The Chicago Blackhawks are on a two-game road trip and are also on their Mother’s Trip. They started their trip in Minnesota to face the Minnesota Wild. Going into the game, they were 2-1-1 in their last four games, which, as you can see, have yielded points.
Against the Wild, the Blackhawks lost 4-3 in a shootout. Another game where they were able to notch at least a point, but it fell short. Here are three takeaways.
1. Depth Scoring Played a Part
The Blackhawks came out flying to start the game. They dominated the Wild in every facet for two periods. They opened the scoring over a minute into the game, with a goal from Teuvo Teräväinen (who returned to the lineup after missing the last six games with injury). Ryan Donato broke an 11-game goal drought to make it 2-0. Ilya Mikheyev made it 3-0 in the second period. Alex Vlasic, Louis Crevier, Connor Bedard, and Jason Dickinson assisted on the goals.
As noted, the Blackhawks have been struggling on offense. Aside from the Wild game, they had scored three goals in a game once in a seven-game span. So, it was a significant breakthrough for them to score three goals while also getting contributions from their depth.
That was a positive in the game.
2. The Power Play Still a Work in Progress
Now, for the Achilles heel. Another point that has been widely known is that the Blackhawks’ power play has been on the struggle bus. They haven’t scored a power-play goal since Jan 10. They have been operating at a 4 percent success rate since then, which is last in the NHL.
The power play had its moments in Minnesota, but it got no dice. They went 0-for-4 on the man advantage in regulation, and then they got a power play opportunity in overtime on a tripping penalty on Vlasic. But they weren’t able to convert on there, either. That makes their power-play goal drought 0-for-22.
However, according to head coach Jeff Blashill, the power-play results didn’t necessarily reflect the team’s showing.
“No doubt, I thought it was better. I will say that. Like, I thought we had more chances. I think we’ve walked away from other days where I just didn’t feel as dangerous at all. And I thought we had a good number of chances. But when you have, I think we had five, and you have a four-on-three in overtime, a full two minutes, you got to find a way to score. So, those are differences in winning and losing games. And so, you know, we got to get that thing back going at a good level like it has been at different times this year. But I do think, from a process standpoint, we’re going to look, and we’re going to say, you know, we probably had six chances on the power play. Well, if you have six chances on the power play for a night, you’re doing good things. We just got to, again, find a way to repeat that.”
I agree with Blashill’s assessment that, despite still not getting any goals on the man advantage, it didn’t look as disjointed as before. However, it still let them down. Especially in overtime, as he noted.
3. Blackhawks Squandering a 3-0 Lead
It seemed the most glaring part of the night was the Blackhawks squandering a 3-0 lead. They left the second period still leading 3-1, with Yakov Trenin getting the Minnesota goal. Then, Joel Eriksson Ek made it 3-2, and Jared Spurgeon tied the game 3-3 with two minutes left in the game on the six-on-five.
That went into overtime, where it ultimately went to the shootout, where Kirill Kaprizov got the shootout winner for the Wild.
When you look at all those components, it is frustrating. When a team is leading 3-0 and also gets a power-play in overtime, you would hope to see them come away with two points at the end of the day.
But the Blackhawks have been process-driven all season and seeing where they can improve, and that seemed to be the sentiment after the game- focusing on what they can build off of.
Donato said, “I think, obviously, that’s a good club over there. They find ways to win games. I think… we battled hard. We competed. We had our chances to finish it, and… it’s unfortunate. We did a lot of good things tonight. I think we played well as a team. And… it’s definitely hard to not get emotional about it and say we lost. But at the end of the day, I think we did a lot of good things. And, you know, we got some things to build on, but we got to find a way to close that out.”
Related: Blackhawks Earned 3 Huge Points in Back-to-Back Despite Losses to Panthers and Wild
Blashill mentioned, “I mean, it was a 3-0 lead. It’s a little bit unfortunate. At the end of the night, when you take the emotion out of it, which is, obviously, we’re frustrated. You know, the chances we had were 23-14, us. You’re going to win that game 98 percent of the time. We just didn’t win it tonight. But I think the thing you have to do is, you know, I thought that’s the best we played in a while, to be honest with you. So you got to go back and repeat… you got to do it again in Pittsburgh. We can’t feel sorry for ourselves because, you know, we ended up giving up a late lead and lost in the shootout. We got to learn from it and be ready to play similar on Thursday.”
The Blackhawks did show up. Therefore, it would have been worse if they had flat-out lost the game in regulation. Despite everything, they still had a chance to win in the shootout. They will take the point.
It was a tough result, and it felt like a result that didn’t need to be. But the Blackhawks will continue to focus on the parts of their game that did work and hope for a better result against the Pittsburgh Penguins.
