The Chicago Blackhawks winning ways were stopped before they can get started — which is typical for this season, as they’ve yet to win two games in a row — as they fell 4-2 to the St. Louis Blues on Sunday afternoon.
The Blues got on the board early with a breakaway goal by Jake Neighbors 3:21 into the game. Neighbors beat a tired Kevin Korchinski and finished with a slick backhand to tuck the puck behind the sprawling pads of Arvid Söderblom.
Kevin Hayes gave the Blues a 2-0 lead a couple of minutes later with a short-side snipe into the top corner.
The Blackhawks cut the lead in half after Ryan Donato tipped a long point shot from Issak Phillips past Jordan Binnington at the 14:45 mark of the first.
The Blues regained their two-goal lead with 2:58 remaining in the opening frame. A beautiful high-low pass from Robert Thomas found Pavel Buchnevich open on the back door, who scored to put the Blues up 3-1.
After no scoring happened in the second period and over half of the third, the Blues went up 4-1 about 14 minutes into the final frame with Neighbors’ second goal of the game. Korchinski turned the puck over to Buchnevich behind the net, and he fed Neightbors in the slot for a one-timer.
The Blackhawks put up a fight to the end with a goal from Boris Katchouk with just over a minute left in the game, but it was, unfortunately, too little too late.
Notes
- It isn’t often this season the Blackhawks are in the positive when it comes to shot metrics, but this is one such game. Some of this is definitely score effects — the Blackhawks didn’t “turn it on” until they were down two goals, and it was more about quantity than quality. Scoring chances were Blackhawks 29-28 but high-danger chances still favored the Blues 13-11. It’s still a positive trend overall, even if the slow start did ultimately doom them.
- The quality part was partially due to the Blues just being better on the forecheck and cycle, honestly. Coach Luke Richardson alluded to this post-game, calling the Blues “hungrier”:
- That’s a pretty good game from the Hawks, but it’s still an outlier, as Chicago is currently in the bottom 40 percent of the league in every shot percentage category. There have been a lot of complaints about the offense, which is bad, but defensively they’re one of the worst, too: 29th in the rate of shot attempts against (65.18 per 60), 30th in the rate of shots against (33.23 per 60), and 32nd in the rate of expected goals against (3.16 per 60).
- Has Soderblom been rough to start this season? Absolutely. Does that mean the Blackhawks should throw in the towel on him? No. He was coming off a great game against Toronto, so I like that they went back to him, even if he had obvious issues. I also don’t know if Soderblom will be the goalie of the Blackhawks future, but it’d be silly to write him off right now when we objectively know it takes goalies longer to develop — both in terms of the league in general but also our own Blackhawks examples:
- At the same age, Corey Crawford was still in the AHL with “meh” numbers: save percentages of .898, .909, .907, .917, and .909. He was still up and down the first two years — everyone remembers the terrible 2011-12 season, especially the abysmal performance in those playoffs — but he went on to be an absolute rock. I’m not claiming Soderblom will be Crawford good, but the Blackhawks would be a couple of Cups shorter if they’d given up on Crow during his rocky development years.
- Or even look at Kevin Lankinen, who some wish the Blackhawks had kept — myself included. He was also in the AHL (and spent some time in the ECHL) at the same as Soderblom is now with two average seasons in smaller samples, posting a .910 SV% in 19 games and .909 in 21, respectively. Lankinen also had a rocky start in the NHL as a backup, with numbers of .909 and .891, respectively. He didn’t have his first statistically good season in the NHL until he was 27. If your argument is the Blackhawks shouldn’t have given up on a 27-year-old Lankinen with four so-so at best pro seasons under his belt, then perhaps they should give 24-year-old Soderblom a little more runway too.
- That being said, Soderblom definitely has some things he needs to work on: specifically, rebound control (7.24 per 60 is horrible), reaction time, and taking too long to warm up. Goals 1 and 4 were the ones he’d want back. Interesting note about rebounds in this particular game, though: Binnington is credited with creating twice as many rebounds (8) as Soderblom (4).
- This wasn’t a great one from Korchinski, which is bound to happen when you’re talking about a 19-year-old defenseman playing his first pro season. A few too many turnovers, including one that directly led to a goal, and some puck mismanagement on the offensive side of things. He was also beat on the first goal against, but to be fair, he’d been out on the ice for a little bit by that point.
- Connor Murphy was the other defenseman that seemed out of sorts this game. He spoke about his misplay on the PK a bit post-game:
- The fourth line of Donato, Boris Katchouk, and Reese Johnson was arguably the best performing one of the night, though part of that is due to playing against lower quality of competition. R. Johnson was robbed by Binnington at one point, and it might have been a different game if that one goes in.
- Bedard, Philipp Kurashev, and Lukas Reichel did pretty well as a line again, but gosh are those unforced errors like missing open nets frustrating — the latter two in particular had some shooting issues. Still, I’d rather be watching the kids make mistakes than not.
- Isaak Phillips and Wyatt Kaiser have quietly put together a string of good-to-great games as a pairing. Both worked through early kinks when they first got to the NHL, and have arguably been the most steady pairing since being united. Granted, they do not get top opponents regularly or as much as ice time, but it’s important to note the improvement.
- Even though there is mystery surrounding one of The Old Guys, Nick Foligno continues to be a good pickup by the Blackhawks, especially off the ice, where everyone seems to consider him the unofficial captain.
Game Charts
Three Stars
- Pavel Buchnevich (STL) — 1 goal, 2 assists
- Jake Neightbors (STL) — 2 goals
- Jordan Binnington (STL) — .941 save percentage on 34 shots
What’s Next
The Blackhawks host the Seattle Kraken at the United Center on Tuesday night for a 7:30 p.m. start.