Duncan Keith is doing the heavy lifting for the Blackhawks
Duncan Keith might be the Chicago Blackhawks most important player right now.
By
Adam Gretz
•
4 min read
When you think of the Chicago Blackhawks the first names that probably come to mind are star forwards like Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane, and maybe even Marian Hossa or Patrick Sharp.
Duncan Keith, a two-time Norris Trophy winner as the NHL's top defenseman, should also be one of the top names. And right now he might be the Blackhawks' most important player as they try to reach their third Stanley Cup Final in the past six years.
What is most impressive about the Blackhawks success this year is the fact they started the playoffs while only playing five defensemen on a regular basis: Duncan Keith, Brent Seabrook, Niklas Hjalmarsson, Johnny Oduya and Michal Rozsival.
Kimmo Timonen, the sixth defenseman in the lineup, has been given just a little more than nine minutes of ice-time per game.
But when Rozsival suffered his season-ending ankle injury in the second round against the Minnesota Wild the Blackhawks' defense pretty much became a four-man unit. That can be a difficult way to win, especially when it comes to the physical grind that is the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Entering Game 5 on Monday, the Blackhawks have four defensemen averaging more than 25 minutes of ice-time per game (Keith, Seabrook, Hjalmarsson and Oduya). That is pretty unheard of for a team that is this deep in the postseason. The NHL tracks ice-time as far back as the 1997-98 season, and during that time no team has won a Stanley Cup while having four defensemen play each play more than 25 minutes per game. The closest were the 2006-07 Anaheim Ducks and the 2000-01 Colorado Avalanche who each had three defensemen average more than 25 minutes.
We already saw how playing with a shorthanded defense held a team like Pittsburgh back late in the regular season and in their first round playoff loss to the New York Rangers.
It does help, though, if the four defensemen in the lineup are as good as Chicago's. Especially when one of them is on the short list of best defensemen in the NHL. And the defenseman that is seeing the bulk of the playing time for the Blackhawks right now is Keith, currently averaging more than 32 minutes of ice-time per game, more than any other player in the NHL this postseason and nearly six minutes more than any other player on the Blackhawks.
If it seems like he is always on the ice during a Blackhawks game, it's because he pretty much is.
If he maintains that pace, and given the way this postseason is going and how important he is to the Blackhawks it seems likely that he will, it will be an effort that few players in recent NHL history will be able to match.
Since the 1997-98 playoffs there have only been three examples of a defenseman appearing in at least 10 playoff games and averaging more minutes per game than Keith currently is for the Blackhawks.
Two of those efforts came from Chris Pronger.
Here are the top-10.
| Most Minutes Per Game since 1997-98: Playoffs (minimum 10 games played) | ||||
| Player | Team | Season | Games | Minutes Per Game |
| Chris Pronger | St. Louis Blues | 1998-99 | 13 | 35:52 |
| Al MacInnis | St. Louis Blues | 1998-99 | 13 | 35:13 |
| Chris Pronger | St. Louis Blues | 2000-01 | 15 | 33:50 |
| Duncan Keith | Chicago Blackhawks | 2014-15 | 14 | 32:22 |
| Ray Bourque | Boston Bruins | 1998-99 | 12 | 32:07 |
| Nicklas Lidstrom | Detroit Red Wings | 2001-02 | 23 | 31:10 |
| Chris Pronger | Edmonton Oilers | 2005-06 | 24 | 30:57 |
| Al MacInnis | St. Louis Blues | 2000-01 | 15 | 30:45 |
| Sergei Zubov | Dallas Stars | 2002-03 | 12 | 30:44 |
| Nicklas Lidstrom | Detroit Red Wings | 2006-07 | 18 | 30:37 |
Any time you start to get into Chris Pronger and Al MacInnis territory it's probably not something many other players are capable of. But what is most important about Keith's playing time isn't just the number of minutes have asked him to play. It's what he has done with those minutes.
He is dominating, and in every situation.
His 12 points lead all defensemen in the NHL this postseason even though his 14 games played are fewer than the four of the five players behind him (Victor Hedman is two points back even though he has played four more games than Keith, while Ryan McDonagh, Dan Boyle and Keith Yandle are three points behind even though they have played three more games).
When Keith has been on the ice this postseason, the Blackhawks have attempted more than 57 percent of the total shot attempts and outscored their opponents by a 29-19 margin. When you dig down to just the even-strength numbers, the Blackhawks have 56 percent of the total shot attempts and own a 19-14 goals advantage. And he has helped the Blackhawks do that while only starting 48 percent of his shifts in the offensive zone and constantly playing against the other team's best players.
The Blackhawks are a deep, skilled team that can score as well as any other team in the NHL.
But if they finish this series and move on to another Stanley Cup Final, there may not be a player that made a bigger impact than Keith. Not only because he is playing great hockey, but because of the workload he has had to take on.
