Marcus Kruger could be Chicago’s missing link

On March 22 the Chicago Blackhawks played their 41st game of the season without Marcus Kruger. The center has been injured since December 18, but was able to return to practice on March 13. According to various sources — including Mark Potash at The Chicago Sun Times — Kruger will be able to play sometime during the Blackhawks’ upcoming four-game Western road trip.

Head coach Joel Quenneville spoke to gathered media about that recently, and Potash captured the following comments:

“Optimistically, I wouldn’t [discount] the possibility of him even playing Saturday [against the Flames in Calgary]. I’m hopeful, but we’ll see.”

Teams around the NHL still seem to be split about what kind of role the fourth line should have. Some squads ice a physical checking line, while others still want to hang onto the puck when their bottom-six is on the ice. Chicago falls into that second category, and they’ve badly missed Kruger in this regard.

He was given a three-year, $9.25 million contract extension earlier this month. That $3.083 million AAV shows just how valuable he is to the team’s lineup. The Blackhawks have struggled to replace exactly what Kruger brings to the table, and now the pivot will provide a nice boost to the team’s forward depth upon returning. That’s because he’s one of the best “depth” forwards in the game.

As a matter of fact, he’s been a bit of a missing link in Chicago this season.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder, after all. It’s hard to know exactly what you have until you no longer have it, and that’s what Quenneville has been dealing with over the team’s last 40-plus contests.

Phillip Danault had a lengthy tryout for the role, but ultimately wasn’t able to bring the same level of consistency that Kruger had. Now Danault is plying his trade with the Montreal Canadiens, as he was shipped out (along with a 2018 second-round pick) for Tomas Fleischmann and Dale Weise in February.

With Kruger nearing his return, general manager Stan Bowman’s vision for this team will become a reality. Marian Hossa missed some time following the trade deadline but has since settled in on a top line that features Jonathan Toews and Andrew Ladd. There haven’t been consistent changes to the second unit of Artem Anisimov, Artemi Panarin and Patrick Kane for quite some time, but the bottom six has been mostly in flux. That’s what happens when you’re missing an anchor like Kruger.

His return will have a domino effect on the third and fourth lines, and while Quenneville is known for his line juggling, it sounds like he will have some excellent options at his disposal in the coming days.

Andrew Shaw has been centering the fourth line, but that’s not a role he’s necessarily fit for. With Kruger back in the lineup, Shaw can begin skating on the third line with Teuvo Teravainen and Tomas Fleischmann. That is a unit with plenty of offensive pop, and could evolve into one of the more dangerous third-off scoring lines come playoff time.

That would leave Kruger to center the fourth line with Weise, a player who has a knack for scoring big goals in limited minutes, and Andrew Desjardins. The Blackhawks will once again be able to summon a Kruger-led line to shut down the opposition’s top forwards, and Quenneville will be able to cause all sorts of matchup problems with his top six.

He can use the Kruger unit against the other team’s second line, go best-on-best with the excellent Toews unit and allow the Kane line to go nuts offensively whenever the chance is there.

Let’s not forget that Fleischmann has netted three goals in 10 games since joining the Blackhawks. Not a particularly scary number in and of itself, but that’s good production from a player who is seeing less ice time than he is used to.

Kruger is a player who sets a lot of positive things in motion for Chicago, and there’s no denying that the team is in a bit of a slump. They are 4-4-2 in their last 10 games and they haven’t won consecutive games in nearly three weeks. There’s no reason for the Blackhawks to panic, but getting a quality defensive player like Kruger back in the lineup could be exactly what the team needs–a shot in the arm as the playoffs loom large.

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