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Disenchanted: Devils 5, Blackhawks 3

A late goal briefly made it interesting before a Devils empty-netter ended things.

Posted on by L_B_R
Credit: David Banks-Imagn Images

The Chicago Blackhawks went down swinging but fell short on Wednesday night, losing 5-3 to the New Jersey Devils at the United Center

The Devils opened the game by scoring two quick goals 27 seconds apart before the seven-minute mark of the first period.

First, the Devils cycled the puck around after a faceoff win, then Luke Hughes sent a slick pass to Nathan Bastian, who was standing open right in front of the net. He knocked the puck in at 6:23 of the period to put the Devils up 1-0.

Second, after Hughes got the puck to Dawson Mercer down low, Mercer powered through the crease and Timo Meier got the last stick on the puck before it was stuffed through under Spencer Knight, doubling the Devils lead to 2-0 at 6:50.

The Blackhawks got within one with a power-play goal of their own at 9:06. The Devils tried to clear after the faceoff, but Artyom Levshunov dove to knock the puck over to Ryan Donato, who then fed Tyler Bertuzzi with a shot-pass that was tipped in, making it 2-1.

The Devils regained their two-goal lead about three minutes into the second period with a shorthanded goal. Jesper Bratt dropped a pass to Ondrej Palat in the right circle as the two criss-crossed on the ice, and Palat sniped the puck far side to put the Devils up 3-1.

Ilya Mikheyev cut the deficit to 3-2 about two seconds after being set up by a cross-ice backhand pass through traffic from Teuvo Teravainen.

The Blackhawks thought they’d tied the game 3-3 just before the 14-minute mark of the second after Ryan Donato deflected a Levshunov into the net, but the goal was overturned after it was determined Donato hit the puck with a high stick.

Mercer restored the Devils two-goal lead for the second time this game with just under 10 minutes left in the third. While on the power play, Hughes got the puck to Mercer, who skated in to shoot a wrister from the left circle that went post and in, putting the Devils up 4-2.

Frank Nazar cut the Devils’ lead to 4-3 with 2:50 left in the third. With Knight pulled for the extra attacker, the Blackhawks pressured until a Levshunov shot made it through and Nazar cleaned up the rebound.

Unfortunately, Stefan Noesen scored an empty-net goal with 13 seconds remaining to put this one away 5-3.

Notes

The Blackhawks had an iffy first period: it wasn’t as terrible as a lot of their opening periods have been this season, but the Devils had their way most of the time. There were little pockets of time when the Blackhawks were pressing well but the chances weren’t particularly dangerous — they had just one high-danger chance that period — and those moments of good play would be followed up by the Devils beating them back soundly. The final shot attempts were 18-13 and shots 6-4 in favor of the Devils and the Blackhawks managed just a 21.31 percent share of the expected goals.

The second period was better in the sense that the Blackhawks definitely had the puck more, but they still didn’t generate much in terms of quality chances. In fact, they had zero chances that qualified as high-danger at 5-on-5 and only four scoring chances in general. The Blackhawks scored their lone goal of the period during a nice bit of pressure and carried that momentum for a but, but the penalty on Landon Slaggert killed that for a while. We’ll get more into that call below, but it’s very annoying that the referees who supposedly don’t want to impact the game still always find a way. The Blackhawks finished with the edge in shot attempts (15-11) and shots on goal (5-4) but owned only 32.41 percent of the expected goals.

The Blackhawks at least didn’t go down without a fight in their third. Too often this season, the Blackhawks would kind of lay down if they went into the third down multiple goals, but they didn’t seem to ever give up on this game. It just also wasn’t really effective, but that’s where the quality difference between New Jersey and Chicago comes into play. The Devils did a really nice job defensively to suppress the Blackhawks at 5-on-5 — keeping the latter team to eight shots on goal and one high-danger chance in the final period — but the Blackhawks had some strong moments with the goalie pulled, adding five shots on goal and two high-danger chances in a short span. Chicago was rewarded with one goal, but fell short on the full comeback.

Here’s how close the Blackhawks were from getting that third goal even sooner:

Overall, this was an OK game by the Blackhawks: the Devils were the better team the entire game but the Blackhawks had enough bright spots for it to be entertaining and the effort was there. Probably could be considered a good tank game, though it seems unlikely the Blackhawks land in last place despite there being only four points separating them from the San Jose Sharks.

Let’s talk about the Bedard, Slaggert, and Simon Nemec mess a little bit. Looking closer, it looks like Nemec’s stick got caught on Bedard, which caused the initial takedown and Bedard may have held on to the stick a little during the scuffle. But I don’t see how the referee, who was basically in the opposite corner looking at their back, could have seen anything other than a player being pushed to the ice and the subsequent shoves of Bedard to the ice. No one really should have been given a penalty at all, but I’d have preferred penalties for everyone involved — Bedard for holding the stick, Nemec and Slaggert for roughing — over Slaggert being given the only one. It’s especially annoying because the referees held their whistles for so much in tonight’s game, so why call that there? The lack of consistency continues to be the major complaint against referees.

