Is Alex Vlasic The Sure Thing The Hawks Want You To Believe?

The Hawks development on the blue line extends to the guy they don't want you to think it extends to.

Coming into this season, while Connor Bedard bouncing back from a down sophomore season gobbled most of the focus (hardly the last time Bedard will act as mine sweeper of attention for his teammates), the Hawks blue line wasn't too far behind. How would Sam Rinzel and Artyom Levshunov look in their first full seasons in the NHL? Fuck, maybe even Kevin Korchinski will get a look (still waiting).

A portion of the interest was based in the belief that the Hawks had provided a comfortable sandbox for their young, swashbuckling, puck-moving d-men by pairing them with secure partners. Partners that weren't just overly expensive and overly old station-to-station obelisks. Alex Vlasic and Wyatt Kaiser had served enough time in the league to barely clear the "veteran" threshold, while still being young and mobile enough to keep up with their apprentice partners. In theory, it was close to perfect. If it all worked, it was set up for the long-term and the Hawks would finally have one unit is "set it and leave it."

In the case of Vlasic, it ignored some pretty important factors. The biggest one was that Vlasic took a step backward last season. And not a small one. Metrically, everything backed up a couple points without too much difference in his usage. But the eye-test was more striking, as Vlasic was turnover-happy and frantic in his own zone a lot of the time, rushing out to the boards or behind the net and leaving huge gaps in better parts of the defensive zone. His gaps could get weird. He was beatable one-on-one, which someone with his skating ability really shouldn't be. A lot of nights, he was bad.

Which, in a lot of ways, was fine. It was only Vlasic's second full season in the league, he was taking on more responsibility, he would be showing up on opponents' scouting reports, etc. But the Hawks, both through their PR and their extension of Vlasic before last season, wanted to make it clear that he was going to be on the left side of their top pairing for years to come. Whether it was Rinzel or Levshunov who seized the right half of that assignment, either would be in good hands with Vlasic on the other side. The evidence on the ice didn't back that up, however. One season of surprising play certainly isn't enough to claim it's set in stone. Vlasic had his own questions.

Vlasic certainly had the buzz coming into this season, after holding his own at the World Championships for a US team that won it for the first time in eons. Vaulting himself into at least the periphery of the Olympic team discussion suggested an "arrival." Except what we're seeing on the ice isn't really backing that up, either last season with the Hawks or this one.

When looking at Vlasic so far this season, the first thing one has to notice is that his usage is pretty weird, and that's thanks to the 11-7 look Jeff Blashill has backed himself into. So Vlasic spends a decent amount of time babysitting Rinzel, but he also gets a heavy dose of dungeon shifts with Louis Crevier. He has 143 minutes with Rinzel, where they start half their shifts in the offensive zone. He has 111 minutes with Crevier, and that pairing only starts 18 percent of its shifts in the offensive zone.

Obviously, Vlasic's metrics with Crevier aren't going to be pretty, because they're starting so much of their time in their own end, and neither are really an ice-turner. It's not even really what they're being asked to do. It's hard to know where the Hawks got this idea that Crevier is some defensive stopper, other than just looking at how tall he is and concluding he must be. The 3.15 xGA/60 with Vlasic would suggest he's very much not. Vlasic's overall 2.82 xGA/60 is the worst of his three seasons. His mark with Rinzel, 2.38, is low enough to conclude that it isn't just the zone-starts with Crevier that balloons his overall mark.

Vlasic's story can't just be told through metrics. There haven't been as many of the glaring mistakes of last season, but they still pop up. There also hasn't been a whole lot of splash plays going the other way, either. Certainly not as much as we see from Kaiser, at least earlier in the season. As the Hawks have backed off the man-to-man in their own zone as the season has gone on, it might have something to do with Vlasic's inability to come to terms with it. Which is strange, given that it would have been developed with his specific skill-set in mind, i.e. that he can keep up with just about anyone while not being overpowered by most anyone, either.

To be fair to Vlasic, his role is to just kind of be there. If he's playing Rinzel's or Levshunov's foil, not noticing him would mean he's doing exactly what he's supposed to. He's probably not helped by Rinzel's struggles and having to put out those fires.

To boot, the seven-D look is also jumbling Vlasic's play, because he's hardly the finished product himself. So he spends half of his game playing free safety for Rinzel, and then half his game being the puck-moving half with Crevier and having to cover three-quarters of the zone as Crevier goes chasing behind the net again. Maybe they're pairing Vlasic with him to keep Vlasic from doing that, in a version of "you'll smoke the whole pack" method of development. Vlasic would certainly benefit from a clearer delineation of duties.

The questions on what the Hawks will do if Vlasic doesn't prove to be a genuine top-pairing defenseman get scary. They don't have another candidate in the system. I'm the biggest Kaiser fan in the world, but even I know his ceiling is second-pairing. The Hawks would then have to go find one, and we know how hard it is to find top-line or top-pairing players on either the free agent or trade market. Teams aren't exactly jonesing to move those types along.

Vlasic certainly needs to show more than he has to calm fears. He could also use some help from his coaches. It's distressingly open-ended at the moment.