The Blackhawks don’t have many defensive defensemen.
Many of their young up-and-coming defensemen are offensively geared — look at Adam Boqvist and Ian Mitchell. But they do have guys like Connor Murphy, Nikita Zadorov and Calvin de Haan.
The latter of that trio is one of the most straightforward cases on the Blackhawks. While de Haan doesn’t play enough — just 73 games in his two seasons with the Blackhawks — when he does, he can be one of the Blackhawks’ better defensemen in his own end.
The pairing of Murphy and de Haan, which played 162:55 together at 5-on-5, was one of the Blackhawks’ best pairings.