The fourth line that started games for the Blackhawks last season wasn’t often the same one that ended them.
A large part of the issue was that Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville didn’t have trust in his fourth liners to play an entire game. More specifically, he only had limited trust in Jordin Tootoo. Despite that, Quenneville still often placed Tootoo in the lineup. Tootoo played 50 games last season.
Of Tootoo’s 50 games, he played fewer than seven minutes in 30 of them, fewer than six minutes in 20 and fewer than five minutes in 11. For the season, he averaged 6:45 of ice time.