The Blackhawks played perhaps their most lackluster game of the preseason against the Capitals on Wednesday night, falling 6-0 to move their preseason record to 2-2-1. Corey Crawford once again took the net, but he can’t be faulted for much, due to the performance the team put on before him.
The first period was sluggish and slow as the Blackhawks were outshot 10-7, despite having both of the period’s power plays. The power play did not look great, and they failed to get a shot on net during the first opportunity. The highlight before the game was likely the line of Patrick Kane, Alex DeBrincat, and Dylan Strome, and they did not look great either, failing to connect on several excellent scoring chances.
The Capitals, meanwhile, started the scoring with a tip in from Liam O’Brien, who was left alone at net front with Boqvist losing an edge near the faceoff dot. The Capitals followed it later in the period with a shot from John Carlson after a failed clear by the Olli Maatta-Brent Seabrook pairing, and Maatta and Nicklas Backstrom screening Crawford.
The second period didn’t go much better. The lone highlight of the first 40 minutes was Alex Nylander making a post-to-post pass to Erik Gustafsson which Gustafsson failed to score on.
The Capitals added two more goals, with Tom Wilson scoring on a shorthanded 2-on-1 and Lars Eller scoring from the goal post about seven minutes afterward to make it 4-0. Chicago’s power play had two more opportunities which resulted in one goal against and not much else.
The third period had what may have been the highlight of the whole game for the Blackhawks: the penalty kill. They successfully killed off two power plays in the third period (although Jakub Vrana scored to make it 5-0 immediately after the first one), and they looked impressive? At the very least, more impressive than anything else the Blackhawks had going on in this game.
Lars Eller scored his second goal of the game to make it 6-0, but the Capitals would fail on their PAT attempt so at least there’s that.
Some thoughts
- Dominik Kubalik was still impressive in this game. He didn’t allow a goal against (again, there were six of them, so a hard feat) and collected five shots, never giving up on the very give-up-able game. He continues to look like an excellent pickup for the Blackhawks and probably past the roster bubble long ago.
- Adam Boqvist was eventually moved up to the first pairing with Duncan Keith and played some minutes on the excellent penalty kill. While that’s probably not in the cards this season (with Calvin De Haan, Olli Maatta and Connor Murphy), it’s nice to know he’s able to do so for the future. Besides the goal where Boqvist lost his edge, he had a good night, and was noticeable, in a good way, offensively.
- Alex Nylander had the play of the night on that cross-ice pass to Gustafsson, but besides that, continued to look out of place at times.
- Andrew Shaw-Ryan Carpenter-Anton Wedin was an effective fourth line, but most of that was the play of Shaw, who made a few plays but allowed the sixth goal to happen. He got in a fight early in the game but left his mark in other ways./
Game Charts
Three Stars
- Lars Eller (WSH) – 2 goals, 1 assist
- Jakub Vrana (WSH) – 1 goal, 2 assists
- John Carlson (WSH) – 1 goal, 1 assist
What’s Next?
The Blackhawks head to Berlin, Germany to take on the Eisbaren in an international friendly on Sunday. The day before, the Rockford IceHogs head to Boston to play the Bruins.