It wasn’t that long ago that Anthony Beauvillier played a significant role on a competitive New York Islanders team. He scored 15 goals or more four seasons in a row in a top-six role and notably scored the Game 6 overtime winner in the Stanley Cup Semifinal, which was the final game played at Nassau Coliseum. As a dynamic playmaker on the wing, Beauvillier looked like a skater with high upside and a promising NHL career.
Fast forward to the 2023-24 season and he’s playing on his third team in 11 months. He was traded from the Islanders to the Vancouver Canucks as part of the Bo Horvat blockbuster trade during the 2023 NHL All-Star Break. After struggling to find a role with the Canucks and taking on a significant amount of salary cap space, they moved him to the Chicago Blackhawks for a fifth-round selection in the 2024 NHL Entry Draft.
The Blackhawks are starting to see significant progress in their rebuild with some of the young skaters making an impact at the NHL level. Beauvillier is a free agent at the end of the season but the 26-year-old forward has a higher ceiling that could make him a valuable asset for the team. If the Blackhawks take advantage of his unique skillsets, he can be an integral part of the team’s turnaround not just this season but for years to come. Beauvillier has struggled to find roles with both the Islanders and Canucks but can turn his career around and become a viable middle-six scorer in Chicago.
Beauvllier As a Puck Handler
Arguably Beauvillier’s best attribute is his ability to handle the puck and move it up the ice and into the offensive zone. At times, it’s made him a frustrating player as he’s caught holding onto it for too long and not passing it to an open skater or shooting it on the net. That said, he’s the ideal skater to have on the ice following a turnover and he can start up the rush and subsequently allow the team to establish an offensive zone presence. Beauvillier wouldn’t play that “quarterback” role in the forward unit where he’d look for the weakness in the defense and exploit it but he’d gash the opposing defenses, especially when he had space to operate.
Unfortunately, with the Islanders, there was no need for a puck handler on the wing as much as they needed him to be a shooter. Brock Nelson centered his line and often controlled the puck and the offense, allowing the wingers to find open shots in the offensive zone. Beauvillier’s puck-handling skill was quickly put out of use and his role in the offense started to decrease in the process. With the Canucks, he showed flashes playing with Elias Pettersson, scoring nine goals and 11 assists in only 33 games in 2022-23 in a role where he could both handle the puck and find shots in space. However, a dropoff in production and a demotion to the fourth line made him expendable and prompted the Canucks to trade him to the Blackhawks.
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The Blackhawks, unlike the Canucks and the Islanders, don’t have a lot of playmakers in their forward unit and it will allow Beauvillier to once again reemerge as a skater who can start up the offense. Granted, Connor Bedard is a generational talent and the player they will build around but the later lines lack someone with Beauvillier’s skill, which is where he’ll play moving forward.
Blackhawks Need A Middle-Six Center
One of the biggest issues for Beauvillier is that he’s dependent on the skater who is centering his line. He needs a well-rounded center who can both create scoring chances and find the back of the net off of quick passes from the wing to the middle of the offensive zone.
The Blackhawks have skaters capable of doing that in Bedard but he’s leading the top line along with Philipp Kurashev, one of the young core pieces on the roster. On top of that, Beauvillier, who has struggled in the top six recently, will be playing on the second or third line with the Blackhawks. This leaves Jason Dickinson and Tyler Johnson as viable options but they won’t unlock Beauvillier and likewise, his skills will clash with both centers. Dickinson has seven goals and five assists this season while Johnson has six goals and only two assists and they need a skater on the wing who can provide them with open shots, something the 26-year-old winger has struggled to do.
Beauvillier can adapt to play alongside either skater but another avenue for him is to become a mentoring presence to some of the prospects who will start to make their way to the NHL roster. Lukas Reichel is a 21-year-old forward playing both center and left wing and could learn how to play the same position from a former first-round pick who has had a rollercoaster career. Frank Nazar, the Blackhawks’ 13th overall selection in the 2022 NHL Entry Draft, is at least one season away from being a regular but when he’s ready for the NHL level, he could center Beauvillier’s line. Along with being in the league for eight seasons, his skillset makes him a great skater to play alongside some of the team’s prospects, especially when they first join the NHL roster.
Beauvillier’s Speed Makes Him A Valuable Add
Beauvillier struggled with the Islanders, especially in his last two seasons where he scored only 21 goals and 33 assists in 124 games played. However, his speed never dropped off and it always made him an intriguing part of the top six. If only there was a way to hone in those bursts and allow him to become a dynamic forward. The Islanders never optimized his speed and eventually were forced to move on from him as part of the Horvat trade.
