The Blackhawks’ dropped their fourth game in a row on Wednesday night, falling 4-2 to the Boston Bruins.
The Blackhawks struck less than two minutes into the first period. Alex Vlasic finished a feed from Nick Foligno and ripped a wrister into the net to put the Blackhawks up 1-0.
The Bruins tied the game 1-1 at 12:17 of the first after Morgan Geekie followed his own shot that trickled through Petr Mrazek’s pads, allowing Geekie to tap it in at the top of the crease.
Brad Marchand scored twice in the second to put the Bruins ahead 3-1.
First, David Pastrnak sent a slick royal road pass through traffic to a wide open Marchand in the right circle, who scored with a quick snap about three minutes into the period.
A couple of minutes later, Marchand shoveled in a backhanded shot from a sharp angle after a rebound was created when a Pastrnak shot landed right on Marchand’s tape.
Jason Dickinson got the Blackhawks back within one with 1:27 left in the middle frame. Ilya Mikheyev found Dickinson with a backhand pass, and the latter’s shot hit Nikita Zadorov’s leg and deflected in past Jeremy Swayman, making it 3-2.
The Bruins scored their fourth goal and put the game away 4-2 at about the five-minute mark of the third period. It was Geekie scoring his second of the game, this time on a breakaway after Brazaeu got to a blocked shot rebound quickest and sprung Geekie.
Notes
The Blackhawks did not have the puck as much as the Bruins in the first period but the Blackhawks did a good job keeping the Bruins from setting up too much for extended periods and suppressing well when they did. At 5-on-5, the Bruins had 13 shot attempts to the Blackhawks’ 6, and five shots on goal to Chicago’s two, while both teams had only one high-danger chance. The Bruins did get better as the period progressed, but that still wasn’t enough to dent the Blackhawks good defensive effort. Now the second period was basically even in terms of play — Blackhawks owned 57.69 percent shot attempts, 46.15 percent shots on goal, and high danger changes were 2-1 in favor of the Bruins — but it felt like there were more defensive breakdowns which led to the two goals against.
Like why is Marchand left so wide open on his first goal? The NHL goal visualizer shows just how much space he had. Bedard is likely meant to be covering him still, Taylor Hall is doing squat just in the middle, and Tyler Bertuzzi is too far away from his man as well. Essentially, all the Blackhawks were puck-watching, drawn too much to one side, and it left one of the best shooters in the league open.
The third period was mostly just lackluster. The Blackhawks tried to get back into the game, but it kind of felt like it was over after the Bruins fourth goal. It didn’t help that the Bruins kept getting power plays — I don’t think Bedard’s stick even touched Marchand — so while Boston is terrible this season with the man-advantage, it prevented the Blackhawks from getting any real momentum going.
The Blackhawks power play went quiet tonight, which was a bummer, considering the Bruins’ penalty kill isn’t anything to write home about. With 5-on-5 play pretty even in general, a power-play goal from the Blackhawks on either of their chances could have changed the outcome of the game.
Because Chicago kept Boston to just five high-danger changes and both teams combined for only 30 scoring chances at 5-on-5, the expected goals numbers are a little skewed for the lines with none from the Blackhawks doing well. However, the first and fourth lines carried play fairly even with their Bruins opponents, and the Dickinson line dominated shot possession. Bedard had some moments, but nothing like the last few games when it looked like he was really feeling it on the ice. I don’t think Tyler Bertuzzi, Connor Bedard, and Taylor Hall work particularly well together — Bedard defaults to the playmaker on that line — and I wish Philipp Kurashev had gotten more time with Bedard to see if they could rekindle their magic.
Also, why Kurashev and Teuvo Teravainen keep being put together despite showing time and time again that they don’t work because they’re similar types of players remains puzzling — they played hot potato with the puck too much. Their line with Ryan Donato was also the only one that was straight murdered by the Bruins whenever they were on the ice together. Kurashev had magic last season, and while Teravainen isn’t in his prime anymore, he’s coming off a 0.7 point-per-game season last year. Now it feels like both are broken, arguably through mishandling.
Teravainen was named to Finland’s Four Nations roster today, so at least they recognize he’s still a good player.
Despite having some players who have typically played net-front roles on previous teams, the Blackhawks don’t do a good job of screening opposing goalies typically. But tonight, they seemed to be battling for position better and had several shots with a guy planted in front of Swayman. It didn’t result in goals outside of the Dickinson one — and it was Nick Foligno, one of the few players fairly consistent in creating eclipses for goalies — but it was a positive thing to see nonetheless. If the Blackhawks could do it more regularly, it might positively impact their struggling offense.
Individually, Mikheyev had one of his best offensive games of the season tonight. He didn’t get a point on the Vlasic goal, but his zone entry and move for the initial drop pass for the Connor Murphy shot was impressive. Mikheyev also had another nice move along the boards to create separation between him and the Bruin covering him before the pass on the Dickinson goal. Conversely, Mikeyev did get absolutely stripped by Pastrnak on the second Marchand goal sequence, looking like a dog chasing his tail for a moment even. He’s usually very strong defensively, so a mistake here or there is okay. If Mikheyev can get more opportunities to make an offensive impact, that would be great for the team — and make Dickinson more dangerous as well since they’re one of the best duos together.
Speaking of dogs, The game from Alec Martinez tonight … woof. Lots of blown coverages, weak checks and work along the boards, and what just looked like mental mistakes on easy plays. His miscue on the Geekie breakaway was slow although, to be fair, Geekie did hop on the ice right before that. On the second Marchand goal, I feel like he should have received Vlasic’s ring-around pass instead of allowing it to go where incoming Bruins players were. And this comes after two other games in which he was so-so to downright bad. Like, you never want the team to be down a defenseman in game, but would it have been such a bad thing if he just needed to rest when he left the ice after blocking a shot in the second? He needs to shake off whatever bad juju is stuck to him right now.
Martinez was on the ice for every goal scored, and not all of them were on him (again, plus/minus is a bad individual evaluator stat), it’s weird coach Luke Richardon said none were because, what? Even if that was the case, Richardson has had no issue pointing out when other players have bad games — or bad streaks of games in Martinez’s case right now — so the coach brushing that off as just rough is interesting. Because it was absolutely a no-good, ugly game from Martinez.
One issue with Martinez and TJ Brodie is that they’re just slow players now who haven’t been able to consistently adjust their games around that limitation. Connor Murphy has done an excellent job this season compensating for his lack of foot speed by playing smarter, but Martinez lately and Brodie basically the entire season just haven’t.
If you want to end tonight on a positive note, go take a look at Chi_Prospects on Twitter, who has posted several breakdowns of good plays from the Rockford IceHogs’ 7-3 win over the Lehigh Valley Phantoms. There were some especially good plays involving Frank Nazar (1 G, 2 A), Landon Slaggert (1 G, 2 A), Colton Dach (1 G, 1 A), and Kevin Korchinski (1 A). Here are just two of the goals:
Game Charts
Three Stars
- Connor Geekie (BOS) — 2 goals
- David Pastrnak (BOS) — 2 assists
- Brad Marchand (BOS) — 2 goals
What’s Next
The Blackhawks have a couple of days off before they host the Winnipeg Jets on Saturday for an afternoon game starting at 3 p.m.