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Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown: Blackhawks 3, Kraken 1

Posted on by L_B_R
Credit: David Banks-Imagn Images

It’s a true Christmas miracle: the Chicago Blackhawks have won a third game in a row for the first time in nearly two years after defeating the Seattle Kraken 3-1 on Thursday night at the United Center.

The Blackhawks scored first for a league-leading 21st time this season just over 10 minutes into the second period. Teuvo Teravainen picked off a pass from Seattle and his shot pass deflected in off Ilya Mikheyev’s knee for a backdoor goal.

The Mikheyev show continued in the third period: about six minutes in, a rushing Mikheyev received a pass from Teravainen in the high slot and he beat Joey Daccord with a wrist shot, putting the Blackhawks up 2-0.

The Kraken cut the deficit to 2-1 at 11:16 in the third after Ryker Evans caught a cross-ice pass from Oliver Bjorkstrand and ripped a diving shot past Arvid Soderblom.

Nolan Allan gave the Blackhawks back their two-goal lead with 4:49 remaining in the game. A nice royal road saucer pass from Ryan Donato found Allan at the bottom of the left circle, and the young defenseman ripped it past Daccord, extending the lead to 3-1.

Notes

The first period was one of the best periods for the Blackhawks this season, owning 61.11 percent of the shot attempts, 66.67 percent of the shots on goal, and a whopping 81.83 percent of the expected goals. The latter is kind of a ridiculous skew in their favor, let’s be honest. They kept the Kraken to just four scoring chances and two high-danger, and none of the latter were even on net. That’s just good possession-style hockey right there, especially considering it was all 5-on-5 time. It was disappointing to not have a goal after that effort, especially with so many dangerous chances early, but it did feel like the scoring was bound to happen.

And sure enough it did, though interestingly it was after the Kraken had kind of taken over the game some. After the goal, the Kraken really turned it on, so the Blackhawks didn’t have the puck as much at 5-on-5 — shot attempts were 18-7 in favor of the Kraken in the second. But they kept it close for quality — scoring chances were 5-3 and high danger chances 4-3 for the Kraken. Not the best period, but also not a bad one by any means,

The third was mostly even until the Blackhawks scored their second goal of the game, then the Kraken started to push again. However, once more, the Blackhawks were aggressive with their lead, keeping quality tight, mostly by playing keep away with the puck. Then, when the Kraken scored, the Blackhawks dialed in even more, pushed the pace, and scored an insurance goal. The Blackhawks finished the period with only 36.36 percent of the shot attempts but were even at 50 percent scoring chances and kept the Kraken to just one high-danger attempt at 5-on-5. I’ll take that any day.

The way the way the Blackhawks have been playing under Sorenen isn’t always perfect — the second period tonight is an example of that — but it’s absolutely better to watch than what they were doing earlier this season. It’s obviously having a positive impact on the team as well, because they even sound like a different group when talking to the media.

Of course, the story of the night was obviously the continuation of the Teravainen and Mikeyev connection, which has been golden for the Blackhawks the last few games. Nick Foligno even gave them their own portmanteau:

“They’re playing off each other. ‘Turbo’ is so smart and understands players so well. He sees how ‘Mikky’ plays the game… They’ve been a huge momentum boost for us. They’re probably looked at to be a defensive-minded line, but when you play that good defense and you get those opportunities offensively, they all have the skill to make plays. And they’re that for us right now.”

Their line with Dickinson finished with 55.56 percent of the shot attempts and 76.81 percent of the expected goals, all while only starting 42.86 percent of the time in the offensive zone while often facing the Kraken’s top line.

The young defensemen are the other highlight tonight, and not just because Allan scored his first NHL goal — although that goal is a perfect example of how the defenders have been so exciting lately, they’re willing and able to jump into offensive plays. Allan, Alex Vlasic, and Kevin Korchinski have been putting on clinics on how to use excellent skating to defend, retrieve, and exit with possession in the defensive zone while also knowing when to join the rush or a play in the offensive zone. Even Louis Crevier, who is a little more plodding of a skater, holds his own in this new system by being fairly steady. I’d still love to see Wyatt Kaiser out of the press box, but the kids, in general, are doing alright.

Soderblom had another nice game as well. As mentioned above, the Blackhawks in front of him did a nice job keeping quality low and Soderblom made big stops when needed. He stopped 27 of 28 shots — that’s a 964 save-percentage for those who don’t want to do math — got his fifth win, and continued to build on a strong sophomore season.

This is the second game in a row that Jason Dickinson has gotten hurt enough to go back to the locker room for a bit. He returned to both games, but he’s getting a little more banged up lately.

The only major negative of the night to me: Connor Bedard had only one shot attempt and zero on goal in 16:16 at 5-on-5. He got another two attempts on the power play and one on goal, but a majority of the game is not played on special teams and it’s not great that the young star isn’t able to generate chances still in that situation. It’s hard to break up Teravainen and Mikeyev, but something has to be done to get Bedard going more, more than just double shifting him occasionally with Lukas Reichel and Pat Maroon. Maybe it’d be good to see Frank Nazar up there? Kid has looked just okay since coming up from Rockford, but he’s a natural playmaker and plays with the type of speed that could benefit Bedard.

This being the first three-game winning streak the Blackhawks have had since Patrick Kane was with the team is kind of crazy, but also understandable considering they were trying to be bad for at least half that time. Still, gotta feel good for the team — and the fans — to get that monkey off their back. Maybe they can get four, eh?

Game Charts

Three Stars

  1. Nolan Allan (CHI) — first NHL goal!!
  2. Teuvo Teravainen (CHI) — 2 assist
  3. Ilya Mikheyev (CHI) — 2 goals

What’s Next

The Blackhawks head to Calgary to take on the Flames on Saturday for an afternoon game starting at 3 p.m.

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