You think you can make my life any worse? Go on, take a shot.

The Hawks cannot seem to score, but not for lack of trying.
They own the highest Shots-on-net-per-game (38.4/game) and, while they allow only the 7th least amounts of Shots-against-per-game their differential between Shots-for and Shots-against is second highest.
Let's not even get into shots attempted.  Last night The Jets are alleged to have blocked 30 shots in addition to the 33 that The Hawks hit the goalie with.  The night before The Hawks hit for 47 shots and their opponent blocked a further 19 attempts.  This doesn't even account for shots that get through and miss everything altogether.

So, what's the problem?
I believe it's not just a matter of low shooting percentage or not being selective in shot choices, but rather that the low percentage shot is too often the best option The Hawks forwards have had a lot of the time.  For this, I blame, at least partly, The Line Blender™.

The last week+ we've seen a couple of key Hawks forwards shuffle up and down the lineup so often they need Post-It-Notes inside their visor to remind themselves who their linemates are.  Last week Patrick Sharp played significant parts of a few games on the "third" line with Richards and Versteeg (although sometimes Bickell) which actually wasn't terrible.  Brandon Saad has played on all four forward lines in the last two weeks.  The problem is, when a particular line stops being "not terrible" it gets changed.  How is this team going to establish any chemistry if so many of the forwards are forced to play alongside different guys from one game to the next?

Toews and Hossa have been a consistent pair, as have Kruger and Smith.  One could point out that Kane and Shaw have played together fairly consistently, as well, but since Shaw has little idea of how to play center what's the worth in that?  Truthfully, of all the Hawks forwards, Kane is the one most able to adjust to having different linemates....as long as the center knows how to play his position, I guess.

So what do we get?  Toews and Hossa aside, we have a lot of problems getting into the opponent's zone and, even if the entry goes well, no one knows what to do once they're there.  I think, it's often down to that unfamiliarity amongst linemates.  I exclude Toews and Hossa because they are better able to lug the puck through the neutral zone, make a clean entry and then make a play because they have an idea of what the other guy will do.  On the other lines who is going to the net?  Smith, but he gets precious little time in the offensive zone and lacks a linemate who can get the puck to him reliably.  Morin, yes, but his 6 minutes of icetime hasn't, for some reason, translated to goals.  Bickell looks willing, occasionally, but not consistently enough.  Poor Andrew Shaw is in so far over his head in the 2C role that he's probably already forgotten that all of his goals have come from within four feet of the goal line.  Chaos.

Something does have to change and that's to stop changing every game or two.