A wild night in Vegas saw the Blackhawks fall behind by four goals early and then make things a little bit interesting with a fake rally that ultimately fell short in a 7-5 loss to the Golden Knights on Thursday night.
In a sign of what was to come for the rest of the open 20, Keegan Kolesar scored 66 seconds into the game:
Vegas goal! Scored by Keegan Kolesar with 18:54 remaining in the 1st period. Assisted by Brett Howden. Vegas: 1 Chicago: 0 #CHIvsVGK #VegasBorn #Blackhawks
— NHL Goals (@nhlgoals.bsky.social) February 27, 2025 at 9:18 PM
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Nick Foligno, who exited the game later in the first period and did not return, tied the game up with this
Chicago goal! Scored by Nick Foligno with 13:02 remaining in the 1st period. Assisted by Alex Vlasic and Teuvo Teravainen. Vegas: 1 Chicago: 1 #CHIvsVGK #VegasBorn #Blackhawks
— NHL Goals (@nhlgoals.bsky.social) February 27, 2025 at 9:31 PM
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Two minutes later, VGK retook the lead for good when a fortunate bounce for the home side landed on the stick of Nicolas Hague for one of the easier goals he’ll score this season:
Vegas goal! Scored by Nicolas Hague with 11:03 remaining in the 1st period. Assisted by Brett Howden and Ivan Barbashev. Vegas: 2 Chicago: 1 #CHIvsVGK #VegasBorn #Blackhawks
— NHL Goals (@nhlgoals.bsky.social) February 27, 2025 at 9:34 PM
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Ivan Barbashev picked up the third when he got a piece of this one-timer from Alex Pietrangelo at the point:
Power play goal for Vegas! Scored by Ivan Barbashev with 07:43 remaining in the 1st period. Assisted by Alex Pietrangelo and Victor Olofsson. Vegas: 3 Chicago: 1 #CHIvsVGK #VegasBorn #Blackhawks
— NHL Goals (@nhlgoals.bsky.social) February 27, 2025 at 9:41 PM
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Tomas Hertl added another PPG to make it a 4-1 Vegas lead:
Power play goal for Vegas! Scored by Tomas Hertl with 03:06 remaining in the 1st period. Assisted by Jack Eichel and Noah Hanifin. Vegas: 4 Chicago: 1 #CHIvsVGK #VegasBorn #Blackhawks
— NHL Goals (@nhlgoals.bsky.social) February 27, 2025 at 9:55 PM
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And the embarrassments of the first period concluded with this Pavel Dorofeyev goal:
Vegas goal! Scored by Pavel Dorofeyev with 01:03 remaining in the 1st period. Assisted by Tomas Hertl. Vegas: 5 Chicago: 1 #CHIvsVGK #VegasBorn #Blackhawks
— NHL Goals (@nhlgoals.bsky.social) February 27, 2025 at 9:55 PM
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The Blackhawks woke up early in the second, with Colton Dach scoring just over a minute into the middle frame:
Chicago goal! Scored by Colton Dach with 18:59 remaining in the 2nd period. Assisted by Frank Nazar and Tyler Bertuzzi. Vegas: 5 Chicago: 2 #CHIvsVGK #VegasBorn #Blackhawks
— NHL Goals (@nhlgoals.bsky.social) February 27, 2025 at 10:18 PM
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The game became mildly more interesting about four minutes later, when Ryan Donato made a neat backhand pass across the ice to Ethan Del Mastro, who took advantage of the open space in front of him to snipe the first NHL goal of his career:
Chicago goal! Scored by Ethan Del Mastro with 14:30 remaining in the 2nd period. Assisted by Ryan Donato and Connor Murphy. Vegas: 5 Chicago: 3 #CHIvsVGK #VegasBorn #Blackhawks
— NHL Goals (@nhlgoals.bsky.social) February 27, 2025 at 10:31 PM
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VGK turned the tide back in its favor when Kolesar hopped on this loose puck later in the period for his second of the night:
Vegas goal! Scored by Keegan Kolesar with 06:22 remaining in the 2nd period. Assisted by Ivan Barbashev and Nicolas Roy. Vegas: 6 Chicago: 3 #CHIvsVGK #VegasBorn #Blackhawks
— NHL Goals (@nhlgoals.bsky.social) February 27, 2025 at 10:41 PM
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But Chicago did not go away quietly. In the third, Ilya Mikheyev pulled the Blackhawks within two:
Chicago goal! Scored by Ilya Mikheyev with 13:04 remaining in the 3rd period. Assisted by Frank Nazar and Connor Murphy. Vegas: 6 Chicago: 4 #CHIvsVGK #VegasBorn #Blackhawks
— NHL Goals (@nhlgoals.bsky.social) February 27, 2025 at 11:21 PM
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And then a neat pass from Craig Smith to Philipp Kurashev pulled them within one:
Chicago goal! Scored by Philipp Kurashev with 10:16 remaining in the 3rd period. Assisted by Craig Smith and Connor Murphy. Vegas: 6 Chicago: 5 #CHIvsVGK #VegasBorn #Blackhawks
— NHL Goals (@nhlgoals.bsky.social) February 27, 2025 at 11:31 PM
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But that was as close as the Hawks would get. Barbashev added his second of the night with just over four minutes remaining to put this one to bed, with an assist from the skate of Seth Jones:
Vegas goal! Scored by Ivan Barbashev with 04:15 remaining in the 3rd period. Assisted by Brett Howden and Noah Hanifin. Vegas: 7 Chicago: 5 #CHIvsVGK #VegasBorn #Blackhawks
— NHL Goals (@nhlgoals.bsky.social) February 27, 2025 at 11:42 PM
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Notes
Somewhere between the idea that VGK put things in cruise control after the first period and the idea of crediting Chicago for at least attempting a comeback in the final two periods lies the takeaway from this game. It doesn’t feel quite as bleak as Tuesday’s game because the Blackhawks actually had the puck for portions of it but there’s also no way to feel too good about a game that was 5-1 after 20 minutes.
