Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

Olczyk: Blackhawks need a second-line center and help for Keith and Seabrook

Blackhawks-Coyotes shake hands

Blackhawks GM Stan Bowman and coach Joel Quenneville met with reporters today to answer questions following a second consecutive first-round elimination. We’ll have more on that later.

In the meantime, via CSNChicago.com, here’s an interview NBC and CSN analyst Eddie Olczyk did yesterday with Chicago Tribune Live:

To recap:

---- Olczyk thinks goalie Corey Crawford was “very good” in regulation against Phoenix, though he admits overtime was a different story.

---- He believes Bowman has to add a second-line center: “Patrick Kane is a dynamic player, but is a much different animal playing center than wing and you saw the revolving door all year, Joel [Quenneville] looking to go to Kane or to [Patrick] Sharp or to [Dave] Bolland or to Brandon Pirri or to Marcus Kruger. They had a lot of different guys try to fill that void and once [Marian] Hossa went out all of a sudden now you became less of a threat offensively without a pure finisher on the wall with the wingers. That’s an area that certainly needs to be addressed.”

---- Olczyk also thinks Bowman needs to address the defense: “I think they’ve got to get some heaviness in their team up and down the lineup, not only at the forward position but also on the back end. “I think you’ve got to get some help for Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook. Those guys play such tough minutes, hard minutes, against some of the best players in the world.”