There is no one on the Blackhawks roster that should benefit more from the long summer that the Blackhawks have had than Duncan Keith.
There’s no way around the fact that he had a down year in 2010-11, especially by the standards he set for himself when he won the Norris Trophy in 2010.
Keith’s point total dropped from 69 to 45 and his plus/minus fell from from a plus-21 in ’09-’10 to a putrid (by his standards) minus-1. The more alarming aspects of Keith’s falloff came outside of the box score. He fumbled the puck around in the defensive zone, lacked on his physical play, had shots blocked regularly, and was awful on the penalty kill.
Part of that is due to the short summer of 2010. Even Keith admitted he didn’t prepare well enough for last season. Of course, when you don’t prepare well enough to play 30 minutes a night on a regular basis, things aren’t going to be easy.
Heading into the season, it’s already pretty clear that th...
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