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I Still Want a Hula Hoop: Canadiens 4, Blackhawks 1

Another Bedard-less game ends in a loss.

Posted on by Dave Melton
Credit: Eric Bolte-Imagn Images

The Blackhawks losing streak is now at four games after they lost 4-1 to the Montreal Canadiens in Quebec on Thursday night.

The first two periods featured a pair of actual goals and a pair of overturned goals — one apiece for each team. Chicago had the first overturned goal …

… as well as the first actual goal, which was the first one Frank Nazar has scored since October.

Montreal tied the game with an actual goal at the 14:23 mark of the first when Zac Bolduc found some empty space between the faceoff dots for a one-timer.

Late in the second, Montreal thought it took the lead but the goal below was overturned after a successful challenge for offsides:

Just 20 seconds into the third period, though, Bolduc put Montreal ahead for good:

Noah Dobson provided some insurance at the midpoint of the third period:

And Nick Suzuki added an empty-netter to account for the final margin of victory.

Notes

Dominic Toninato had a really strong play in Tuesday’s game against Toronto when he won the draw and screened the goalie to help create Wyatt Kaiser’s goal. Aside from that moment, unsure of what he’s done beyond take two penalties in moments that felt especially detrimental to his team.

The most positive thing to be taken from this game was Nazar snapping his lengthy scoring drought, boosted by an excellent pass from Matt Grzelcyk that made Nazar’s first goal in nearly two months about as easy as can be. Still, give Nazar credit for seeing the open space available and moving into it with his stick on the ice, providing Grzelcyk with a nice target.

Speaking of Grzelcyk … he was clearly not in high demand during the NHL offseason, as he ended up coming to the Hawks on a PTO ahead of training camp and may have only made the team because a few of the younger blue-liners had underwhelming enough preseasons that Grzelcyk seemed like the best option. He certainly seems like a useful third-pairing blue-liner who could contribute some offense on a team that has enough D to handle the more defense-intensive minutes — he did have 40 points last season, after all. But it’s also hard to imagine that any team would pony up anything of value to acquire his services at the deadline when any team could’ve added him with no return necessary during the offseason.

The goal snaps Nazar’s slump but can’t quite declare him fully cured yet of his scoring woes until he piles on a few more in a short window — which he’s certainly capable of doing. Nazar had some other scoring chances, although there was another one in the first period when he deferred to Tyler Bertuzzi instead of possibly driving the rest of the way to the net for a scoring opportunity of his own that may have been better than Bertuzzi’s in that moment. Once Nazar seems like he’s playing with that unmistakable confidence we saw from him back in October when he opened the season with 11 points (5 G, 6 A) in 10 games, then we’ll know he’s truly removed that monkey from his back.

I appreciate this sentiment from Nazar, too:

That thought about Nazar being more aggressive in creating scoring chances for himself instead of passing to teammates? Apparently Blashill wants to see it from guys other than Nazar, too.

Another positive sign to be gleaned from this game is from the top line of Bertuzzi-Nazar-Burakovsky, which scored the Hawks only 5-on-5 goal and had the best expected goal share among Chicago forward lines at 66.18 percent, thanks to a scoring chance advantage of 8-4 and high-danger chance advantage of 5-3 in its 12:13 together at 5-on-5 play. If the Hawks are pick up some victories with No. 98 out, that line will probably be the one responsible for them.

The last time Bedard missed significant time, Chicago went 3-10-1 during the 2023-24 season as Bedard recovered from that broken jaw. The Hawks actually won the first game he missed and then only picked up wins with the benefit of overtime and a shootout. They were shut out four times and held to a single goal in four other games. This team doesn’t have much depth but it certainly has better depth than that team did. That team didn’t have Nazar or Bertuzzi or Burakovsky or Teuvo. Things probably shouldn’t get as bleak this time around. But that’s going to require several of those guys to start scoring soon … and the sooner, the better.

Game Charts

Three Stars

  1. Zachary Bolduc (MTL) — 2 goals
  2. Lane Hutson (MTL) — 3 assists
  3. Nick Suzuki (MTL) — 1 goal, 1 assist

What’s Next

The Hawks finish off their trip to Canada on Saturday afternoon against the Ottawa Senators at 2:30 p.m.

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