The Blackhawks have the skaters and the system to allow Beauvillier to use his speed to his advantage. He can gash opponents on rushes and allow the team to turn defense into instant scoring chances. With many young skaters starting to make an impact on the NHL roster, his burst on the wing can allow them to thrive as playmakers, and provide them with another skater to pass the puck to in space.
With the Canucks specifically, Beauvillier also thrived with a puck-moving defenseman on the ice. Quinn Hughes provided outlet passes or carried the puck into the offensive zone, giving him plenty of open looks on the net. The Blackhawks have their version of Hughes, albeit a developing version, with Kevin Korchinski playing his first full season at the NHL level. Korchinski only has two goals and four assists this season but has the skills to be a dynamic two-way player and his passes should work well with Beauvillier’s speed.
Blackhawks Must Make Him A Two-Way Player
One of the biggest weaknesses in Beauvillier’s game is his defense or lack thereof. He only has 9.0 defensive point shares in eight seasons and at 5-foot-11, weighing only 180 pounds, he’s a skater who rarely if ever plays in the dirty areas. He’s never blocked 40 shots or more in a season and opposing skaters can easily maintain possession of the puck when he’s defending them.
Ultimately, it’s one of the reasons former Islanders head coach Barry Trotz decreased Beauvillier’s role and Canucks head coach Rick Tocchet moved him to the fourth line. Both coaches preach defense first along with accountability on the defensive end of the ice and Beauvillier’s style of play clashed with both of them.
Blackhawks head coach Luke Richardson since being hired in 2022, has allowed his young roster to play with more freedom, especially on the offensive end of the ice but he’s also preached playing well defensively. Richardson won’t limit Beauvillier’s role or remove him from the lineup because of poor defensive play but he can’t allow the defensive issues to cost the Blackhawks the same way it did for the Islanders and the Canucks. The 26-year-old forward must step up on the defensive end of the ice not just to set the tone for the team but to resurrect his career.
Beauvillier doesn’t appear like a forward who can become a great defender. He’s smaller and doesn’t have a lot of skills that translate to the defensive end of the ice. The two things however that Richardson can hope Beauvillier masters is the ability to play the passing lanes and try to steal the puck with the poke check. It’s how he scored the game-winning goal against the Tampa Bay Lightning in Game 6 of the Semifinal and it’s the trait that can make him a viable two-way player on a rebuilding team.
Simplify The Game
The other important thing the Blackhawks must learn from the Islanders and the Canucks is that Beauvillier when asked to do too much, struggled. In a top-six role and on the Nelson line, he needed to be a playmaker, a scorer, operate on the rush, and find space in the offensive zone. The same was true on the Pettersson line with the Canucks. He had too much on his plate and when he finally had the puck, he struggled as a decision-maker and it caused his production to fall off.
The Blackhawks must allow Beauvillier to play the way he did in the early days of his career. Specifically, he will thrive as a depth scorer who knows what he needs to do when he gets the puck. With a reliable center controlling the offense, he’ll have the task of searching for an open shot in the offensive zone. With dynamic scorers on his line, Beauvillier will take on the role of a puck handler who can provide them with quick passes. For Richardson, it’s about allowing him to thrive as a skilled player and play the same way that many of the prospects on the roster do, which is with freedom and the ability to take advantage of their best skills.
How Beauvllier Helps The Blackhawks’ Rebuild
Beauvillier will be a free agent at the end of the season and this can be an audition for him to prove to the rest of the league that he’s worthy of a long-term deal. After signing a two-year deal in the 2019 offseason and a three-year deal in the 2021 offseason, he’s looking to settle down and any team that offers him a long-term contract will have a good chance of signing him. However, it’s more likely than not he remains on the Blackhawks beyond this season, especially if he finds a valuable place on the roster. After moving around a lot in recent seasons, he can settle down and more importantly be a key part of the Blackhawks’ return to contention.
He won’t be a top-six forward or overwhelm opponents on the wing. Instead, Beauvillier can consistently score 15 goals in the middle of the forward unit and provide much-needed depth for a team that will have plenty of young talent at the top of the roster. Additionally, Beauvillier, who has been regarded as a young skater his whole career, will finally be a mentor and a veteran presence most notably to Reichel and the other skaters who will likely play on the wing.
Contending rosters often have a great core in place but they need role players to round out the roster. The Blackhawks are still waiting for the young skaters to enter the prime of their careers but the contending window will be open soon enough. Bedard, Korchinski, Reichel, Kurashev, and Nazar will lead the team but the veterans in the bottom-six will be pivotal in the Blackhawks taking that next step. Beauvillier’s been through plenty of highs and lows in the early part of his career but on a rebuilding team, he can remind everyone why the Islanders drafted him in the first round to begin with.