The other point I want to touch on is not related to the referees but the coach: a lot of people are upset that Anders Sorsenen never really reacts to calls on the ice, no matter how bad they may be. There’s been a lot of commentary over the last few weeks about how maybe the Blackhawks could get more calls if their coach made a bigger stink, and if not, then at least the coach would be showing he backed the players on the ice. I’m not sure every coach has to blow up at bad call like Coach Q grabbing his crotch and kicking a towel while standing on the bench, but doing an impression of a cardboard cutout like Sorensen was tonight isn’t useful either. A happy medium, you know?

However, that’s not Sorensen’s personality, so it’s just never going to happen and I’m not sure it’s that big a deal in the grand scheme of things — and some of this is fans wanted to yell at refs vicariously through a coach, let’s be honest. Sorsensen was asked why he doesn’t react more on the bench and he basically said “it wouldn’t make a difference, so why bother?”

The first goal against where Bastian was left wide open was Wyatt Kaiser’s mistake obviously, but I’m going to cut him some slack because he was partnered with Levshunov tonight, which is like being put on babysitting duty while Levshunov is still figuring out what works best for him and no one wants to stifle that. In this instance, Levshunov was in the correct place, but it’s been very hit or miss for him on coverage in the NHL and all his defensive partners have been cheating in case Levshunov decides to be too aggressive. Kaiser isn’t alone in having a moment like this while being paired with Levshunov, it just bit him in this particular instance. I’m going to drop the comment from JimL23 because I think he explained this more succinctly and adds how this relates a bit to Duncan Keith early in his career.

Speaking of Levshunov, this was a solid game for him overall, mostly because he was pretty impactful offensively. Good keeps at the blue line and cycling, solid passing in the offensive zone, had four shot attempts and two on net, and finished with two assists. His shot selection was better this game as well, but there’s room to still improve. He’s still learning when he can be aggressive, both offensively and defensively, and it shows at times with mistakes, but he’s a work in progress for a reason. Levshunov and Kaiser are going to be at the bottom of the Game Score card below, but that seemed to be more about who they were on the ice with rather than them as a pairing.

Below is a good clip of how both young defensemen work on the cycle. There’s a lot of passing, but the puck movement and skating is excellent. Also has an example of Levshunov not always having the best shot selection at the 18-minute mark as he shoots directly into the guy standing like eight feet from him (he wasn’t alone, Nazar’s shot attempt wasn’t well timed either). But the overall cycling in this clip was one of the best displays from the Blackhawks lately.

And here is another look at the diving keep-in before the Bertuzzi goal. Can’t knock his effort, that’s for sure:

Interestingly, Sorensen has been giving Levshunov a lot of playing time despite the mistakes, as he was over 24 minutes tonight. Personally, I’m all for it — my mantra has been “let the kids play through their mistakes” all season — but I say it’s interesting because that amount of leash has not been awarded equally to all young players this season. Oh well, I’ll take it regardless.

Levshunov was moved to be with Vlasic part way through the game, but I don’t think that was due to Kaiser playing poorly by any means.

The rest of the defense was just so-so overall. I didn’t mind Ethan Del Mastro and Louis Crevier had a couple of solid individual defensive efforts (did not play a lot at 13:33 5-on-5, though), but Connor Murphy had issues keeping up with the Devils speed often and Alex Vlasic hasn’t really been his best self for a few weeks at least. Murphy did lead the team in shot attempts at 5-on-5, which is interesting, but I’m more interested in my defenders defending and that was where he had some problems tonight.

The Pat Maroon turnover on the power play was a bummer, but that whole power play was pretty terrible so he’s not the only one to blame for the shorthanded goal against. The power play this season has converted a lot and is just outside the top-five in the league, but sometimes it’s still clown shoes out there.

The Donato disallowed goal due to a high stick was probably the right call, but it was surprising they called it back because it was so very close and there didn’t seem to be conclusive video showing it was high. Usually with a situation that close, they go with the call on the ice but didn’t here. Lack of consistency is my complaint here, really.

Bedard and Nazar both had some really beautiful offensive moments himself in this game, they’re such a fun combination. Their line with Donato was on the wrong side of the shot stats — out-attempted 19-10, outshot 5-4, and had only 22.54 percent of the expected goals — but there are enough moments when, if the Blackhawks were a better puck possession team, you’d know these two would combine for a ton of points.

Here is the bit of the TNT crew talking about Bedard on the wing for those interested:

Just to note, the only Blackhawks line that was above water in terms of shots metrics was the Teravainen, Mikheyev and Nick Foligno line. Chicago owned 64.29 percent of the shot attempts, 66.67 percent of the shots on goal, and 73.34 percent of the expected goals with them on the ice. The Lukas Reichel, Landon Slaggert, and Pat Maroon line was even for shot attempts but in the negative everywhere else. The other two main lines didn’t break 40 percent on any shot category.

Game Charts

Three Stars

  1. Luke Hughes (NJD) — 3 assists
  2. Dawson Mercer (NJD) — 1 goal, 1 assist
  3. Artyom Levshunov (CHI) — 2 assists

What’s Next

The Blackhawks continue their homestand by hosting the Vegas Golden Knights on Friday at 7:30 p.m.

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