Halfway There To Being Halfway There...To Maybe Being Halfway There

The Hawks passed the halfway mark of the season. Do we know anything?

Hello all! I'm back from the Holiday break, feeling refreshed, though probably not smelling so! That's the beauty of returning to work not meaning you have to leave the house. Don't worry, I'll shower at some point this week. I think.

Anyway, while I was idling, the Hawks passed the halfway mark of the season over the weekend. It's as good of a time as any to assess where the Hawks are, and maybe trying to figure out where they're going, if that's even possible. Not where they tell you they're going, but where they're actually going. I'll try to resist the urge to break out my inner Kevin Bacon again with the "facts of the case" spiel. But when really getting in up to the elbow, there's so little that we can saw we know.

The Hawks are on pace for 80 points. That's a big improvement from last season, and that's good. Very good. Cracking 80 points this season would put the Hawks in a position to actually hint at maybe threatening to threaten a playoff spot next season, should they want to. Even if we know they don't want to.

Under the hood, the picture is getting a little rosier than you might expect. Most of the season, the Hawks were PDO-surfing. The Hawks metrics have actually risen pretty sharply in the weeks since Connor Bedard got hurt.

For the season, the Hawks have a 47.3 Corsi-percentage and a 45.8 xG%. Neither is a "good" number, but are massive jumps from last season's 43.5 and 42.6. More encouragingly, the Hawks are achieving these numbers, mostly, the right way. This isn't Luke Richardson barring more than one Hawk forward from crossing the red line or any Hawks d-man from leaving his zone. Or whatever it was Anders Sorensen did (still not sure). The Hawks might not play the scrotum-on-fire style the Ducks are sporting right now, but they're also nowhere near the defensive disaster the Ducks are, either. The Hawks do try and jump things in the neutral zone, attack in the offensive zone when they sense they can, and try to get out on the rush. It's not Jeff Blashill's fault that the roster just lacks so much talent to convert those opportunities into more shots and chances. Half of a season isn't enough to tag Blashill with his official "Not A Moron" seal of approval, but he's at least trending that way.

Sadly, that's just about all we know. The temptation from most is to declare Connor Bedard a true star, the actual Ace that any Cup winner can be built around. But he's only done it for 31 games. It's likely he'll return from injury and put up another great 30 games, and we might get closer to knowing. But we're not there yet. We also don't know that injuries aren't going to be a problem for him, as this is the second of three seasons where he's missed a chunk of time. Centers his size might just have issues with injuries. It's certainly been a problem for Jack Hughes, though Bedard might be more skilled at avoiding falling knives at Chicago Cut. It's been an issue for Jack Eichel, who is much taller than Bedard but maybe not a brick shithouse in the same way as Bedard isn't. It's a concern.

We know that the Hawks, like any team, can be pretty competitive when they get S-tier goaltending, which Spencer Knight gave them for the season's first two months. They can't when he doesn't, which he didn't throughout December (.892 SV%). His two January starts suggests he can navigate a dip in a long season and come back from it, but we'll need more time to fully assess that. We don't know what Knight will be, as we still don't have a full season of him being a start to assess.

We know that Artyom Levshunov can look like a true alien of a defenseman, especially in the offensive zone. We know that that Hawks coaching staff want him to, based on their quotes after the Islanders game, which was his best of the season. He was just about as good against Dallas. He was the main driver of those wins, even if they came in shootouts. They lose those games without him. He wasn't against Washington or Vegas. But perhaps just that's the course of it in his first full sojourn around the NHL. If only Blashill had been Kevin Korchinski's first NHL coach, it would seem.

That's about all we know about the Hawks. While they've been able to effort and goalie their way to some wins lately without Bedard, we can't say what Oliver Moore or Ryan Greene are or will be. They look pretty much like third-liners being pushed into top six roles due to injuries and roster shortages. Nick Lardis looks like he knows how to get to the right areas, but he needs a fair amount of help to make that count. That help isn't on the team right now.

Tyler Bertuzzi's season-long heater has masked of the other problems. No, Blashill isn't some Bert-whisperer. He's just shooting 25 percent, a full 10 points higher than his career average. His chances or attempts per game aren't anything he hasn't done before. The Hawks would do well to sell high on him if the chance comes around before the deadline. They won't.

Do we know about Frank Nazar? Encouraging tools, but also a 20+ game goalless streak, which true scorers never hit, no matter their age. Is he just a fast guy with some swag? Much like Oliver Moore, who doesn't have the swag? With Anton Frondell apparently a full-time winger now, there isn't as much pressure on Nazar's center-spot in the near future as there might have been. But another top-five pick might add to it come June.

The Hawks are selling hope and the evidence on the ice right now as justification for that hope. But in reality, so much of it is still to be decided. To be deciphered. As we saw for a couple weeks in December, it can immolate in a hurry when Knight is off of it and Bertuzzi isn't scoring on literally a quarter of his shots. There's probably another streak like that waiting somewhere down the line, and that will come with Bedard in the lineup.

What we can also say, though, is it has been far more enjoyable to watch. That's a credit to Blashill and Bedard. It's not nothing.