The Blackhawks opened their preseason slate with a game that definitely resembled the first preseason game for both sides, as the visiting Detroit Red Wings skated away with a 4-2 victory on Wednesday night at the United Center.
Detroit scored first when Tyler Motte established inside positioning on Seth Jones and tapped home a puck from just outside the crease only 70 seconds into the game. That was the lone tally of the first period.
Early in the second, Craig Smith scored to tie the game at one on a neat transition play, as Ryan Donato sent him into the Detroit zone with a nifty backhand pass and Smith did the rest from there:
Now for a sentence that brings me inexplicable joy to type: Teuvo Teravainen scored a goal for the Blackhawks, taking in a pass from Connor Bedard before quickly maneuvering to his backhand for a bit of a softy but who cares? Teuvo scored.
Detroit scored the next three goals to win the game. Go visit Winging it in Motown if you want to see any of them, but why would you want to?
Notes
The collective speed of the Blackhawks prospects is noticeable any time they have the open ice to use it. They’ll need more than speed alone to be a successful team in the future, of course, but it is an undeniably strong part of the prospect pool.
The best example of that from this game was probably AJ Spellacy, who definitely stood out with his pace at times. That Spellacy was noticeable likely has something to do with his frame, as he’s 6-foot-3 and 201 pounds, which is substantially larger than many of the other burners within the organization. There’s a long way to go from the OHL to the NHL and he likely had some extra pep in his step given it was his first taste of NHL action, even if it was a preseason game. But a solid start nonetheless. A few glimpses of Spellacy (and, no, this note is not here just because of Powers’ tweets. How dare you!)
Detroit didn’t score on it but that Bedard giveaway from the high slot on the power play in the second period is something that happened last season a few times and needs to be worked out of his system sooner rather than later.
Kevin Korchinski had a similar giveaway in his own end while on the power play that also led to a quality scoring chance for Detroit. It’ll probably get used in the case being built to send him to Rockford at the start of the season. The score card below did have him as one of the better skaters from the game, though.
Giveaways were a theme of the night, really. Frank Nazar was particularly generous with the puck early on, which is probably why his line with Taylor Hall and Nick Lardis had the worst possession numbers of Chicago’s four lines this evening. Some veteran blue-liners joined in on the giving spirit, too:
To Nazar’s credit, though, coach Luke Richardson said he felt the first-round pick redeemed himself with a better finish in the final 20 minutes:
In 12:01 of 5-on-5 ice time together, the line of Bertuzzi-Bedard-Teuvo were even in shot attempts for and against (nine each way) but they owned the quality of possession in a big way with advantages in shots on goal (7-3), scoring chances (6-3), high-danger chances (4-0) and goals (1-0). All of that added up to an 84.19 percent expected goal share from that trio. We’ll take more of that in the regular season, please and thank you.
No injuries to report, which always the most important outcome from preseason games. On to the next one.
Game Charts
Three Stars
- Teuvo Teravainen (CHI) — 1 goal
- Lucas Raymond (DET) — 1 goal
- Craig Smith (CHI) — 1 goal
What’s Next
These two teams switch venues for a 6 p.m. puck drop in Detroit on Friday night.