Blackhawks need to find young forward who can take over Jason Dickinson’s job

PHILADELPHIA — For as encouraging overall as the Blackhawks’ win Tuesday over the Islanders was, the lopsided third period highlighted one new weakness in their lineup.

For years, the Hawks have direly lacked firepower in the top six but always had a reliable checking line to lean on, at least whenever Jason Dickinson was healthy.

During Dickinson’s four years in Chicago, he emerged as legitimately one of the best defensive centers in the NHL, and Ilya Mikheyev emerged last season as an excellent right-hand man for him.

Now, Anton Frondell’s arrival and Nick Lardis’ growth — not to mention Connor Bedard and Frank Nazar’s returns to full health — have juiced up the top six, which is starting to resemble its likely 2026-27 composition. Roman Kantserov’s arrival next fall will inject even more offensive juice.

But at the same time, Dickinson and Nick Foligno’s trade departures have decimated the defensive stoutness of the bottom six. Analytically, Mikheyev’s even-strength defense has also taken a step back this season, even though he has thrived on the penalty kill. Teuvo Teravainen’s play across the board has dipped, too.

When the Islanders pushed hard Tuesday, the Hawks discovered they didn’t have a line they could rely on to possess the puck, tilt the ice, squash scoring chances and disrupt the home team’s momentum — things Dickinson usually found a way to do.

The third line of Ryan Donato centering Mikheyev and Andre Burakovsky got caved in; chances favored the Islanders 8-1 during their five-on-five ice time. Bedard’s line fared no better in best-on-best shifts.

Slotting Teravainen into Burakovsky’s place might help a little bit, but there’s simply no evidence Donato — whose defensive analytics have always been subpar, even during his career season — can be an effective checking center on his own.

During Donato’s three-year Hawks tenure, he has been successful next to Dickinson (plus-five goal differential) and next to Bedard (plus-two), but he has struggled mightily apart from them (minus-30). His scoring-chance ratio with Dickinson was 51.9%; without him it’s 41.7%.

So which Hawks forwards — specifically which young forwards — will step up as their defensive anchors moving forward?

That question seems to be on the front of coach Jeff Blashill’s mind. He brought up Tuesday that “somebody, ultimately, is going to have to be a guy that learns to play against the other teams’ best.”

“Whoever that is, I don’t know that yet,” Blashill added. “You can sometimes use your top two lines for that, but that taxes them a lot. Most teams throughout the league that have had success [haven’t done that]. Even when they have a great player like [Panthers star Aleksander] Barkov, [Anton] Lundell filled that spot most of the time.”

Oliver Moore’s defense was better than expected this season, but his injury prevented the Hawks from getting a substantial look at him in a checking role.

Ryan Greene’s defense was acclaimed coming out of college, when he was heralded as a Dickinson-type player, but he also hasn’t gotten much experience in an NHL checking role this season due to his unexpected chemistry with Bedard.

Blashill mentioned Sunday wanting to give Greene some time at center (presumably third-line center) down the stretch, but after he opted Tuesday to bump Burakovsky instead of Greene off Bedard’s line to make room for Frondell, he was noncommittal about the Greene-at-center idea.

Landon Slaggert has solidified his lineup spot this season with decent defense and penalty-killing, but it’s unclear if his upside exceeds that of “fourth-line utility guy.”

Sacha Boisvert, who will likely debut Thursday against the Flyers, is another candidate — as is AJ Spellacy, who will compete for an NHL job next fall. But although their physicality and grittiness will be welcome in the lineup, those traits don’t necessarily translate to defensive effectiveness.

This question could linger for a while.