The Blackhawks’ unexpected winning recipe: 11 forwards, 7 defensemen

Posted October 22, 2025 3:45 pm

By Scott Powers

The Chicago Blackhawks could soon be brimming with forwards.

With Nick Foligno coming back from a personal absence and Landon Slaggert returning last game from an injury, the Blackhawks could have 14 available forwards, depending on Jason Dickinson’s injury status, when they play the Tampa Bay Lightning on Thursday.

It’s not completely uncommon to have 14 forwards on a roster. Teams will play 12 of them and have two healthy scratches. What is unusual: sitting three forwards at a time.

That’s what Blackhawks coach Jeff Blashill is likely to do on Thursday if his current roster remains intact. Blashill didn’t plan in training camp to regularly use a lineup of 11 forwards and seven defensemen, but he came around to the idea and does have familiarity with that type of lineup. And now, having a small sample, he’s really liked how that unbalanced setup has affected games.

“I did it in Detroit; I did it in junior; Tampa has done it a decent amount, so I saw it a decent amount,” Blashill said on Monday. “I knew it was a possibility. Didn’t really know what to expect, to be honest with you. Then as we got through preseason, it definitely became apparent to me that that would be the best way to go. I didn’t do it in Game 1 in Florida, and honestly, I probably should’ve. I thought about it, but we hadn’t done it in the preseason yet, and I didn’t want to start the game that way.”

Whether you agree or not, you can’t argue with the results so far. In the two games where Blashill played the standard 12 forwards and six defensemen, the Blackhawks lost to the Florida Panthers and Montreal Canadiens in regulation. In the five games he’s used 11 forwards and seven defensemen, the Blackhawks haven’t lost in regulation and have gone 3-0-2 with wins over the Utah Mammoth, St. Louis Blues and Anaheim Ducks, an overtime loss to the Boston Bruins and a shootout loss to the Vancouver Canucks.

So why mess with success?

“My gut is, more nights than not right now, we’re going to stay with 11 and seven,” Blashill said. “I’m not going to do it every night, but more nights than not. And you’re probably going to do it on the road even more than at home, so I would foresee us doing 11 and seven on Thursday. I really think it puts our D in the best position to be successful. Every team is unique; you could coach a different team and never do it. It just depends on the makeup of your group.”

The makeup of the Blackhawks’ group is most notably a really young and inexperienced defense. Of the seven defensemen the Blackhawks broke camp with, only three of them — Matt Grzelcyk, Connor Murphy and Alex Vlasic — had played full NHL seasons before. Sam Rinzel, 21, entered the season having played nine NHL games. Artyom Levshunov, 20, had 18 games. Louis Crevier, 24, played 56 games. Wyatt Kaiser, 23, had 98 games.

The Blackhawks are optimistic all their young defensemen, with even more coming in the AHL, will be a key to the team’s success in a more traditional way in the future. Right now it’s more about putting them in the best positions to succeed.

Levshunov is the greatest example of that. Blashill understands there are going to be some highs and lows for Levshunov as he continues to adapt to pro hockey. There have already been both this season. The Blackhawks went back to six defensemen in the third game of the season because Blashill felt Levshunov could benefit developmentally from a night off. Blashill and his staff decided it was best to give Levshunov a little bit less ice time than he had last season and optimize how he was used this season.

That philosophy is also being applied to the other young defensemen — and even the veteran ones. Murphy, 32, and Grzelcyk, 31, aren’t playing in the same roles as they did coming up in their careers, but they’re still important and get regular ice time.

Here’s how that is all deployed on the ice.

On the penalty kill, Blashill leans on Vlasic and Kaiser, two left-handed defensemen, and Murphy and Crevier, two right-handed defensemen. On the power play, Rinzel runs the first unit and Levshunov gets the second. At five-on-five, Kaiser, Vlasic and Rinzel receive the most ice time. After them, Grzelcyk usually receives the fourth most, and then it varies between Crevier, Levshunov and Murphy, depending on the game.

When there’s a faceoff in a specific zone at five-on-five, that also varies usage. For example, Crevier gets mostly defensive zone faceoff starts and Levshunov offensive. In overtime, Rinzel has gotten a majority of the ice time, but Vlasic, Kaiser and Levshunov have also played.

Using Sunday’s game against the Anaheim Ducks as an example:

Overall ice time: Vlasic 24:57, Rinzel 23:13, Kaiser 19:49, Murphy 15:07, Grzelcyk 12:46, Levshunov 11:52, Crevier 11:28.

