The Chicago Blackhawks blew a multi-goal lead for the second night in a row — this time allowing five unanswered goals against in the third period — losing 7-5 in embarrassing fashion to the St. Louis Blues on Saturday night.
We all probably feel a little nauseated after that game.
The Blues got on the board early, just over three minutes into the game, on a slick shot from Robert Thomas. An Isaak Phillips’ shot in the Blackhawks zone hit Reese Johnson, and the ricochet popped way out to Pavel Buchnevich, who got the puck to Thomas on the rush.
Connor Bedard tied the game at 1-1 just 45 seconds later with a lacrosse-style goal that had the puck whizzing past Jordan Whinnington Bennington’s head.
The Blackhawks didn’t waste any time, scoring another 23 seconds later to make it 2-1 as Anthony Beauvillier tipped a long shot from Jarred Tinordi into the net.
Nick Foligno scored on the power play to make it 3-1 about 20 seconds into the second period. Taylor Raddysh got the puck to Phillip Kurashev down low, who took the shot that created a reblind which Foligno cleaned up.
The Blues got back within one at 13:29 of the middle frame after Colton Parayko’s long shot made it through traffic to beat Avrid Soderblom.
Jason Dickinson regained the two-goal lead for the Blackhawks with 4:06 left in the second. After a save by Soderblom at one end, Dickinson beat Bennington at the other end off a 2-on-1 with Taylor Raddysh with 4:06 left in the second period.
The Blackhawks took a 5-2 lead 5:16 into the third after Foligno drove hard to the net while shorthanded to score.
Unfortunately, the wheels really fell off the Blackhawks after this, and the Blues scored five unanswered goals in just over 13 minutes through the rest of the third.
First, Brandon Saad expertly tipped a Kevin Hayes shot pass while on the power play to make it 5-3 at about eight minutes of the third period.
Second, after some extended zone time on the power play, Jake Neightbors deflected Justin Faulk’s shot at 10:43 in the period to get the Blues within one again.
Third, Thomas easily powered around Nikita Zaisev before passing to Jordan Kyrou in the slot, who used Kevin Korchinski as a screen to tie the game 5-5.
Next, Soderblom allowed an absolute softie from Justin Faulk to beat him far side from distance to make it 6-5 with 2:07 left in the game.
And finally, Kyrou added an empty-netter with 1:01 left put this one away 7-5.
Notes
- Despite playing the night before, the Blackhawks came out well and did a good job of having the puck roughly the same amount as the Blues through the first 40 minutes. St. Louis had just over a one percent edge in shot attempts and scoring chances.
- However, the third is where is all went to shit and, not only did the Blackhawks barely have the puck, they allowed the Blues to steamroll them. Seriously, the Blackhawks allowed 29 shot attempts, 22 shots on goal, 17 scoring chances, and 11 high-danger chances against. In a single period. In comparison, the Blackhawks generated just 7 shot attempts, 2 shots on goal, 3 scoring chances, and 0 high-danger ones. So many defensive breakdowns, it looked like the Blues were dog-walking the Blackhawks for practically 20 minutes straight.
- Look, I know it’s easy to lay the blame on Soderblom, but guys, come on — this wasn’t on him. Two goals are screened (one by Blues player, the other by Korchinski), two are tips/deflections, one is a great shot, and the other is a horrible softie. Outside of maybe two goals (Thomas is the maybe, Faulk was terrible), the rest are absolutely on the team in front of him. And to be fair, he definitely did make some big saves in the first two periods when needed — two of the Blackhawks goals were even preceeded by saves from him (Dickinson, Foligno SHG) — even if it’d be nice if he made those saves more consistently.
- The only reason I even point this out at all is because blaming tonight all or even mostly on Soderblom means not focusing on the root of the issue: the Hawks are a terrible shot-suppression team, especially when it comes to quality against. Soderblom has objectively been bad this season, but the team issues are much bigger to me than whoever is in net. That guy is interchangeable and they’ve got two prospects in the pipeline that seem more “goalie of the future” than Soderblom anyway.
- Even if this game wasn’t on him, Soderblom isn’t NHL-ready, and the Blackhawks are doing him a disservice keeping him up. It’s really too early to say if he’s ever going to be an NHL goalie, but he’s definitely not at 23. That’s not really a big deal either — Corey Crawford was putting up a mediocre .907 save-percentage in the AHL at 23, didn’t make it to the NHL until 26, and didn’t cement himself as the legit all-star he was until 28. There is a very good argument to be made that Crawford is the goalie he was because he spent so long in Rockford, so there would be nothing wrong with Soderblom going back there. Drew Commesso isn’t ready either at just 21 and Jaxson Stauber likely isn’t going to be any better, jfyi for anyone thinking there’s any relief in-house.
- Most fans were probably looking for a timeout at the 5-4 mark, but it never came. Little odd.
- Zaitsev has been mostly fine to actually pretty good lately, but woof, the third period was especially bad for him. Thomas is a good player, but he made Zaitsev look like a rookie out there on the game-typing goal.
- Speaking of rookies, Korchinski was caught puck-watching a bit too much on that same goal against, so much so that he wasn’t even facing his man in the slot and screened his own goalie in the process. Not his best sequence, but mistakes should be expected by 19-year-olds and Korchinski was playing in only his second game back after missing a couple of weeks.
- The lines were shuffled around again for this game and it was somewhat frustrating to see Lukas Reichel back on the fourth line, and then did have that fourth line see barely any significant time out on the ice despite doing well. The yo-yo’ing can’t be good for him at this point.
- Let’s end on a happy note and take a look at the Bedard lacrosse goal one more time. Interestingly, Trevor Zegras also scored a Michigan goal a few hours later. The young talent impacting the NHL right now is pretty sweet, and Blackhawks fans can at least console themselves that they have the best in Bedard.
Game Charts
Three Stars
- Robert Thomas (STL) — 1 goal, 1 assist
- Jordan Kyrou (STL) — two goals
- Connor Bedard (CHI) — are you not entertained?
What’s Next
The Blackhawks are off for a few days for the holiday break, returning to play the Winnipeg Jets at the United Center on Wednesday at 8 p.m.