Why did the Blackhawks practice fighting? To ‘learn how to protect ourselves’

If you expect a punch to come from your left and it instead comes from your right, the outcome can be disastrous.

How to avoid that scenario is one of many things some Blackhawks learned Monday during an unofficial “fighting practice” with former NHL enforcer Wade Brookbank, now a Hawks pro scout.

Defensemen Alex Vlasic, Louis Crevier, Ethan Del Mastro and Sam Rinzel and forwards Landon Slaggert and Sacha Boisvert attended the on-ice session.

“It’s a lot about just protecting yourself,” Slaggert said Tuesday. “You’re not there to chuck bombs necessarily, but [we practiced how] to limit guys’ range of motion with different grabs and holds on the jersey. And some different techniques to get out of bad situations, like if you’re fighting a lefty. It was valuable.”

The Hawks’ three most experienced fighters — Connor Murphy, Nick Foligno and Colton Dach — were all shipped out at the trade deadline, leaving the team without anything close to an enforcer.

The prevalence of fighting in the NHL is decreasing, and the prevailing logic on enforcers has changed. Analytics-focused organizations no longer consider it worth dedicating a roster spot solely to someone like Brookbank, who racked up 345 penalty minutes in 127 NHL games from 2003 to 2009.

But it’s still important for players to have the skills to stand up for each other when necessary, as well as to protect themselves if they get jumped by an opponent.

“Something you take away from the really good teams in this league is, they’re a little scrappy and tenacious and not afraid to mix it up sometimes,” Vlasic said.

“For us, it was important — as the big guys — to learn how to protect ourselves in a fight, when it comes up or whenever we need to. It was a really fun opportunity to learn some things — and push Louis around a little bit. I had a lot of fun, honestly.”

As you can imagine, Vlasic winked in Crevier’s direction during the middle of those comments.

Vlasic took some heat for not fighting Rangers captain J.T. Miller after he leveled Artyom Levshunov last week at Madison Square Garden. Vlasic later explained he noticed a delayed penalty had been called, and he made the quick mental calculation that the power play was more valuable than retribution.

Fighting has been a hot topic lately around the league, too, in the wake of Ducks defenseman Radko Gudas’ knee-on-knee hit that tore Maple Leafs star Auston Matthews’ MCL on March 12. No Leafs fought Gudas at the time, but Max Domi did off the opening faceoff of the two teams’ rematch Monday.

Hawks coach Jeff Blashill insisted the timing of the Hawks’ fighting practice had nothing to do with either of those storylines, though.

The Hawks had actually hoped to arrange this earlier in the season, but it proved difficult to find a window in Brookbank’s schedule.

“We have [written] above our locker room, ‘Fight for your teammates,’” Blashill said. “That’s literally and figuratively. It doesn’t necessarily mean you have to fight. It just means you have to care enough about each other that you’re willing to do that.”

Vlasic’s moment of pacifism was actually a rarity for the Hawks this season. Ever since Connor Bedard mentioned after game No. 2 they were “not going to take any [expletive]” anymore, almost every big hit on a Hawk has incited a scrum.

But that hot-headed approach has canceled out plenty of power-play opportunities. The Hawks entered Tuesday with 278 penalties called against them compared to 268 against opponents.

“In some of those moments, we probably didn’t [respond] the smart way — in a sense that, the minute go right in, you’re getting the extra penalty,” Blashill said. “Really savvy players who have been around the league know to wait a shift and then maybe challenge [the offender].”

Indeed, there’s a strategy to fighting.