Blackhawks’ excessive shift lengths remain a struggle, but they’re showing progress

The Hawks are averaging 49.1 seconds per shift, prompting coach Jeremy Colliton to mention the subject perhaps more than anything else.

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The Blackhawks have prioritized taking shorter shifts for months, but they’re only now doing so.

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Blackhawks coach Jeremy Colliton has harped about the need for his team to take shorter shifts more than perhaps anything else this season.

The talking point has reappeared with regularity.

On Oct. 18: ‘‘When you keep your shifts a little shorter, you don’t get exposed defensively.’’

On Nov. 20: ‘‘If you’re hemmed in for a minute and 10 [seconds], then it becomes trickier.’’

And on Dec. 15: ‘‘The only time we get in trouble is when we extend our shift.’’

Colliton certainly has a point. Shorter shifts can sustain momentum through line changes and avoid the lags created when tired players late in their shift are stranded on the ice.

And he’s also correct that long shifts have been a problem for the Hawks. That was apparent from the opening weeks of the season and remains noticeable — if not as blatant — as the midpoint of the season nears.

Entering play Monday, the Hawks were averaging 49.0 seconds per shift, above their average of 47.3 seconds last season and the league average of about 47 seconds. Those two extra seconds might seem inconsequential, but multiplied by the more than 13,000 shifts Hawks players have taken so far this season, the importance begins to take shape.

That also explains why Colliton is still willing to expound on the subject.

‘‘We want to be a team that plays from second one to second 40,’’ he said Monday. ‘‘That’s when you’re at your best. When you’re tired, you don’t make good reads, you don’t win your battles and your puck plays are not as good. You just don’t set yourself up for success. So that’s what we want to do. Let’s play when we’re fresh, and that’s when we’re good.’’

The Hawks’ biggest long-shift culprits are fairly predictable names: Duncan Keith and Patrick Kane (57 seconds per shift), Erik Gustafsson (56), Alex DeBrincat (54) and Dylan Strome (52).

Time on the first power-play unit, which Colliton often voluntarily keeps on the ice for up to 90 seconds, affects that leaderboard. Nonetheless, Colliton has been vocal about many of those stars taking too-long shifts even during five-on-five play.

Changing that trend will require a mental adjustment, so that players will change in a timely manner, and more puck possession, which would create additional opportunities to change safely. So how can the Hawks accomplish that?

‘‘It’s easy to say, but change in the offensive zone when you have the puck, especially in the second period,’’ Gustafsson said Monday. ‘‘Be good on the [blue] lines, too. If you lose the puck on their blue line all the time, it’s going to be hard for us to get a line change. Playing smarter out there is going to keep the shifts shorter.’’

Gustafsson also pointed out the shift lengths have been better lately, a factor that contributed to the Hawks’ success in road victories last week against the Jets and Avalanche, though not so much Monday’s blowout loss against the Devils. The numbers back him up: The Hawks averaged a fantastic 46.1 seconds per shift in those three games.

Now it’s simply a matter of maintaining that in the long term.

‘‘A lot of times in our game, it seems we have to start all over every shift,’’ Colliton said. ‘‘We finally have a good shift, and then we can’t build on it because we want to extend that shift until we score or there’s a whistle instead of changing early [to] put the next line in a good position.

‘‘In the first and third periods in Winnipeg [and] the second and third periods in Colorado, we did a lot more of that. Then all of a sudden the game’s a lot easier.’’

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