With 64 games left, Blackhawks’ path to playoff contention looks plausible but difficult

CALGARY, Alberta — The Blackhawks are only 18 games into their 82-game schedule.

Considering all that has happened already — the sexual assault scandal and coaching change and franchise-worst start and recent upswing — it almost boggles the mind. But indeed, the Hawks are less than a quarter of the way through the 2021-22 season.

The remainder of it, however, should be more limited to typical on-ice highs and lows. The off-ice tumult that has headlined the Hawks’ fall hopefully has eased.

That raises a crucial question, the answer to which will determine just how monotonous the 64 remaining games prove to be: Can the Hawks still make the playoffs?

Of course, the mathematical solution is, yes. The Predators entered Monday holding the Western Conference’s final wild-card spot with 19 points. The Hawks entered a day off before Tuesday’s game against the Flames with 14 points. Looking at it that way, the five-point deficit seems surmountable.

But history shows it won’t be an easy task. Over the last six full seasons, 37 teams have entered Nov. 22 five or more points out of a playoff spot. Only four eventually made the postseason.

Besides, the standings are largely irrelevant this early. With so many months to go, pacing matters more.

The final playoff cutoff line in the West has been, on average, 93 points over those last six full seasons. Although the West’s current projected cutoff this season is 96.5 points — set by the Blues, the eighth-place team based on points percentage — that likely will regress over time.

For the Hawks to reach 93 points, they’d need to earn 79 points in their remaining 64 games. That would require a record of roughly 36-21-7 — give or take a few wins and overtime losses — the rest of the way.

That’s certainly doable, but it would require them to play like a well-above-average team. Last season, 12 teams finished their 56-game season at or above that pace. In 2019-20, when the league had more parity, only nine teams hit 79 points through their first 64 games (and only five exceeded 81 points). Some very talented rosters, including the Golden Knights, did not.

So can the Hawks play like a top-10 team consistently from now through April? They wouldn’t need to exactly keep up their 5-1-0 record under interim coach Derek King, but they would need to keep winning more than losing for a very long time.

They also would need to improve quite a bit. Goaltending predominantly has fueled their recent success and should remain a strength all season, but the Hawks are doomed if their 44.9% even-strength scoring-chance ratio — fourth-worst in the NHL — continues. Even in six games under King, their ratio is 46.8%.

At least there’s belief in the Hawks’ dressing room. That’s prerequisite ingredient No. 1 for this theoretical rally.

“You can break it down to each zone and how we’re playing with all our systems and all that,” King said Sunday. “But these guys are just feeling good about themselves. They’re getting their confidence back. They’re not as fragile as when I got here. It’s nice, but it’s still a journey. We’re just going to keep picking away, day by day.”

The Hawks’ stingy third period — after two horrendous periods — in Sunday’s 1-0 win excellently demonstrated that resilience.

“They’re gradually getting out of that sense of, when things go wrong, it’s depressing,” King said. “Now it’s, ‘Things go wrong. We’re OK. Hold the fort, and we’ll get out of it.’ That’s that confidence coming back.”

If the Hawks can maintain that confidence — in spite of hockey’s inevitable volatility — for 64 games, it might give them an outside shot. But that won’t be easy.