Five-on-five: Vlasic 19:34, Rinzel 17:37, Kaiser 15:46, Grzelcyk 11:25, Levshunov 10:22, Murphy 9:57, Crevier 9:04.

Other even strengths (three-on-three, four-on-four): Rinzel 2:39, Kaiser 1:18, Vlasic 1:09, Grzelcyk 1:02, Levshunov 0:27, Murphy 0:21.

Power play: Rinzel 2:57, Levshunov 1:03, Grzelcyk 0:04.

Penalty kill: Murphy 3:19, Kasier 2:46, Vlasic 2:43, Crevier 2:22, Grzelcyk 0:15.

Those ice times have been about typical in the games where the Blackhawks have gone with seven defensemen. The amount of penalties for both teams can slightly alter some of that.

Blashill explained in more detail recently why he likes seven defensemen for this team.

“One, when you have really, really young D, you don’t know what you’re going to get every night,” he said. “So when there are seven there, it increases the odds that certain guys are on and certain guys are off. Probably more specifically, it allows us to even the minutes out. Louis Crevier’s an excellent penalty-kill guy. Murph and Crevs can start those kills if one of them’s not in the box. Rinz and Levshunov have got the power-play minutes, so on that right side it really evens those minutes out, which I think is a positive thing.”

Some of the Blackhawks players admitted they weren’t sure about the approach initially. It’s not something a lot of teams use. But they’re adapting to it.

“Honestly, I was talking to some of the guys (recently) about it,” Vlasic said. “But I didn’t used to like it. I didn’t like how you get out of the flow of everything, and it feels like you don’t get into the rhythm of things. But the way that they’ve done, it has been great. I feel like I’m staying into the game. I’m just staying with it depending on situations where you need a D-zone faceoff or a O-zone or a power play. Seems like they did a really good job kind of sorting that out and who they’re gonna put out there. I’ve honestly really liked it.”

For Vlasic, it is somewhat easier because of his overall ice time. For Crevier, there can be longer stretches where he’s on the bench. There was a span a little over five minutes where he didn’t play against the St. Louis Blues.

“I had a few (shifts) where I was going to go, but it was like power play and then four-on-four,” Crevier said. “I think one time I had my first shift in like a pretty long time, so that one was probably a little bit more nerve-wracking. I’d say that was maybe an exception. But usually I’m able to get in a game quick, and it’s nothing too bad.”

For the forwards, it’s also a little complicated. Blashill will often run his top three lines consistently. The fourth line doesn’t play as consistently, and that line will include two staple players and a rotating third player. Connor Bedard has mostly been that rotating third player and often receives the most five-on-five ice time.

Using Friday’s game against the Canucks as an example, here’s how the Blackhawks’ five-on-five ice time was spread out: Bedard 16:58, Tyler Bertuzzi 16:18, André Burakovsky 13:45, Ryan Donato 13:18, Ilya Mikheyev 12:58, Jason Dickinson 12:48, Frank Nazar 12:25, Teuvo Teräväinen 11:46, Ryan Greene 8:04, Colton Dach 8:01 and Lukas Reichel 8:00.

That ice time was slightly different from other games in that Bertuzzi was bumped up to the top line and Dach was demoted from the top line midway through the game. Burakovsky played the second most to Bedard because he was on the top line. Nazar and Dickinson’s lines, which were the second and third lines, played about the same amount, and the fourth line, which began the game with Greene and Reichel, played the least.

The additional ice time hasn’t been a ton more than Bedard played last season. He averaged 16:23 of five-on-five ice time last season, and he’s at 16:44 this season. His overall ice time has gone up slightly, too: he was at 20:17 last season and is at 21:40 this season. Some of that is also due to the Blackhawks playing three overtime games in a small sample.

With the Blackhawks potentially having 14 forwards soon, Blashill understands it’s not ideal to have three forwards sitting every game. But still …

“At the end of the day, you’ve got to do what you think is best to win hockey games,” Blashill said. “We don’t want to let guys sit forever, so we have to get guys in and out of the lineup. There will be some times where we won’t do it, but I still think overall we feel it probably gives our D corps the best chance for success and gets minutes in a good spot, evens out penalty-kill minutes, stuff like that.

“We’ll see. Some of that will probably depend on the growth of the young guys in terms of their peaks and valleys. The less their valleys are low, the less you need to watch those minutes. So hopefully, those valleys can even out a little bit, and that’ll give us a chance for six at some point.”