Blackhawks getting positive returns from Andre Burakovsky, who holds the puck well

With the free-agent and trade markets not looking promising last summer, the Blackhawks bet they could find the top-six forward upgrade they needed via a salary-dump trade. While other teams clamored for the few marquee players available, they acquired somebody off the radar — then-Kraken forward Andre Burakovsky — who at least used to be a marquee player. With a change of scenery, a fresh slate of health and a sizable opportunity, they gambled on Burakovsky re-discovering his former self. One week into the regular season, that gamble is looking wiser. It’ll take more time to fully determine its success, but Burakovsky is off to a solid start to his 12th NHL season. The 30-year-old Austrian has two goals — including the game-winner Monday against the Mammoth — and one assist in his first four games. All three points were well-earned. And the Hawks have a 46.9% scoring-chance ratio during his five-on-five minutes, which ranks fourth among team forwards. He has been effective both as Connor Bedard’s right winger and as a flank man on the second power-play unit, which has outperformed the first unit so far. “He’s such a smart player,” Bedard said recently. “He’s someone who can make plays and slow the game down [or] speed it up.” After tallying 151 points across three fruitful seasons with the Avalanche, Burakovsky mustered only 92 points across three inconsistent and injury-plagued seasons with the Kraken. But his underlying numbers — which were elite in Colorado — remained surprisingly decent in Seattle, which likely attracted the Hawks’ attention as they searched for a buy-low target. He was an above-league-average player in terms of both shots and shot assists (passes leading directly to shots) per minute in all three Kraken seasons, per All Three Zones. And he really excelled with carrying the puck into the offensive zone, ranking way above league average in terms of zone entries and carry-in percentage. The contrast between his low shooting percentage the last two seasons (8.2%) and his stellar career-long shooting percentage before that (14.4%) also suggested he might’ve been the victim of bad luck that wouldn’t last forever. Since arriving in Chicago, his ability and willingness to hold onto the puck for extended periods of time, protect it and wait for the right play to open up has been impressive. The Hawks really don’t have any other forwards who can do that as well as he can. “The poise is important,” coach Jeff Blashill said Tuesday. “He is calm with [the puck], and he’s done a good job of managing it. The balance on being calm is you don’t try to make something out of nothing when you run out of room, and he’s done a good job of that.” Burakovsky isn’t a blazer like, say, Sam Lafferty is, but he can move with speed while controlling the puck, which is considerably harder. And at his size and strength — 6-3 and 203 pounds — he’s difficult to dispossess with physicality. Taylor Hall had some similar skills, but Burakovsky seems less turnover-prone than Hall was, too. “I want to be patient,” Burakovsky said. “It’s already kind of hard to get into the zone...so once we get in, I don’t want to force plays...through sticks or bodies or anything. I want to hold onto it and be patient and find an open guy. “Sometimes that’s by skating a lot, and sometimes that’s by just not moving a lot, depending on how [the opponents] play. But I just want to be as patient as possible and not give away the puck.” Burakovsky’s defensive play has historically been iffy, and he indeed hasn’t made much impact in the Hawks’ own zone yet. But it seems he might be a bigger offensive upgrade to the roster than originally thought.