Reichel to Rockford a move that makes sense
In early December 2016, Blackhawks general manager Stan Bowman and coach Joel Quenneville made the difficult decision to send a young, immensely talented forward to the minors.
That struggling player was Nick Schmaltz, who managed just 1 goal and 3 assists in his first 26 games as a rookie.
Schmaltz – who received some sage advice from longtime veteran Jake Dowell during his six-week AHL exile – looked like a completely different player when he returned to the Hawks in mid-January.
“You take a step back and realize you're only 20 years old and you've got a lot of career ahead of you,” Schmaltz said a year later. “Take it as a learning experience and work your butt off.”
Schmaltz closed that 2016-17 campaign with 5 goals and 19 assists in his final 35 games, and he's currently on pace for a fourth 20-goal season in Arizona.
Seven years later, Hawks GM Kyle Davidson and coach Luke Richardson should seriously consider making the exact same move with Lukas Reichel – another young and immensely talented forward who desperately needs a confidence boost.
“I’m not frustrated; I just feel for the player,” Richardson said after the Hawks' shootout victory over San Jose on Monday. “I know he wants to do better and he’s a good kid.”
Richardson has pushed every button imaginable to get Reichel going: Second-line center; first-line wing; top power-play unit; fourth-line wing; healthy scratch.
Nothing has worked. Reichel has 3 goals and 6 assists overall, and just 1 goal and 2 assists in the last 23 games.
Reichel was terribly quiet again in a 3-0 loss Thursday at Buffalo, with his one noticeable moment coming when he deftly dropped a pass for Cole Guttman with the Hawks on the power play late in the second period. Guttman fired a shot that was saved by Sabres netminder Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen.
The Hawks (13-30-2) have 4 goals in the last five games and are 4-14-1 in their last 19 games.
Reichel looked so good late last season and even more impressive in training camp, but very little has gone right since the puck dropped in the season opener on October 10.
He's getting stripped far too often, his passing is off and he's making poor decisions. Case in point: Reichel had the puck against the boards in the offensive zone against San Jose and should have tried shoveling it behind the net. Instead, he weakly tapped it to a Sharks player, leading to a rush the other way.
Richardson and assistant coach Derek King have used video to show Reichel how he looked last season. They've even used examples of talented players on other teams.
“In this league, if you stick-handle two or three times, it gives the defender a chance to put his stick on the puck and he doesn’t get a shot off,” Richardson said. “I know that’s frustrating for him. Sometimes you don’t even know you’re doing it. You get the puck and you have to make one, two, three (moves) instead of just getting it and shooting it.
“We showed him a couple of clips of (Jordan) Kyrou doing it the other night. He had two goals in the St. Louis game. … Sometimes showing him another player to watch that he could be like helps out instead of seeing things you don’t do well.”
The most disappointing thing for the Hawks is they seemingly did everything right when it came to Reichel's development. In 2021-22, he played 56 games in Rockford and 11 with the Hawks, and last season, he played 55 games in Rockford and 23 with the Hawks.
It would be a bitter pill to swallow, but sending him down again is the right move. Give him three weeks in the AHL, then bring him back in mid-February where a home-heavy slate might propel him to a nice finish.
∎ Connor Murphy did not play against Buffalo, missing a second straight game with a lower-body injury. Ryan Donato was also scratched with an illness.