Hawks making defensive strategy changes vs. Lightning originally appeared on NBC Sports Chicago
It sounds like the Blackhawks will be making some changes to the way they play defense on Friday, at least to how they play D against the defending Stanley Cup champion Lightning in their own end.
The Hawks lost their season opener 5-1 at Tampa Bay on Wednesday and don't want to make the same mistakes twice in their second of eight matchups with the Lightning this year.
Blackhawks head coach Jeremy Colliton laid out what the issues with the team's defensive zone coverage were in the first game."It wasn't good enough," Colliton said of the D-zone coverage on Friday. "We addressed that yesterday and ultimately, there's just a couple situations where we were late: late to close, and late to make the read, late to switch and it ends up you open up ice."Colliton also said a big part of the problem was turnovers in the offensive zone.
According to Hawks defenseman Nikita Zadorov, the team discussed having the blueliners play differently when they get another crack at the Lightning.
"I feel like we weren't there [Wednesday] for sure and I think we spoke today, we had a video meeting, I think it's going to be fixable," Zadorov said ahead of Friday's contest. "We're going to be more aggressive on their forwards today and give them less time and less room in the D-zone."
Zadorov played in a D-pairing with Adam Boqvist on Wednesday.
