ST. PAUL, Minn. — One way or another, Sunday will end up being a pivotal point in Lukas Reichel’s season.
After two months of struggles, the Blackhawks made the 21-year-old forward — their first-round pick in 2020 and top prospect for the last several years — a healthy scratch in their 4-1 loss to the Wild.
After trying just about every other option to spark him, coach Luke Richardson decided it was time for a more dramatic, message-sending decision.
With newly acquired first-liner Anthony Beauvillier also unavailable for the game — he hadn’t received his U.S. work visa — scratching Reichel left the Hawks’ forward corps even shallower on top-six talent, but there was a reason for that timing.
“I’m sure he’s disappointed, but we need more from him,” Richardson said. “We mentioned this should be him [taking advantage] when there’s an opportunity like Beauvillier not [being] available today . . . so we’re disappointed, as well.”
After notching 15 points in 23 games during the latter half of last season to emerge as the team’s most dynamic forward after Patrick Kane’s departure, Reichel has looked nothing like that player this fall.
He has only six points and no five-on-five goals in 22 games, and the Hawks have been outscored 17-3 during his five-on-five ice time. At times, he has been nearly invisible.
Richardson gave him only 11:29 of ice time — his lowest this season — in the Hawks’ loss to the Jets on Saturday. The final straw might’ve been a transition attack in the third period against Winnipeg in which instead of trying to push the pace and charge the net, Reichel curled up at the offensive blue line, then carelessly sent a pointless backward pass to nobody.
“When he plays with confidence, he seems to have excellent bursts of speed — which we know that he has — and it’s always used in the right direction,” Richardson said. “Now he’s thinking a little bit instead of reacting, and [he’s] chasing the game, and then we don’t see him very much in the game.
“He needs to watch from above tonight, and then come back with a little bit of fire. But [he also needs to] regroup mentally, so, physically, he can do his best out there.”
After general manager Kyle Davidson said in September that he saw Reichel as an NHL-caliber center, the Hawks deployed him in the middle for the first nine games with poor results.
“I’m [ticked off],” Reichel said Nov. 1. “I’m frustrated. I want to score. It’s more fun if you score, of course — that’s why I’m a forward. But I try to stay positive and keep working.”
That quote came the day he was moved back to wing, and the results have been slightly better since. The team’s scoring-chance ratio during Reichel’s five-on-five ice time was a miserable 35.5% before then; it’s 47.1% since.
Reichel still isn’t generating much offense, though.
He has never been a high-volume shooter, and that has held true this season: His average of 9.2 shots (per 60 minutes at five-on-five) ranks 12th among 14 Hawks forwards, ahead of only MacKenzie Entwistle and Corey Perry, whose contract was terminated. A marked difference from last season is that he’s not really setting up his teammates for many shots, either.
For the long term, one healthy scratch probably won’t solve the entire problem. Then again, in the long run, two months of struggles don’t doom — or even necessarily derail — a career.
But the Hawks need Reichel to turn things around eventually, and whether that turnaround happens this coming week or remains elusive will be significant.
