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Smells Like Teen Spirit: Blackhawks 4, Kraken 2

Posted on by Shepard Price

The Blackhawks extended their winning streak to four games with a 4-2 victory over the NHL’s newest team, the Seattle Kraken in the first of a a four-game road trip for the Blackhawks.

With the win, newly instated head coach Derek King improved his record to 4-0 at the helm. The highlight of the night may have been Alex DeBrincat’s Gordie Howe hat trick, as he scored a goal, added a primary assist and fought Yanni Gourde.

Seth Jones started the scoring in the first period after quite the display of passing, staring with Kirby Dach in the defensive end, to Patrick Kane to DeBrincat to Jones at net-front:

This was Jones’s 300th career NHL point.

Two minutes into the second period, DeBrincat picked up another goal on the season, as a pass from Dach in the defensive zone found DeBrincat on the breakaway with just Jamie Oleksiak to beat:

DeBrincat now leads the team with nine goals this season and has five in his last six games.

Kane added another goal in the third period while DeBrincat was in the press box for fighting Gourde. With Philipp Kurashev on the other wing, the youngster skated the puck into the zone and set Kane up for the shot:

Kane is riding a four-game point streak with points in seven of the last eight.

The Kraken would get on the board in the third period with Dach in the box for slashing, as Jared McCann scored on a rebound to make it 3-1 in favor of the Blackhawks.

Yanni Gourde tacked on another goal for Seattle with Philipp Grubauer on the bench, bringing the game back within one.

Jake McCabe cemented the game with a full-rink, empty-net goal.

Notes

  • Although he ended the game on a down note, Marc-Andre Fleury was excellent for much of the game, making 31 saves on 33 shots, including nine of 10 from high-danger. Fleury saved 0.75 goals above expected with a .939 save percentage, although no save of his was as impressive as this one: /

  • In a complete 5-on-5 period in the first, the Blackhawks defense was exactly what you want to see moving forward, keeping the Kraken to just three shots on goal, with one high-danger chance and 0.16 expected goals. The problem is, the very next period the Blackhawks gave up 1.41 expected goals and 16 shots. Good things never last long with this team, apparently.
  • Caleb Jones made his debut with the Blackhawks in this game, playing for the first time in his career with his brother. C. Jones returned from a wrist injury and finished the game with 9:52 of ice time — only Henrik Borgstrom’s 7:35 was lower. C. Jones was credit with a shot on goal and a shot blocked to go with a shot share of 36.36 percent. There have been better debuts.
  • Speaking of shot shares, the line of DeBrincat, Dach and Kane finished with an 80 percent in 13:33 together at 5-on-5 with a 62.16 percent expected goal share. That’s what you want to see out of the line that should be generating a fair bit of the Blackhawks’ offense, and it resulted in a 2-0 goal tally with that line on ice.
  • The top two finishers in expected goal share for the Blackhawks were Calvin de Haan (86.87 percent) and Seth Jones (79.34). This was a much better game from S. Jones than we saw at the beginning of the season and he continues to look better under new direction. Weird./

Game Charts

Three stars

  1. Alex DeBrincat (CHI) – 1 goal, 1 assist, 1 fight (Gordie Howe hat trick)
  2. Patrick Kane (CHI) – 1 goal, 1 assist
  3. Marc-Andre Fleury (CHI) — 31 saves, 9 from high danger, 2.75 expected goals against

What’s next

The Blackhawks continue the road trip against the Oilers at Rogers Place in Edmonton on Saturday at 9 p.m.

Talking Points