Blackhawks forward Lukas Reichel’s turbulent season has reached another pivotal moment in the wake of Connor Bedard’s fractured jaw.
Will Bedard’s absence and the further decimation of the Hawks’ forward corps make him even less impactful? Or will the opportunity to re-emerge — at least temporarily — as the Hawks’ top young forward spark a resurgence to his form from last spring, the last time he was the Hawks’ top young forward?
Up to this point, the 21-year-old Reichel has looked nothing like the top-six offensive weapon he previously resembled and was expected to be in the long term. After racking up 15 points in 23 NHL games last season, he touts only eight points in 39 games this season.
It’s old news at this point, however, that Reichel is struggling. What’s more interesting is how the Hawks — at every level — have handled the situation.
They are nowhere close to writing him off. They still have ample belief in his long-term potential.
“I’m not too concerned,” general manager Kyle Davidson said. “For whatever reason, it hasn’t gone the way I’m sure he wanted early on, but there have been flashes. We saw last season, he can do it. We saw [in] a couple games this year, he can do it. He can be that player that he expects. We’re just going to work with him and make sure he’s put in the best situations to succeed.”
Davidson declared Reichel an NHL center in training camp, but the Hawks were forced to abandon that experiment in early November in their first of several attempts to date to jumpstart his season. Davidson won’t rule out Reichel eventually moving back to center, but he has accepted the 21-year-old German is best-suited playing wing for now.
With that positional uncertainty resolved, the No. 1 thing Hawks coaches have talked to Reichel about is maximizing the usefulness and effectiveness of his elite skating ability.
Too often, they’ve seen him overthinking, hesitating or holding back. They just want him to just go — to blaze down the ice, then figure everything else out.
“He’s got to use his speed, hold onto that puck and make some action happen when he’s on the ice,” coach Luke Richardson said. “There [have] been times where he has lost confidence and he doesn’t want to skate with that puck. He wants to pass it off to somebody else, whereas we need him to take charge a little more.”
Assistant coach Derek King, who has worked with Reichel since he first arrived in Rockford in 2021, has echoed that message.
“The conversations are just [about] being hungry for pucks,” King said. “When he does that and he uses his speed, it’s so obvious that he can take over a situation.”
The comparison sounds ludicrous at first, but several people have noticed similarities between Reichel and Devils star Jack Hughes — at least in terms of the way they move on the ice.
(It is interesting that Hughes’ career also started relatively slowly. He tallied 52 points in 117 games during his first two seasons combined before erupting for 99 points in 78 games last season alone. Granted, he entered the league at age 18.)
Reichel has watched some videos of Hughes’ shifts with Hawks skills coach Brian Keane. They’ve done drills trying to replicate how Hughes stick-lifts opponents by ‘‘going through their hands,’’ despite being a smaller guy, Reichel said.
Reichel and Richardson, meanwhile, have had conversations about learning the tendencies of other players around the NHL with the aim of exploiting them, rather than replicating them.
On Dec. 22, for example, Canadiens defenseman David Savard blocked one of Reichel’s shots by dropping his right leg onto the ice. Richardson mentioned to Reichel that Savard always does that move, and that if he pump-faked before holding onto the puck an extra second, he might have space to go around Savard.
An example of the details Luke Richardson is working with Lukas Reichel on: This shot he got blocked in the third period last night.
— Ben Pope (@BenPopeCST) December 23, 2023
“We talk about defensemen that always do the one-leg-down, and Savard is one of those guys. I said, 'You have to get to know the league and who… pic.twitter.com/IG0bDl1ByY
Richardson told him, “You have to get to know the league,” which yields knowledge that only accumulates over time. Richardson said he isn’t coaching Reichel differently than his other players, but he admitted he’s probably coaching him more.
“You’ve got to put the attention where the care needs it, and he just needs a little bit of help right now,” Richardson said. “He’s trying, but sometimes when you’re trying, your mind is thinking too much instead of reacting. [Then] you’re always a half-step behind or on the outside. We need him to get on the inside a little bit more.”
“He was there last year, and he knows that. But to get there, sometimes it just takes a couple games in a row. One game scoring a goal, that’s not good enough. He needs to follow that up with two or three games like that.”
King has talked with Reichel about ways to put less pressure on himself. Reichel’s European vibe and Hollywood smile might outwardly disguise the fact his struggles do affect his confidence, but King knows him too well to be fooled.
“When he came up [last spring], there were no expectations for him,” King said. “It was like, ‘OK, he’s spent time in the minors. He has established [himself] down there as a good hockey player. Now, he just has to bring that game up.’ There was no real pressure. It’s not like we were on a playoff hunt or anything.
“After camp [this year], things didn’t go like it did, so he’s...gripping the stick and he’s bumped down [the lineup]. He puts a little pressure on himself, thinking that, ‘I need to do it now.’”
In the month since Reichel’s headline-grabbing healthy scratch Dec. 3 in Minnesota, King has seen his mindset improve. He thinks Reichel now believes he “can do this.”
His box-score stats haven’t changed much, but that might be because he has largely been stuck in the bottom six. There have been a couple instances where he stood out — such as Dec. 19 against the Avalanche, when Bedard set up Reichel’s first even-strength goal of the season. He played with swagger and creativity the rest of that night.
More ice time probably is headed Reichel’s way with Bedard sidelined, but he will have to deal with even less support from teammates. By the time Bedard returns, King said he hopes Reichel will have improved enough to justify slotting into a first-line role alongside the rookie phenom and Philipp Kurashev.
“In a perfect world, you’d like to see Reichel-Bedard-Kurashev, our young guys coming up together,” King said. “Why wouldn’t you [want them together]? They’re all gifted. They all bring something different.”
One adjective in that sentence — “young” — is particularly important to note. The Hawks haven’t lost sight of the fact Reichel still very much fits that description. They’ve preached patience with all of their young players, and they will continue doing so with him, too.
There’s no question they will re-sign him when his entry-level contract expires in July. It simply will be at a lower salary than they previously had projected.
“It’s a years-long process,” Davidson said. “[Just] because they have a tough month doesn’t mean that they’re not great prospects or going to be great NHL players. It’s just part of their journey that we have to help them work through, and we’re committed to doing that.
“When you’re talking about players that are 18 to 22, that’s really young. There’s a lot of really great NHL players that don’t establish themselves until their mid-20s. That’s just the reality of playing in the hardest league in the world. [We’re] definitely taking a patient approach with them and making sure that we...don’t get down on them over such a short period of time.”
