NHL’s 2-game series allow Blackhawks — and their opponents — to adjust between games

The NHL formatted its 2021 schedule largely in two-game series to simplify logistics, save costs and limit COVID-19 exposure.

The league didn’t intend to change the way teams approach their matchups against each other.

But while the NHL’s actual aims have largely been met — “It’s been easier travel, that’s for sure,” Blackhawks defenseman Duncan Keith said enthusiastically Monday — the latter situation also has cropped up.

“There’s always little adjustments you make from game to game to try to give yourself more of a chance to have success,” coach Jeremy Colliton said. “I like it a lot.”

Coronavirus-related postponements and the North Division’s odd number of teams have resulted in mostly two-game series.

For the Hawks, it has been all two-game series. Their 10 games have been against only five opponents, and their next two — Tuesday and Thursday against the Hurricanes — will follow the same pattern.

And in the second game of every series, the lessons learned by both teams from the first — and the adjustments made — have been apparent.

On Sunday, the Blue Jackets, for example, dialed up the intensity of their forecheck, hoping to take away space from Hawks defensemen retrieving dump-ins. In turn, Colliton modified his own game plan at the first intermission.

“[Columbus] seemed to have more energy tonight; they came a lot harder on the forecheck,” Colliton said Sunday. “The puck was really bouncing in the first period, so that’s something we talked about. We had to have closer support because a lot of times our puck-carrier didn’t have time to get his head up because there’s someone coming and the puck’s bouncing.

“We did a good job of being in closer support [and getting] better pressure on the puck early on [the Jackets’] way up the ice, to force them to get rid of it so we did have a little more time to make a play.”

In the previous series, the Predators noticed the Hawks frequently exiting their defensive zone along the boards in the first game and adjusted to take away those easy chip-outs and pass-outs in the second game.

The new tactic forced the Hawks to look toward the middle when crossing their defensive blue line, and that caused turnovers.

And in the series before that, the Red Wings reacted to the Hawks’ two power-play goals in the first game by making their penalty kill more aggressive in the second game, pressuring the puck far higher up the ice.

The Hawks, meanwhile, saw the Wings’ spacious neutral-zone gaps in the first game, which left them open to longer blue line-to-blue line stretch passes, and they capitalized on those quick transition opportunities in the next game.

“If we can break pressure and have some time, then we’d like to stretch, we’d like to have a quick-strike offense,” Colliton said Jan. 24 after that second game. “Tonight, I thought we were able to execute on a few of those plays.”

Never in a normal NHL schedule, with different opponents nearly every game, would such specific game-planning be possible.

And this game-planning also has had an effect on results.

Entering Monday, teams that lost the first game of a series were 29-20-6 in the second game, a remarkable above-.500 record, especially when considering the first-game loser is more likely to be the inferior team (and more likely to lose the second game, too).

“You get a little bit of familiarity there, so in a lot of ways, it can work to your advantage,” Keith said. “At the same time, the other team gets to see us, as well. So it probably evens it out.”