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The Beautiful Ones: Blackhawks 2, Wild 1

The Blackhawks did something in this game that they hadn’t done since the 2010s.

Posted on by Dave Melton
Credit: Matt Blewett-Imagn Images

For the first time in far, far too long, the Blackhawks recorded a regulation victory against the Minnesota Wild, winning 2-1 over their divisional rivals on Thursday night in St. Paul.

With about 3:30 left in the first, Chicago opened the scoring when Andrew Mangiapane set up Ilya Mikheyev up at the back door for an easy tap-in goal:

Near the middle of the second, Connor Bedard scored the eventual game-winner by forcing a turnover at his own blue line and then taking off for a breakaway that he finished in the back of the Wild net:

With about four minutes left in the second, Nico Sturm made it a 2-1 game with this shot from the faceoff dot:

Minnesota would get no closer on the scoreboard, though. The Wild hit a couple of posts during a 5-on-3 power play in the third and came within inches of a tying goal in the game’s final seconds, but a quick stick from Alex Vlasic preserved the Hawks’ victory.

Notes

Bedard’s timing on that breakaway goal was so good and let’s just assume it wasn’t an accident. As soon as Johansson tries to reach around to Bedard’s right for a stick lift, Bedard moves the puck to his backhand before he deposits it into the net:

Jeff Blashill stated the obvious after Tuesday’s game, that the Hawks needed to start better — and that happened in this game. Chicago owned every possession metric during 18:00 of 5-on-5 play in the first: 17-12 in shot attempts, 8-6 in shots on goal, 10-2 in scoring chances and 6-2 in high-danger scoring chances, all adding up to an expected goal share of 70.98 percent. Much better than 48 hours prior, when Minnesota had a 94 percent 5-on-5 expected goal share during the first period.

There wasn’t much of a let-up in the final two periods, either. In 47:17 of 5-on-5 ice time this evening, the Hawks limited to the Wild to just FOUR high-danger chances, matching their best mark of the season from a 5-2 win over Calgary in November. Of course, the Wild aren’t quite as formidable of a foe without Kaprizov in the lineup but the Hawks have also had no problem rolling out the red carpet to teams with less firepower than the one it faced in this game.

The double drop pass zone entry that the Hawks use on the power play still looks weird at times because it ends up with one guy moving forward while his four teammates are stationary. But when that one guy is Bedard, sometimes it results in looks like this:

Michael McCarron would be an incredibly easy player to hate if he re-signs with the Wild after this season. How he didn’t get an extra minor or two for assaulting Donato in that third-period scrum remains baffling.

That goal from Sturm is a shot Knight probably stops the other 99 times out of 100, and it appeared that Greene’s deflection of it may have affected Knight as well. Even with Knight allowing a softer goal, though, the Hawks still managed to win the game. How many times have we been able to say that this season?

That’s probably the main takeaway from this one: the Hawks turned in one of their better defensive efforts of the season, allowing them to maintain a two-goal lead for the final 30 minutes of the game. Yeah, the Wild hit a few posts, but so did Bertuzzi on a breakaway in the third period. It still feels like the Hawks are playing a more passive, defensively focused style that has had them under siege when trying to maintain late leads. It didn’t feel that way as much during the 5-on-5 portions of the third period, and that’s due to the Hawks being much better in their own end than they’ve been for the majority of this season. We can only call it growth if there are more games like that over the final month of the season, or it’s just a one-game anomaly. But at least we don’t have to hear about that obnoxiously long losing streak to the Wild anymore, right?!

Game Charts

Three Stars

  1. Connor Bedard (CHI) — GWG
  2. Spencer Knight (CHI) — 28 saves on 29 shots
  3. Ilya Mikheyev (CHI) — 1 goal

What’s Next

The Blackhawks are back in Chicago to host the Avalanche on Friday night at 7:30 p.m.

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