Oh, hey: four games in a row without a point for Bedard and he only had one shot on goal in this game. Not great. That’ll happen when he spends most of the night on the ice at the same time as the Saad-Eichel-Stone line and his coach continues to do little to find advantageous matchups, even if being on the road makes it more difficult. At least the kid was still busting his ass back to the D zone in the third period to halt an opposing odd-man rush. Pond hockey, though, right?
Good awareness by Bedard to hustle back and negate a potential 2on1 break
— BHF (@BlackhawksFocus) February 28, 2025
Interested to see if this burst from Connor rivals his top speeds this year pic.twitter.com/thbJXz9MBc
On the other side of things: Frank Nazar was all over the freaking ice in this game with a pair of assists in 17:23. Performances like this are becoming more and more consistent, which makes it feel like the long-term projection of him skating in a top-six role for the next decade-plus is within his grasp.
Frank Nazar (2 assists) was great tonight. Sorensen said it was because he was skating hard every shift. Nazar said he's feeling confident and knows "I deserve to be here."
— Ben Pope (@BenPopeCST) February 28, 2025
Frank Nazar tonight
— BHF (@BlackhawksFocus) February 28, 2025
2 assists (both primary)
2 shots
8/16 faceoffs (50%)
17:23 TOI
+2 (7-5 loss)
Created a ton off the rush and on the forecheck#Blackhawks pic.twitter.com/pSWCM4NbtR
Nazar’s doing it on all parts of the game, too:
If Frank Nazar wasn't at the end of a shift, this could have been a self-created breakaway
— BHF (@BlackhawksFocus) February 28, 2025
Really nifty one-handed chip by Nazar pic.twitter.com/AAH5IRzz2o
Sometimes a simple strategy of generating shots on goal when the guy in the opposing net is the team’s backup for a reason can be surprisingly effective. Whoda thunk it?!
Following the sixth Vegas goal — which is a real fun sentence to type — TJ Brodie had just two shifts for the remainder of the game. Barring injury to several other players there’s just no reason to keep throwing him out on the ice because he is a consistent nuisance to this team. At this point, there is nothing he does that Nolan Allan or Ethan Del Mastro or Louis Crevier or Wyatt Kaiser or Kevin Korchinski cannot do, either.
Speaking of Del Mastro, he flexed his offensive muscles a little more last season in Rockford than he has lately because he’s often been paired up with more offensive types like Korchinski and Levshunov. Yeah, he was given more free real estate than you’d ever expect to see in Vegas, but the kid took advantage of that opportunity and unleashed a missile for his first NHL goal. Now keep him in the lineup already, dammit.
That’s what makes a game like this so infuriating because there were plenty of kids who shined over the final 40 minutes after several veterans helped deposit the team in the Mariana Trench by the first intermission. The first two VGK goals were largely aided by a Brodie turnover first and then a bad/slow/lazy Maroon backcheck on the second. What are those two going to learn at this point?
Alex Vlasic was on the ice for four of VGK’s five even-strength goals and had a decent hand in two of them happening. Wouldn’t call this his recent stretch of hockey his best.
Here’s the injury update on Foligno:
Nick Foligno is day to day with a lower body injury, Sorensen said
— Ben Pope (@BenPopeCST) February 28, 2025
So, yeah: not as bad as Tuesday night because we did get some decent moments from a handful of the kids. But a 5-1 deficit after 20 offers another reminder of just how far away this team is from the rest of the field. Hopefully the next game provides some evidence that steps are being taken to close that monumental gap.
Game Charts
Three Stars
- Ivan Barbashev (VGK) — 2 goals, 2 assists
- Keegan Kolesar (VGK) — 2 goals
- Brett Howden (VGK) — 3 assists
What’s Next
The Blackhawks finish off this road trip with a game on Saturday night against the Anaheim Ducks at 9 p.m.