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Should we be concerned about the Blackhawks' “embarrassing” preseason?

CHICAGO – Preseason hockey is meaningless. Often lifeless. Largely pointless. The veterans are just trying to get to opening night physically intact, the kids are trying so hard to impress that they're twisting themselves into pretzels, the goalies are just shaking off the summer rust, the upper deck is empty and the energy is non-existent. There was a seven-minute stretch in the second period of Friday night's Chicago Blackhawks-Minnesota Wild duel that featured one faceoff and four shots on goal. There are nights in late September and early October where there is hardly any hockey.

Only a complete idiot would give preseason even the slightest meaning.

And that's where I come into play.

OK, so take all this with a grain of salt. We all remember the 2008 Detroit Lions, who went 4-0 in the preseason and then lost 16-0 in the regular season. Preseason hockey is not regular season hockey. It's entirely plausible that when the puck drops in Salt Lake City on Tuesday night, all of those Blackhawks veterans were brought in to give Connor Bedard some help and increase the level of competition in those parts and give the young players more time to develop Developing in Rockford will flip the switch to regular season mode and this putrid preseason will fade into memory like a strange, elusive dream.

But shouldn't we at least be one? few Are you worried about how bad the Blackhawks have looked in five friendlies? How disinterested, how incoherent, how disastrous? Where is the structure? Where is the fire? Where is the offense? A record of 0:5 and seven goals is worrying, no matter the season, no matter the lineup.

On Friday night, with most of the team's opening lineup on the ice and Petr Mrázek in goal, the Blackhawks couldn't defend themselves at all and lost 6-1. Minnesota scored four seconds after another goal, nine seconds into a power play and 13 seconds into a period. Mrázek bit on a fake dump from Jonas Brodin and allowed a hit from the center ice line. The Blackhawks failed on four power plays. The only time the crowd was fully engaged in the game was during a stoppage near the end of the third period when a fan belted out “Sweet Caroline” during a game of “Guess the Lyrics.” In two games in two cities over four days, the Wild — no one defines a Stanley Cup contender — outscored the Blackhawks 13-3. And it was somehow uglier than it sounds.

At least the Blackhawks — despite repeatedly pointing out that it's just the preseason — aren't pretending otherwise.

“It was just an embarrassing couple of games,” said Seth Jones, who scored the Blackhawks’ only goal with a great power move into the net. “We're playing with our full lineup, Minny played with her full lineup in the last two games, and we've made a stinker.”

Four days before the season opener, it's nothing that instills much confidence in a weary and skeptical fan base. And it's certainly not the kind of thing that encourages these fans to go out, buy, install, and readjust a pair of bunny ears to watch the games on TV. The crisis facing regional sports networks is hitting niche sports like ice hockey hard enough without segmenting the fan base into even smaller groups of haves and have-nots. A bad product doesn't help. An eventual CHSN app is the easiest answer, but imagine asking fans to pay $20 a month for what the White Sox call baseball this summer, and for the Bulls' continued mediocrity, and for this Sort of Blackhawks efforts to muster as they spill over into the US season.

The 2024-25 Blackhawks are supposed to be better, right? Look, no one here is expecting a playoff berth, but after a season with the most losses in franchise history, most analysts are projecting the Blackhawks to make a 20-25 point jump in the standings this season. There's Tyler Bertuzzi and Teuvo Teräväinen and Craig Smith and Pat Maroon and Alec Martinez and TJ Brodie and a healthy Taylor Hall and a healthy Andreas Athanasiou. This is a team with a real top six and a real top power play unit and a real blue line. At least it should be better to come on Tuesday evening.

Because while Kevin Korchinski and Frank Nazar might have been better served in the long run by spending the season in Rockford, they at least gave fans a reason to tune in, a reason to worry.

I can hear you from here. It's the preseason! You're exaggerating things. Maybe you're right. All of this is undoubtedly histrionic, exaggerated and even amounts to journalistic misconduct. It's an exhibition game! Who cares?! The only NHL team with fewer goals in the preseason is the Tampa Bay Lightning, and no one on the Gulf Coast is worried about that.

After all, it's not like Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook and Patrick Sharp and Marian Hossa have been giving their best in preseason all these years. But the difference is that these guys had nothing to prove. Nothing to play for. The chemistry was already there, the structure and system were already sophisticated, the line combinations were already determined, the fan base was fully committed. These Lightning have nothing to prove. These Blackhawks do. Chicago does not benefit from the benefit of the doubt and is not appreciated by the fans.

Just because the games don't matter in the table doesn't mean they don't matter at all.

“It's not ideal, is it? You would prefer us to be up 6-1 and have confidence,” Ryan Donato said. “(But) there are guys who have been on winning teams and I don’t think their confidence comes from tearing a team apart in pre-season.”

Luke Richardson said, “It's no fun and it's unacceptable,” but immediately added, “It's training camp.” He took solace in the fact that an extended post-game meeting was taken seriously by everyone in the locker room, also from the older players, who have probably gotten away with half-hearted preparation efforts in the past. They cared, he said. That's a good sign.

But you know what's not a good sign? Having extensive post-match meetings in the dressing room in the preseason.

(Photo by Teuvo Teräväinen: Michael Reaves / Getty Images)

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