Blackhawks struggling to hold leads in third period: 'Eventually, it’s too much'

Every third period in which they’re trying to hold a lead, the Blackhawks slip into a strategy of hunkering down and trying to survive until the clock expires.

It doesn’t take a statistics degree to know that isn’t a smart approach.

“[When] protecting a lead, you have to toe a line where you make smart decisions and get pucks deep, but you can’t sit back, either,” defenseman Alec Martinez said Monday. “You’ve got to keep attacking. If you just sit back and allow them to enter the zone, you increase the sample size, you give them more zone time and the odds are further and further stacked against you.”

Around the NHL, it’s common for the ice to tilt somewhat in favor of a trailing team pushing for a late equalizing goal, because that team will take more risks by pinching defensemen, throwing extra support into board battles and such. But that aggressiveness usually results in occasional odd-man rushes in the other direction, and the Hawks aren’t enjoying many of those.

The Hawks held leads entering the third periods of all three games last week but ended up losing twice, allowing the Ducks to score twice in the third period in a 3-2 loss and allowing the Flyers to do the same in a 3-2 overtime loss.

They did hold on to beat the Panthers, but only because of goalie Petr Mrazek’s heroics, as the Panthers held a 13-2 advantage in scoring chances during the third period.

“It’s [about] managing pucks in certain areas to keep us out of the ‘D’-zone for extended lengths of time,” coach Luke Richardson said. “Sometimes it leads to goals; sometimes it doesn’t. Eventually, it’s too much and it wears out all your good energy playing defense [rather] than creating offense, which is part of our problem offensively.”

Those offensive problems are indeed dire, but excellent goaltending and good-enough defensive coverage have put the Hawks in winning positions fairly often. Entering Monday, they ranked 12th in the NHL in terms of five-on-five time spent leading this season (359 minutes), ahead of contenders like the Panthers, Lightning, Canucks and Avalanche.

The Hawks’ struggles to maintain puck possession, however, have created a massive imbalance in time spent in the defensive zone compared to the offensive zone, and they can only play bend-but-don’t-break defense for so long.

During those 359 minutes spent leading, they’ve conceded 430 shot attempts while generating only 292 themselves, a 40.4% ratio that ranks 27th in the league. Specifically in the nine games they’ve led at the second intermission, they’ve conceded 191 shot attempts in the ensuing third periods while generating only 88 themselves, equating to an even uglier 31.5% ratio.

As a result, they’ve converted all that lead time into the league’s second-worst record at 7-12-2. Compare that to the plucky Flames, for example, who have played only 189 minutes of five-on-five time with a lead this season — second-fewest in the league — but entered Monday sitting in a playoff spot at 12-6-3.

The Hawks ideally would like to play the same way in third periods that they do in the first two. Their five-on-five shot-attempt ratios in first and second periods — 44.7% and 44.0%, respectively — aren’t great but are at least closer to 50%.

Why don’t they? It’s likely connected to all the recent chatter — originating from Connor Bedard, Teuvo Teravainen and others — about the team’s low confidence levels.

“I would be a fool to say confidence doesn’t exist, because it certainly does,” Martinez said. “If you have experience where you’ve held those leads and been successful in that, then you fall back on your experience. There’s a knowing that, ‘We’re going to get this job done.’ It’s a process [to get there]. Every team goes through it.”