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Just Watch the Fireworks: Blackhawks 5, Sharks 2

All’s well that ends well?

Posted on by Dave Melton
Credit: David Banks-Imagn Images

The Blackhawks ended the 2025-26 season on a positive note, rallying from a two-goal deficit to beat the San Jose Sharks 5-2 at the United Center on Wednesday night.

San Jose opened the scoring eight minutes into the game when this Mario Ferraro shot was stopped by Spencer Knight but the rebound ricocheted into the net off of Ethan Del Mastro:

The Blackhawks did not have a shot on goal during the first 16 minutes of this game. The UC faithful responded in kind when it finally happened:

The second came moments later at the end of this unsuccessful Ilya Mikheyev penalty shot:

About five minutes into the second period, San Jose went up 2-0 when this attempted pass from Michael Misa pinballed into the goal:

Chicago got one back in the final minute of the second when Sam Rinzel scored on this shot from a bad angle that somehow ended up in the Sharks net:

And then the third period started, and the Hawks completely took over. First, Louis Crevier tied the game at two by perfectly anticipating the bounce on this Connor Bedard saucer pass:

That goal came about four minutes into the third period and, about four minutes later, Ethan Del Mastro hit Ryan Greene with this perfect pass to put the Hawks ahead for good:

Chicago went up 4-2 on Crevier’s second of the game about two minutes after Greene’s goal:

For a final insurance boost — and the final goal of the season — Nick Lardis buried his 10th of the season:

And thus concludes the 2025-26 Blackhawks season.

Notes

Full transparency: after San Jose went up 2-0, I was already starting to take a look at the Hawks collective numbers since the trade deadline — assuming that they’d be pretty bad — and use that as some sort of discussion about the bigger picture here, since so many of the kids who are supposed to be big pieces of this rebuild puzzle were making significant contributions to those numbers.

And then the Hawks went and scored four straight goals to end the season, so exploring all that can come at another time.

Given how the last month or so has unfolded, it wouldn’t have been a shock if the Hawks packed it up after going behind 2-0 in Game 82 and started texting travel agents during the first intermission. But they didn’t do that, kept things close enough in the second and then damn near ran the Sharks out of the building in the third. In 18:00 of 5-on-5 ice time during the third, the Chicago advantages were: 22-11 in shot attempts, 11-4 in shots on goal, 11-3 in scoring chances and 6-0 in high-danger chances, all for a 79.5 percent expected goal share in the final frame. It won’t mean much beyond this evening but there’s no reason to get into anything else. Instead, let’s just savor these final two points of the 2025-26 season because we all know damn well how difficult those points were to obtain.

We’ll end with these postgame thoughts from Louis Crevier — the leading goal scorer among Blackhawks blue-liners this season, just like we all thought! He was asked about the difference in the final 20 minutes of this game and it seems to summarize the challenge ahead for this group:

“We’re young but we’re professional. we came out hard and that’s what happens when we play our hockey: we’re a good team. We’ve just gotta be consistent.”

That’s the million dollar question, then, isn’t it?

Before we go: while that’s the final game of this 2025-26 season we’re absolutely not done around these parts and we’ll have a ton more coming your way as we process everything that’s happened over the last six months — and even the last six hours! On behalf of the entire SCH crew, our deepest, most profound thanks to everyone in the SCH community at large for joining us on this ride of another Blackhawks season. We appreciate each and every person who stops by our little corner of the internet, no matter how long those stays last. But a special thanks goes out to all of the people who’ve supported us with their subscriptions to the site, because we quite literally would not be able to continue this venture without that support. The sports media world remains a treacherous one, and that we’re now beyond three years as an independent destination for Blackhawks coverage makes us an increasingly rare beast. We have no idea where this team is going next, but we hope you’ll continue to tag along as we follow it.

See you in the comments. Cheers.

Game Charts

Three Stars

  1. Louis Crevier (CHI) — 2 goals
  2. Connor Bedard (CHI) — 2 assists
  3. Ryan Greene (CHI) — 1 goal

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