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TORONTO \u2014 Veteran defenseman T.J. Brodie\u2019s<\/b> acclimation to the Blackhawks this season has been of some interest in Toronto, where he spent the last four seasons.<\/p>\n
Brodie is one of many former Maple Leafs on the Hawks\u2019 roster \u2014 Tyler Bertuzzi<\/b>, Nick Foligno<\/b>, Ilya Mikheyev<\/b>, Petr Mrazek<\/b> and Joey Anderson<\/b> also previously called Scotiabank Arena home \u2014 but he lasted the longest of any of them on the Leafs.<\/p>\n
To Leafs reporters on Monday, Hawks coach Luke Richardson<\/b> portrayed Brodie\u2019s first two months in Chicago as a success.<\/p>\n
“[He was] adjusting at the beginning to new surroundings and new systems, but he\u2019s been playing great lately,\u201d Richardson said. \u201cHe\u2019s moving the puck. He\u2019s subtle and simple. [He] makes good little plays on breakaways. He\u2019s not afraid to get down and block shots. .\u2009.\u2009. I wasn\u2019t surprised at all that he\u2019s starting to fit in with this group really well right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
That quote would have come across as absurd a month ago, when Brodie was struggling mightily and Richardson made him a healthy scratch for a few consecutive games.<\/p>\n
Now, however, it\u2019s rosy but not entirely inaccurate. Brodie has been much steadier and less noticeable \u2014 in a good way \u2014 on the Hawks\u2019 third pairing since returning from that benching.<\/p>\n
The Hawks have only been outscored 5-4 during Brodie\u2019s five-on-five ice time since Nov. 7, and he ranks second among Hawks defensemen with a 49.3% expected-goal ratio since then.<\/p>\n
“[I was] just getting to know the systems,\u201d Brodie said. “[Now I] don\u2019t have to take that second to look and see where guys are. You have that idea of what guys typically do in certain situations and where they\u2019re going to be, so you can make the play quicker.\u201d<\/p>\n
On cue Monday \u2014 after receiving a \u201cwelcome back\u201d message during the first commercial break \u2014 he delivered his best performance of the season in the Hawks\u2019 4-1 loss to the Leafs. He earned an assist on Lukas Reichel\u2019s<\/b> goal, and the Hawks generated a 13-5 advantage in scoring chances during his five-on-five ice time.<\/p>\nPower play update<\/h3>\n
The Hawks\u2019 power play entered Monday riding high, having converted an impressive six of 15 opportunities in the first six games Seth Jones missed due to injury.<\/p>\n
“[We\u2019re] scoring goals in different ways,\u201d Richardson said before the game. \u201cWe\u2019re not just sticking to one thing, where teams are nowadays going to watch video and be ready for it. It keeps us fresh, and it keeps other teams on their toes.\u201d<\/p>\n
They took a step back against the Leafs, however, going 0-for-4 without even producing many grade-A looks.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had trouble on our entries,\u201d Richardson said after the game. \u201cWe were looking for that perfect play instead of having a little more speed and trying to get it either low-to-high on the strong side and bumping it back to the \u2018D\u2019 or getting it to the other side. We were a little off-keel.\u201d<\/p>\n
They do still rank 10th in the NHL with a 23.5% conversion rate this season. That\u2019s not entirely a mirage, either, because they also rank 16th in both expected goals and scoring chances per minute. That\u2019s a bizarre \u2014 and welcome \u2014 outlier compared to the Hawks\u2019 performance in almost every other statistical category over the last several years.<\/p>\n
At the NHL\u2019s annual general managers meeting in November, the league reminded every team of the tampering rules \u2014 which technically prohibit contact with pending free agents before July 1, except when given explicit permission by a player\u2019s previous team \u2014 and emphasized it will be enforcing those rules more diligently in 2025, according to Sportsnet\u2019s Elliotte Friedman<\/b>.<\/p>\n
That tampering crackdown might affect the ways many teams, including the Hawks, conduct their offseason business. Bertuzzi\u2019s disclosure last summer that Foligno called him June 30 to put the Hawks on his radar riled up Toronto fans at the time, although nothing came of it. Hawks GM Kyle Davidson<\/b> probably won\u2019t be able to use Foligno as an advance recruiter again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Brodie, who faced his former Leafs team for the first time Monday, has been much steadier since reentering the Hawks’ lineup roughly a month ago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5301,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chicago-blackhawks"],"yoast_head":"\n