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Knights of Cydonia: Blackhawks 5, Kings 1

A fun (k)night in Chicago’s return to the United Center.

Posted on by L_B_R
Credit: Matt Marton-Imagn Images

Spencer Knight made 41 saves to help the Chicago Blackhawks defeat the Los Angeles Kings 5-1 at the United Center on Monday night. What a debut!

The Blackhawks got on the board first, scoring just over midway through the first period. Tyler Bertuzzi got the puck to Alec Martinez at the blue line, and the defenseman’s long shot made it through traffic and into the back of the net.

The Kings responded less than a minute later to tie the game at one. Anze Kopitar broke up a passing play on a scoring chance in the Blackhawks offensive zone, then got back to the Kings side to receive a pass from Alex Turcotte in the slot to score.

Ilya Mikheyev gave the Blackhawks back their lead 46 seconds into the second period. After some good board battles, Teuvo Teravainen grabbed his own rebound and then slid a backhand pass to Ilya Mikheyev who hit what was basically an open net, making it 2-1 Blackhawks.

Ethan Del Masto extended the Blackhawks lead to 3-1 at 13:30 in the second after his shot from the left-side boards deflected off the skate of Jacob Moverare and past Darcy Kuemper.

Andreas Athanasiou put the Blackhawks up 4-1 about a minute into the third period. The Kings won the faceoff, but Colton Dach picked off a pass below the red line and then sent a quick pass to set up Andreas Athanasiou in the slot, whose one-timer beat Kuemper clean.

Ryan Donato added an empty-net goal with 1:30 left in the game to make it 5-1 Blackhawks and seal the victory.

Notes

The first period was pretty rough and it looked like the Blackhawks were on the wrong side of a shooting gallery out there. At 5-on-5, the Blackhawks were out-attempted 26-12, outshot 17-5, and owned just 16.53 percent of the expected goals. The Blackhawks were having issues containing breakouts by the Kings, difficulty getting the puck out of their own zone, and struggles with communication between players. Still, the Blackhawks did have a few decent moments themselves and, most importantly, Knight was really great in net. He didn’t give up many rebound opportunities, and the team in front helped out a lot by clearing any that did happen. That kept the Kings from sustaining pressure for too long, even if they still got quite a few shots off in general.

The Blackhawks looked like a different team in the second period: lots of crisp passing, clean transitions, solid defense, and meaningful possession that led to some really nice scoring chances. They weren’t perfect or dominating by any means — they only had a slight edge statistically — but the Blackhawks were playing competent and exciting hockey that was easily one of their better periods in 2025. The Blackhawks finished with 53.33 percent of the shots attempts, 52.94 percent of the shots on goal, and, most impressively, 72.68 percent of the expected goals at 5-on-5. It was the first time since they played the Nashville Predators on Feb. 2 that the Blackhawks hit double-digit scoring chances in a single period — they’ve done that fewer than 10 times total this season.

The shot metrics for the third period swung back in favor of the Kings, and by a large degree — the Blackhawks owned only 26.32 percent of the shot attempts and 16.67 percent of the shots on goal — but the Blackhawks still kept scoring chances relatively low (seven against) and high-danger chances very low (three). Score effects played a role in all the attempts and shots against, but suppressing the quality of LA’s offense made sure Knight didn’t have to do it all alone. One day, the Blackhawks will suppress quantity and quality, but I’ll take these baby steps.

On the topic of Knight, he was obviously outstanding in his debut with the Blackhawks. His toughest period was the first, where he was huge in net, and even if the quality of the chances against him was lower in the latter 40 minutes, the sheer volume total can still be overwhelming — but he was still good against it.

Here are a couple of his big saves early in the game:

The biggest moments of excitement this season, both at games and online, have revolved almost exclusively around the young players, like tonight. Listen to the love the crowd gives Knight:

And look: Knight attempted a goalie goal. What’s not to like here?

As for the rest of the young players, the Blackhawks finally hit the milestone of having at least half their skaters being under the age of 25. Yay! Not everyone succeeded tonight, but there were little moments with basically every young player.

