Blackhawks forward Nick Foligno has at least one point in all six games since the All-Star break.
Based on what he talked about Monday after the Hawks’ loss to the Hurricanes, however, that would be impossible to deduce.
“I don’t even think about those things anymore,” Foligno said.
As has been the case all season, the 36-year-old functioning as the Hawks’ de facto captain was far more interested in discussing the latest round of lessons — in a season full of them — that the team is learning from its struggles.
“We’re overthinking too much,” he said. “When you get a team like [the Hurricanes] that just come at you, you get caught if you overthink. You look slow, you look lethargic, and that’s what happened. All of a sudden, in the third, where we just said, ‘Let’s forget about that and just go play,’ our game comes to life because of it.
“We’re going to have to go through it as a group here and understand there’s a way you have to compete and play where you have to think, but you also have to use your instincts.”
Foligno does love to talk — coach Luke Richardson made another quip about his loquaciousness after practice Tuesday — and the Hawks need someone to talk to them the way he does. That dynamic makes him so entrenched in the “leader” role that sometimes it’s easy to forget he’s also an important on-ice contributor.
And lately, he has contributed a lot. The first line of Foligno, Connor Bedard and Philipp Kurashev has been excellent since Bedard returned. Much of that success can be to attributed the star rookie, but Kurashev and Foligno are aptly complementing him.
Even before Bedard returned, Foligno had gotten points in three consecutive games, even though the Hawks lost all three. With 25 points (13 goals, 12 assists) in 49 appearances, he’s only one point away from matching his most productive season since 2019-20. If he can get to 36 points by season’s end — a doable task — it would be his best season since 2016-17.
At this point, it’s probably fair to include Foligno on the short list of bright spots — alongside Bedard, Alex Vlasic, Jason Dickinson, Petr Mrazek and the penalty kill — standing out amid the bleakness and constant losing this season.
“It’s just the full package from him,” Richardson said. "[He’s] helping cultivate a culture here with the young guys ... and he’s got a family at home. It’s a lot. Like, it’s only so many hours in a day to spread yourself around, and he’s doing a remarkable job. It’s impressive to see he’s producing on the ice. It’s not like he’s exhausted and his mind can’t concentrate and play at a high level. I think he’s doing a phenomenal job at all of it.”
Foligno admits he also has a hard time appreciating or devoting thought to his individual achievements. He’s so focused on evaluating the big picture — and helping the Hawks develop that aforementioned culture over time — that day-to-day things can feel relatively insignificant, even though ideally he would like to stay present in the moment.
“I do have to fight that because I see where we’ve got to get to, and I want to get there,” he said. “I know what it takes and how hard you have to push. It’s a process, and I have to remind myself of that. There’s little victories for sure, but there’s also a standard that we’re not at consistently enough.”
After that sentence, Foligno — without realizing it — slipped back into another impassioned monologue about battling through adversity and negativity with energy and work ethic.
It was thoughtful, meaningful and accurate, and it applied to the Hawks’ situation at large. But it was not about his own play, which likely will continue to be overshadowed.
