicate line changes during ongoing play, too. Nonetheless, it shouldn’t be surprising if the Hawks occasionally go “11 and seven” again on road trips this season.
Morning focus
After an extremely intense first week of training camp, Blashill has smartly dialed back practices to more reasonable tempos since then.
It’s clear, though, that he does like to hold more frequent and longer practices than some NHL coaching peers, though. That’s especially true about morning skates on game days, which interim (now assistant) coach Anders Sorensen temporarily scaled back last season.
“I don’t want the morning skate to be — for a lack of a better word — a waste of time,” Blashill said. “You’ve got to be careful about doing too much, but if you can get one or two things done, we try to do that.”
Savoring the days
For Blashill personally, returning to an NHL head coaching position — three years after getting fired from his first one with the Red Wings — is obviously meaningful. He’s keeping that experience in mind while trying to make this one more successful and satisfying.
“The one thing that I said to myself, comparative to my first job, was to make sure you enjoy it,” Blashill said Tuesday in Florida. “This is what we love to do, and life goes by fast.
“I think there’s times you don’t enjoy it as much as you should enjoy it. [I’m] certainly comfortable right now just to take the time to make sure you savor the different moments.”