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Darkness Falls Across The Land: Jets 6, Blackhawks 3

Chicago’s road trip opens with a thud.

Posted on by L_B_R
Credit: Terrence Lee-Imagn Images

The first night of a six-game road trip did not go the Blackhawks way, as Chicago lost 6-3 to the Winnipeg Jets on Thursday night up in Canada.

The Jets got on the board first, scoring less than two minutes into the first period. Vladislav Namestnikov finished off a slick passing sequence from Gustav Nyquist and Nino Niederreiter, converting on the power play to give Winnipeg a 1–0 lead.

The Blackhawks tied the game 1–1 at 8:37 of the first period when Connor Murphy’s dump-in took an unexpected bounce off the end boards, landing right on the stick of Teuvo Teravainen, who capitalized with Connor Hellebuyck caught out of the net.

Gabriel Vilardi restored the Jets’ lead late in the period, finishing a 2-on-1 rush set up by Mark Scheifele to make it 2–1 with 3:04 remaining in the first.

The Jets struck early once again, extending their lead to 3–1 just 1:54 into the second period. Kyle Connor carried the puck into the zone and fed Mark Scheifele, who fired a wrist shot from the faceoff dot that beat Spencer Knight five-hole.

Vilardi buried his second goal of the game midway through the second period, one-timing a nice feed from Dylan DeMelo to extend the Jets’ lead to 4–1.

Josh Morrissey pushed the Jets’ lead to 5–1 at 10:12 of the third period with a point shot that rang off the post before deflecting in off Knight’s skate. Credit to Jonathan Toews, who fed the puck from below the goal line out to DeMelo at the point to set up the scoring chance.

The Blackhawks showed some pushback late in the game, scoring twice in just over two minutes. Alex Vlasic struck first at 13:02 of the third, burying a rebound in tight to make it 5–2. His unassisted goal came after Connor Murphy’s point shot created the initial chance.

Then, at 15:03, Andre Burakovsky brought Chicago within two, pulling off a highlight-reel, between-the-legs finish after a slick high-low feed from Connor Bedard straight down the slot.

Unfortunately for the Blackhawks, the Jets added another late goal with 2:41 remaining. Connor drove to the net and roofed a backhander over Knight’s shoulder, sealing the 6–3 victory.

Notes

Well, a game like this was bound to happen. Arguably, the Blackhawks played better as a team in this one, but individual mistakes were costly, and Knight wasn’t able to bail them out as much as he has in other games.

The Jets came out strong, building off the momentum from their early power-play goal, but the Blackhawks responded nicely and evened things up by the end of the first period. Shot metrics at 5-on-5 were close, but Chicago had a slight edge: shot attempts were 15–14, shots on goal were 5–4, scoring chances were 9–8, and high-danger chances were 7–6. It sucks that the last Jets goal came when the Blackhawks were on a roll, but these things happen in hockey.

The second period was also fairly close, though it featured more back-and-forth pushes from both teams. The Blackhawks definitely had the puck more this period — probably more than in any other second period this season, outside of the Blues game — but their mistakes were even more costly. They also didn’t do as much with the puck when they had it: after seven high-danger chances in the first, they managed just two in the second. The period ended with Chicago owning 53.57 percent of the shot attempts but only 40.76 percent of the expected goals, so quality favored Winnipeg.

Normally, a game feels out of reach when there’s a four-goal difference, but credit to the Blackhawks for rallying back somewhat and getting those two goals in the third. Yeah, the Jets put it away with their sixth, but it’s still admirable that the Blackhawks didn’t give up. Statistically, this was Chicago’s best period — 55.88 percent of the shot attempts and 66.67 percent of the expected goals — though high-danger chances were still low (four), and score effects definitely played a role.

So, ultimately, not a bad game from the Blackhawks as a team — or at least not as bad as the score suggests — but the breakdowns at the individual level really bit them.

When I say individual mistakes, I mean plays like Louis Crevier’s on the second goal against. Crevier hasn’t even played a full NHL season yet, so errors like that are bound to happen with young, inexperienced guys.

It also obviously didn’t help that the Blackhawks were already down Ilya Mikheyev at the start of the game and then lost Jason Dickinson in the second period, their two best defensive veterans. Their already short forward bench went down to 10 in-game, which is just not ideal and one of the issues with running 11F/7D.

This wasn’t Knight’s best game, but I wouldn’t pin the loss on him — he was probably due for a down night anyway. Only one goal was really soft (the Scheifele one), while some were just legitimately good (like the very Patrick Kane–esque goal from Connor) or plain lucky (Morrissey’s deflection). He just didn’t come up with a few of the tough-but-stoppable ones — like Vilardi’s — that he’s been saving earlier this season.

I won’t go too deep into individual player reviews because, honestly, everyone was basically fine overall — just a few miscues here and there. A few top-level notes, though: Sam Rinzel led all skaters with six shot attempts at 5-on-5, while Bedard, Frank Nazar, Teuvo Teravainen, and Tyler Bertuzzi each had five. Nazar and Teravainen were the best at getting them through (3 shots on goal apiece), while Bedard led in scoring chances (4).

When you factor in power-play attempts, Rinzel, Bedard, and Nazar each finished with seven total — meaning those three accounted for about 37 percent of the team’s total shot attempts (57). Also, really liked Ryan Greene’s game tonight. I don’t think he’s a long-term top-line solution, but he’s holding his own and making things happen — three attempts with two on goal, and three scoring chances with two high-danger.

And, of course, the Burakovsky goal was awesome. We’ve been talking about his connection with Bedard for a while and we’d still like to see Bedard get set up in more scoring opportunities than the other way around, but this one was sweet:

Game Charts

Three Stars

  1. Gabriel Vilardi (WPG) — 2 goals, 1 assist
  2. Kyle Connor (WPG) — 1 goal, 2 assists
  3. Mark Scheifele (WPG) — 1 goal, 2 assists

What’s Next

The Blackhawks kick off November in Edmonton to face the Oilers on Saturday at 9 p.m.

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