Pain: Coyotes 6, Blackhawks 4

A dreadful season took another turn to the south on Thursday night when the Chicago Blackhawks lost 6-4 to the basement-dwelling Arizona Coyotes.

It was a miserable start for the Hawks, with Arizona scoring twice in the first period to take a 2-0 lead into the second.

One minute into that second period, though, the Blackhawks got on the board.

After a Philipp Kurashev shot was stopped and deflected high into the air, Kirby Dach took a cut and Luis Robert’d the puck into the net:

Four minutes later, MacKenzie Entwistle took in a well-placed pass from Jonathan Toews before scoring his fourth goal of the season:

Arizona took over from there, though. Travis Boyd scored on the power play in the middle of the second to put the Coyotes back ahead at 3-2. Early in the third Clayton Keller scored to make it a 4-2 game. Chicago challenged for offsides, lost, and then gave up yet another goal on the ensuing power play:

Arizona entered this game with the 29th-ranked power play in the league and look at how fucking easy it was for them to pick apart Chicago’s dreadful penalty kill.

Anyway ... Toews made it a 5-3 game a few minutes later:

The game’s BAC level skyrocketed as the third period continued. Dylan Strome bunted a puck out of mid-air and across the crease to Alex DeBrincat who ... volleyed(?) the puck into the net to make it a one-goal game:

There was a Patrick Kane shot off a pair of posts and a few other scoring chances that came up empty before Johan Larsson completed his hat trick with an empty-net goal.

And that was that:

Notes

• Good to see Dach get a goal. He had a few other noticeable rushes during the game. Maybe that’ll leads to consistent, similar performances. Hossa knows this needs some positives to emerge from somewhere.
• Toews is up to seven points in nine games. So there’s that.
• Alex DeBrincat still rules and the goal he scored with an absurd assist from Dylan Strome should serve as another reminder of the incredible offensive talent they boast. So Strome will probably be scratched on Saturday for something stupid.
• Not too sure what Riley Stillman does for this team other than take poor penalties.
• STOP TAKING SO MANY FUCKING PENALTIES WHEN YOUR PENALTY KILL IS THIS FUCKING AWFUL.
• Hey, remember Dominik Kubalik? Saw him on the ice and had to look up his stats because it was hard to recall any significant contributions from him this season. Six goals in 34 games now, but three of those goals came in the first six games of the season. So that’s three goals in his last 28. Yikes.
• Nicolas Beaudin was a late insert to the lineup after a trio of players went into COVID protocol before the game. He played 1:11, which is fucking inexcusable. At some point, this team needs to acknowledge the playoffs are not happening and start giving a few of the younger players a look. Probably won’t happen all at once because of all the veterans on the roster — and some of those could get moved eventually to free up some spots. But a six-game losing streak capped by a loss to a team as deep in the tank as any hockey team in recent memory makes it pretty fucking clear from this perspective:

Game Charts

Three stars

1. Johan “NHL ‘22 auto-generated name” Larsson (ARI) — 3 goals
2. Travis Boyd (ARI) — 1 goal, 2 assists
3. Jonathan Toews (CHI) — 1 goal, 1 assist

What’s next

The Blackhawks head to Sin City to face the Vegas Golden Knights on Saturday night at 9 p.m.