Of course, if there is any team that can break a team’s goalless streak, it’s the Blackhawks. And they did just that on Thursday night at the United Center as the Lightning finally broke out after going without a goal for seven periods, and the Blackhawks fell 4-2 as a result.
The Blackhawks opened the scoring with Lukas Reichel’s first goal of the season — he deflected Philip Kurashev’s shot-pass on the power play to make it 1-0 about 13 minutes into the first period.
The Lightning tied the game 4:40 into the second period with their own deflection while on the power play: this time it was Brayden Point tipping Victor Hedman’s shot-pass.
The Blackhawks did challenge the goal for offsides, but it was ruled a good goal because a player is allowed to cross the blue line ahead of the puck as long as the player is in possession — specifically, controlled possession — of the puck when doing so.
Later on, MikhailĀ Sergachev’s point shot from distance made it through traffic and behind Petr Mrazek to put the Lightning up 2-1 just over nine minutes into the second period.
About two minutes into the third period, the Blackhawks re-tied the game after a tap-in goal from Corey Perry, who started the sequence with a steal in the defensive zone and then Jason Dickinson made a quick touch pass to set up Perry and even things up 2-2.
The Lightning regained the lead with 8:07 left in the third after a big bounce off the boards ended with the puck on Victor Hedman’s stick and he shoveled the puck in behind Mrazek to put Tampa up 3-2.
Brandon “We All Remember Him” Hagel put the game away with an empty-netter to make it 4-2 Lightning in the final minute.
Notes
- Despite leading on the scoreboard after the first, the Blackhawks were pretty much dominated at 5-on-5 that period in terms of zone time and puck possession. That’s not new for the Blackhawks this season, and they’ve managed to win some games with the ice tilted against them, but it’d be nice if they could maybe hang on to the puck just a wee bit more in general.
- The second period breakthrough for the Lightning was just bound to happen with how many chances they were getting, but the Blackhawks did play Tampa tighter for much of the period. It gave a bit of false hope that Chicago was getting better as the game progressed but, alas, that was not the case.
- The third period is where it got a bit depressing: yes, the Blackhawks tied the game at one point, but they were really dog-walked by the Lightning in practically every other way. Chicago had only two shots on goal — the Perry goal and a shot from Kurashev with 1:27 left in the period — thanks to Tampa dictating play. The Lightning didn’t even shoot that much themselves, they just got the lead and then kept the puck to themselves for the rest of the period. It was like watching someone play with their food.
- This game was both the lowest shots on goal in all situations (15) and at 5-on-5 (9) for the Blackhawks this season:
- Honestly, this loss is a bit of come-uppance for the Blackhawks, who have won a few games this season despite being wildly outplayed. They’ve only outshot or tied their opponent in shots once each, respectively, this season. In the other 12 games, they were in the red in terms of shot metrics.
- There are things that are wrong about offsides challenges, but that was technically the right call on the Point goal. The issue isn’t really with this call on this particular play, it’s the lack of consistency in the reviews — they just don’t always call possession / in control the same way. Reviews are still useful and are more fixable that just missing real-time calls that change the destiny of a game — like Game 7 against the Kings in 2014 — but the NHL really needs to figure out more uniformity on these types of reviews. And while they’re at it, they need to enforce a time-limit rule between offside and goal scored.
- On to the good things: Reichel getting his first goal is great to see, and it’s not surprising that it was a deflection, either, as he’s one of the better guys on the team when it comes to hand-eye coordination. Plus, practice makes perfect:
- Though apparently Reichel didn’t know if it was him or Perry that got the last touch initially:
- Speaking of the power play, it was great to see all the young players on a unit together for that goal. Bedard, Reichel, and Korchinski are the future of the Blackhawks — might as well let them start to build chemistry and confidence together during the softest minutes during this transition season. Perry is still there for The Old Guy magic, and he had some comments post-game about how well he thought the new PP looked:
- Am I going to have to root for Perry?
- What I will root for: Dickinson’s touch pass on the Perry goal, which was just slick.
- That line of Perry, Dickinson, and Boris Katchouk were the only line to have a positive shot share, though the shot totals were low: 6-5 for attempts and 4-2 in shots on goal. Still, low-event hockey is perfect for a checking line and they matched up a lot with the Stamkos, Point, Kucherov line, so to kudos to them.
- This was one of the few games when the Bedard line didn’t break even or come out on top. Like the Dickinson line, Bedard mostly matched against the Point line — twice as often too — but was pretty well shut down. It was only Bedard’s second game where he had zero shots on goal at 5-on-5 (the other being against Boston Oct. 19).
- Isaak Phillips had a quietly effective game considering how deep in the red the Blackhawks were in terms of possession. He made a few good plays at the blue line that disrupted the Lightning’s transition, something we don’t see from Blackhawks defensemen often, and used his physicality well (at least once to prevent a goal).
- The Blackhawks schedule picks up a bit in the coming weeks in terms of game frequency: they have three back-to-back sets of games in three of the four next weekends and then practically a game every other day through the end of the year with only a couple of breaks.
Game Charts
Three Stars
- Brayden Point (TBL) — 1 goal, 2 assists
- Victor Hedman (TBL) — 1 goal, 1 assist
- Mikhail Sergachev (TBL) — 1 goal, 1 assist
What’s Next
The Blackhawks are back on the road, heading to Nashville to face the Predators for a Saturday matinee starting at 1 p.m.