Analyzing Blackhawks' slowly improving team stats from first half of 2025-26 season
The Blackhawks reached the halfway mark of their season with one of their better performances Saturday against the Capitals.
They had little time to reflect on the 41-game milestone before hosting the Golden Knights on Sunday, but their performance is worth analyzing.
Their stats indicate significant improvement from the past four seasons, even if that improvement hasn't been dramatic enough to lift them out of the NHL's bottom tier. They have a ways to go to climb back into playoff contention, but at least the climb has begun.
The Hawks entered Sunday at 16-18-7 with 39 points, sitting third-to-last in the standings but nine more points ahead of their total from the first half of last season — and 13 points ahead of the two seasons before that.
Here’s a glance at those stats and how they stack up:
Even strength
In the last four seasons, the Hawks ranked an abysmal 29th, 29th, 32nd and 32nd at their halfway point in terms of even-strength offense.
This season, they've risen to 22nd at 2.35 goals per 60 minutes, up from 2.09 per game last season. Before Connor Bedard's shoulder injury Dec. 12, they ranked an impressive 13th at 2.53 goals per 60 minutes — the result of Bedard's explosion into one of the league's top scorers.
The Avalanche are running away from the pack at 3.65 goals per 60 minutes, but nobody else is over three. The tedious Kraken, on the other end, are the only team averaging fewer than two.
The Hawks' offensive analytics are ranked toward the bottom — 26th in shot attempts, 24th in shots on goal, 31st in scoring chances and 30th in expected goals — but coach Jeff Blashill has said the organization's internally calculated analytics are both more accurate and more flattering than the publicly available ones.
Defensively, the Hawks are tied (with the Blues) for 27th at 2.84 goals against per 60 minutes — slightly improved from 2.92 at the halfway mark last season. Their defensive analytics vary from 23rd to 29th.
The Ducks have the league's worst five-on-five defense, whereas five teams — the Avalanche, Rangers, Kings, Kraken and Wild — are bunched together at the top.
Special teams
Special teams continue to be a bright spot. Last season, the Hawks ranked in the upper half of the league in both power-play and penalty-kill success rate for the first time since 1995, and they're on track to do so again this season.
Their power play is ranked 11th at 21.6%, in large part due to Tyler Bertuzzi's productivity around the crease. His eight power-play goals are tied for ninth in the league.
Analytics paint an uglier picture of the power play; they rank in the bottom three in every category, including last in shots on goal per minute. But it was the same story last season, so they must be doing something unquantifiable yet effective.
The Hawks' penalty kill is even more impressive, tied for third at 83.7%. That's because the system Blashill brought over from the Lightning has worked flawlessly and Ilya Mikheyev has emerged as one of the league's best killers.
Analytics have a better grasp of what makes the penalty kill successful. It has allowed the seventh-fewest shot attempts, ninth-fewest shots on goal and 11th-fewest scoring chances.
Goaltending
The NHL's average save percentage has fallen to .898 this season, its lowest mark since 1996, and the Hawks sit right on that average — and therefore unsurprisingly rank 15th in team save percentage.
Spencer Knight's above-average play and Arvid Soderblom's below-average play have essentially canceled each other out.
Out of 64 qualifying goalies league-wide, Knight's .910 save percentage is tied for 16th, and his plus-10.6 goals saved above average ranks seventh. However, Soderblom's .872 save percentage ranks 61st and minus-9.8 GSAA ranks 59th.