Dach has been playing with a nice physical edge lately, doing so in a smart and effective way, and he had five hits that seemed to work well in their given situations. He kind of lost some of that mojo for a bit there, but it’s been back in force lately. Additionally, Dach was quite good in transition tonight, something that’s not his bread and butter by any means, and his passing was really solid. It was maybe his most offensively impactful game of the season, which is interesting because he didn’t have any shots on goal himself (he did have two attempts).

Lukas Reichel had a really good individual game too, both offensively and defensively. It wasn’t quite as noticeable as Dach, but when Reichel is really in the zone, it’s really fun to watch him fly out there. He particularly used his speed well in this game. Like Dach, Reichel did not have a shot on goal, but he set up his teammates at the third best rate behind Teravainen and Connor Bedard. Craig Smith was the recipient of several great setups, though none of the resulting shot attempts (three) were on net.

The line with Connor Bedard, Landon Slaggert, and Frank Nazar was the only Blackhawks line that was really dominated in terms of shot metrics this game, which is a bit disappointing. When that trio was on the ice, shot attempts were 16-6 and shots on goal were 6-3 in favor of the Kings and the Blackhawks owned just 28.48 percent of the expected goals. The three kids themselves combined for just four shot attempts, three shots on goal, and three scoring chances at 5-on-5. I’d still like to keep them together for a few more games to see if they could get it going, though.

Below is one of Bedard’s chances tonight. There weren’t quite enough of these, unfortunately, and it’s part of why he’s on a six-game pointless streak at the moment.

And it wouldn’t be a game recap lately without at least one clip of Frank Nazar showing off his speed.

On the back end, Del Mastro easily had the best game among the defenders: he and Alec Martinez were basically even in terms of offensive contributions, but Del Mastro had the edge defensively. He’s always been a smart, thoughtful defender who knows how to use his good positioning and long reach effectively. Del Mastro’s first few games with the Blackhawks were bumpy, but he seems to have really found his groove as of late. He played 19:18 tonight, third most among defenders.

Louis Crevier and Wyatt Kaiser both had decent defensive games as well, although they didn’t have much going on offensively. Alex Vlasic was solid too, though he seemed more focused on playing simple, low-risk hockey tonight. He’s the guy the Blackhawks will lean on the most with the absence of Seth Jones — already tonight, he was a minutes-eater with over 24 minutes.

Soresen has made some head-scratching decisions as the interim head coach, but there is no denying that he’s gotten the defense more involved in the offense, something almost all successful teams in the NHL do well.

Beyond the kids, the two players I liked the most tonight were Teravainen and Donato. Terevainen led the team in shot attempts (5) and scoring chances (4), and while none resulted in a goal, it’s still cool to see since he’s typically more a pass-first guy. His playmaking was still the most exciting part of his game tonight, because he really can just control the puck at will sometimes.

Donato also had another really strong game tonight: tied for second in shot attempts (4) and scoring chances (3), tied for most high-danger chances (2), had the highest individual expected goal score (1.05), and picked up a goal and an assist. Yes, the goal was a empty netter, but that’s just because the posts were out to get him tonight.

Connor Murphy was the veteran on the blue line that had an impact on the game tonight as well, playing big minutes (21:54) in the toughest defensive assignments. Here is his big hit on Quinton Byfield early in the game:

Bringing it back around to the goalies: it sure sounds like, unless someone is traded, the Blackhawks will carry and possibly rotate all three for the rest of the season. That’ll be interesting.

In injury news, Jason Dickinson (high ankle sprain) was seen walking without a boot for the first time, so it looks like he could be close to getting back on the ice with the team. His timeline as of Feb. 18 was two to three more weeks, so that fits.

Game Charts

Three Stars

  1. Spencer Knight (CHI) — 41 saves on 42 shots, .976 save percentage in debut
  2. Ryan Donato (CHI) — 1 goal, 1 assist
  3. Teuvo Teravainen (CHI) — 2 assists

What’s Next

The Blackhawks host the Ottawa Senators on Wednesday night at 6:30 p.m.

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