Despite an impressive start, the Chicago Blackhawks came apart midway through the game and fell 3-2 to the Nashville Predators Friday night. The Hawks finished up their four-game homestead with a 1-3-0 record.
The Blackhawks got on the board first about three minutes into the first period after Craig Smith finished off a beautiful 2-on-1 passing play from Lukas Reichel on the rush. The patience by Reichel to get around the sliding defender to find Smith was especially impressive.
Connor Bedard made it 2-0 Blackhawks just over five minutes into the second period when he redirected a great pass from Alex Vlasic, who fired it from along the left-wing board.
It looked like Chicago would go up 3-0 after a Bedard pass found its way to Teuvo Teravainen, but the goal was overturned due to Bedard (and possibly also Teravainen) being offside after a successful Nashville challenge.
The game turned quickly after that, with Nashville scoring twice in a little over three minutes to tie the game at two.
Filip Forsberg started the Predators rally at the 13:41 mark in the second period by bodying his way through two Blackhawks before going top shelf past Petr Mrazek.
Then just three minutes later, and while the Predators were on the penalty kill, Nyquist rushed nearly end-to-end and scored off a nasty wrister with 3:01 left in the middle frame.
The Predators would break the tie on the power play with 6:53 remaining in the game as Brady Skjei’s wrist shot from the top of the left face-off circle found the back of the net, putting them up 3-2.
And that would be the final score as the Blackhawks are unable to mount a comeback in the waning minutes.
Notes
A bad start last game doomed the Blackhawks — this game, they let it unravel after the first sign of adversity. The overturned Teravainen goal ended up being when it all fell apart because the Blackhawks were doing well up until then — they owned 53.24 percent of the expected goals at 5-on-5 at the time — but then finished with just 37.62 percent of expected goals for the entire game. This game was actually tied for their second most high danger chances (8), but that really says more about how poorly the Blackhawks have been at generating those quality shots, being that they have the third-worst high danger rate per 60 (8.07) at even strength. The Blackhawks would need their defense to be almost perfect to overcome the lack of scoring depth in the lineup, and unfortunately, they’re just not there yet.
Vlasic is right that a five minutes span is what lost the Blackhawks this game, but he’s kidding himself if he thinks that’s the only time the team was bad.
Yes yes, the effort was still there, but the word effort is starting to lose a little bit of meaning at this point. Coach Luke Richardson claimed the team played hard in the third, for example, but that was statistically their worst period. The penalties didn’t help, because it’s difficult to gain any type of consistently good play when you keep going down a man — but there still wasn’t enough in the pockets of 5-on-5 time to get too excited about.
As for the overturned goal, below is the clip of the offsides slowed down, and the explanation from the situation room was the correct one: “Video review determined that Chicago’s Teuvo Teravainen and Connor Bedard preceded the puck into the offensive zone and were in an off-side position prior to the goal.”
Second bad game in a row for Seth Jones, a rare occurrence since he’s come to Chicago. There were a ton of instances where he not only didn’t defend well, but he actively hurt the team’s offense. Like I don’t know what he was doing on the penalty kill when Nyquist scored because it was terrible. On the offensive side, you need not look further than the final few minutes when they had the extra attacker out there where he kept getting in the way of passes intended for other players in better scoring positions. It’s still okay for Jones to have a bad game every once in a while, but the issue is that Jones still played over 25 minutes tonight despite these mistakes. A lot of that was on special teams, but maybe either give him a rest by not putting him on the penalty kill or lower his 5-on-5 numbers a little. Maybe give Wyatt Kaiser — or hell, even Nolan Allan — an extra minute or two. It’ll probably be as ugly or more so, but at least you’re not running your de facto No. 1 into the ground, and you’re seeing if the kids can step up when needed, like when a key veteran is struggling.
Jones wasn’t the only one having issue on defense, it’s just that the issues are compounded by how high his playing time is. I mean, Forsberg just straight up bullied TJ Brodie and Allan on his goal because they lacked strong sticks and were unwilling or unable to engage more physically.
Let’s talk about the positives. Bedard was once again clicking offensively and got rewarded with a goal finally. His finishing touch is still a little off, but he’s getting himself in to a good positions to shoot. He finished with seven shot attempts, five shots on goal, and three high danger chances — and all but one of the shot attempts were at 5-on-5. That means Bedard accounted for nearly 40 percent of the high danger chances for the Blackhawks this game.
The pass from Vlasic to Bedard on the latter’s goal was a thing of beauty. It’s still a long shot that Vlasic is ever a consistent producer, but he’s got above average on-ice vision and decent hands, so he can help contribute offensively a little. He probably shouldn’t be on the top power play unit long term, but I didn’t mind him there considering how poorly Jones’ game was going (though Jones did take the position back later in the game).
The Blackhawks did allow one goal against while on the penalty kill, but it was otherwise strong for them this game. There was even one point in the third where they were having a power kill.
Richardson has been using the Dickinson-Mikheyev and whoever their third is as a checking line this season, and tonight was no different, as they matched against Forsberg’s line the most. The Blackhawks trio didn’t full shutdown Forsberg, but they definitely limited the line’s quality chances: when Dickinson was matched against Forsberg, the Predators still had the edge in shot attempts (11 to 8) and especially shots on goal (7 to 1), but the Blackhawks owned 57.14 percent of the scoring chances and only allow two high danger chances against. That’s more than decent.
Reichel had another strong game, using his speed well and showing off his hands, and got rewarded with a little more playing time (14:04). That includes about four minutes with Bedard — Reichel played with the top line for half that, and then Bedard took shifts with Reichel-Craig Smith the rest of the time. It would be better if Reichel-Smith had a different linemate, though. Pat Maroon has been a perfectly fine fourth line quality player in limited minutes, but he isn’t able to keep up with the other two and tends to lag too far behind to be effective. Maybe Richardson should try puting Maroon with the Dickinson on the checking line and either Donato or Mikheyev with Reichel-Smith?
This is not to say that Reichel played a perfect game, but offensively, he’s played with more confidence and it’s been effective. He does need to shoot more, but he also has three points in four games — all of them primary — and while it’s obviously a small sample, that puts him third among Blackhawks forwards in terms of points-per-game rate behind only Bedard and Teravainen.
This game will obviously sting for the Blackhawks players, and it’s always sad to watch a win slip away as a fan, but realistically, this team isn’t constructed to be that good. Better than last year, absolutely — but actually good? Not so much. The goals for this season should be improvement at the team level when it comes to possession and defensive structure, progress with the few young players in the lineup, and playing in a competitive manner. And so far we’re generally getting that. The structure comes and goes, but tonight we saw the three youngest players on the team — Bedard, Vlasic, and Reichel — have strong individual performances and the game was still interesting to watch, even with the mistakes and the eventual loss.
P.S. For those keeping score at home, the Blackhawks are 1-3-1 when I recap so far, and 1-0-1 for Dave. He should take back over tomorrow.
Game Charts
Three Stars
- Gustav Nyquist (NSH) — 1 goal, 1 assist
- Connor Bedard (CHI) — 1 goal
- Lukas Reichel (CHI) — 1 assist
What’s Next
The Blackhawks head out on the road for the next couple of weeks, starting with a stop in Dallas to face the Stars on Saturday at 7 p.m.