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An Insect Trapped in Amber: Hurricanes 7, Blackhawks 2

Only three more to go!

Posted on by L_B_R
Credit: Matt Marton-Imagn Images

The Chicago Blackhawks fell 7-2 to the Carolina Hurricanes on Thursday night at the United Center in a game that unraveled almost immediately.

The Hurricanes went up 1-0 just 19 seconds into the game. Nikolaj Ehlers set up Sean Walker, who ripped a wrist shot past Spencer Knight before the Blackhawks had a chance to settle in.

The Blackhawks responded around the midway point of the first period. Louis Crevier drove the puck toward the net before losing it in traffic, but Anton Frondell was in the right place at the right time, scooping up the loose puck and tucking it home to tie things at 1-1.

Logan Stankoven gave the Hurricanes their lead back with 2:50 remaining in the first after picking Sam Rinzel’s pocket along the boards, skating in close, and going upstairs with a wrister.

Stankoven made it 3-1 about four minutes into the second. A misplay by Alex Vlasic was picked off, leading to a quick chance where Stankoven helped set up Taylor Hall before finishing the rebound himself.

Mark Jankowski tipped home a point shot with 5:10 left in the second after a clean passing sequence from William Carrier to Alexander Nikishin, pushing the Hurricanes lead to 4-1.

K’Andre Miller further extended the Hurricanes lead to 5-1 just under six minutes into the third. Just out of the penalty box, Miller jumped into a 3-on-1 rush and buried Carrier’s feed.

Frondell grabbed his second goal of the night by redirecting a Crevier point shot to cut the Hurricanes’ lead to 5-2.

Hall added another at 8:13 of the third, spinning into space and wiring a shot from the high slot off a Shayne Gostisbehere pass, putting the Hurricanes up 6-2.

Jankowski then capped the night with his second goal at 12:51 of the third, finishing off another Carrier setup to seal the 7-2 final for the Hurricanes.

Notes

Normally, this is where I’d walk through the flow of the game and the underlying numbers in some depth, but that feels unnecessary here. This one was mostly just gross, and there’s no real need to relive it more than required. So instead, here are the 5-on-5 shot stats, presented without fanfare — and they line up with the eye test all too well:

TOICF-CACF%SF-SASF%SCF-SCASCF%xGF%
20:0011-2431.43%7-750%5-1131.25%46.66%
15:0211-1345.83%7-750%3-925%31.39%
14:4417-1258.62%8-753.33%9-535.71%42.6%

These aren’t close to the worst numbers the Blackhawks have posted this season, but it still wasn’t a good performance, and the sheer number of giveaways and unforced errors made it especially irksome. The Blackhawks keeping the shots even seems good, but the Hurricanes didn’t need to do much to score off those mistakes, so that kind of shot suppression is mostly moot. The third-period numbers also look decent on paper, but realistically the Hurricanes were well into cruise control by then, and it was far too little, too late from Chicago. And it’s worth noting who Carolina didn’t have in the lineup: the Hurricanes sat seven regulars, including three of their top forwards (Sebastian Aho, Seth Jarvis, Andrei Svechnikov), two more top-nine forwards (Jordan Staal, Jordan Martinook), and two of their top-four defensemen (Jaccob Slavin, Jalen Chatfield).

Below are the expected goals for the Blackhawks at 5-on-5 (led by Nick Lardis) and in all situations (led by Frondell) respectively. At least some of the young players were pushing to generate offense — and in Frondell’s case, actually finishing — but it wasn’t nearly enough across the lineup and didn’t come close to offsetting the defensive lapses. Crevier and Kevin Korchinski also deserve a mention here: Crevier contributed offensively and was arguably the Blackhawks’ most effective defenseman in that regard tonight while Korchinski had some noticeable positive moments as well when it came to driving play, although both had issues in the defensive zone, even if they didn’t lead to anything catastrophic in this one. The less said about the rest of the players, the better.

Here are some clips of those top kids provided by BHF on Twitter, as usual:

Some post-game comments starting with the positives and going from there:

Game Charts

Three Stars

  1. Logan Stankoven (CAR) — 2 goals, 1 assist
  2. Mark Jankowski (CAR) — 2 goals
  3. Anton Frondell (CHI) — 2 goals

What’s Next

The Blackhawks host the St. Louis Blues Saturday for an afternoon match at 4 p.m.

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