The Blackhawks continued their early season road trend of sleepwalking through the first two periods before turning it on in the third during their 3-1 loss to the Dallas Stars on Thursday night.
The game got off to a sloppy start (as previously advertised), but with just over 11 minutes gone in the first, there was a flurry of activity in the Hawks’ zone. Logan Stankoven juggled the puck along the wall, slipped it to Sam Steel, and Steel fired a shot through an inadvertent Connor Murphy screen that beat Arvid Soderblom to give Dallas a 1-0 lead.
Halfway through the second, an odd-man rush for the Stars led to a mad scramble in front of Soderblom and Tyler Seguin pounced on a rebound to score with a sharp-angled wrist shot.
Nine minutes into the third, a strong effort by Lukas Reichel and Ryan Donato to keep the puck in the Dallas zone during a Blackhawks’ power play led to a beautiful backhand pass from Donato to Connor Bedard and Bedard found a net-front Tyler Bertuzzi for a chop/tip that beat Jake Oettinger.
The Hawks dialed up the pressure late, but Stankoven got an empty net goal with 46 seconds left to seal the deal.
Notes
The Blackhawks best player by a significant margin tonight was Soderblom, and he looks like a completely different goalie than the one we saw last season. He’s reading plays well, he always seems to be in position, and his rebound control has been outstanding. Not only is the entire team currently doing him no favors, but extra especially the defense tonight as Murphy screened him on Dallas’ first goal, and Wyatt Kaiser boxed him out in the crease just enough to give Seguin the angle to shoot for on the second (credit to Seguin for the nasty shot as well). While no one continues to have any idea what’s actually going on with Laurent Brossoit, Soderblom’s steady early-season play could end up being a really happy accident for Kyle Davidson. A few teams are already rumored to be scouting Petr Mrazek, and Kyle feeling like he has three NHL-caliber goalies on the roster should give him a lot more confidence to capitalize on that when the time comes.
While we’re talking players who have done a complete 180 since last season, Reichel was flying all over the ice and was engaged the entire game (even though his line with Bedard and Taylor Hall got clowned). Not only is Reichel battling for every puck in his vicinity, but there were multiple plays where he led the rush up the ice and deep into the Stars’ zone, only to turn around and be the first forward all the way back on the backcheck. Everyone knew the offensive talent was there, hopefully this means it’s finally been unlocked for good this time. Reichel also needs a permanent spot on the top power-play unit, as he’s the only other forward besides Bedard who seems to be able to carry the puck into the opposing zone with speed.
None of the new lines worked all that well tonight, even though Bertuzzi, Teuvo, and Kurashev generated a couple of primo chances in the third. I really can’t overstate just how bad the Bedard, Hall, and Reichel line was: they gave up the most shots against of any line and generated the least. They had the lowest expected goals percentage (15.27, WOOF), gave up 10 scoring chances against while only creating two, and gave up four high-danger chances without generating any. The Blackhawks need to figure out who can actually play with Bedard, and they need to do it fast.
Along those lines, this is the second straight game where Bedard took a really bad penalty out of sheer frustration:
All Bedard’s fancy stats and defensive numbers are significantly better so far this season — and until Macklin Celebrini comes back, Bedard remains the youngest player in the NHL — which I know signifies that the goals will come eventually. But we’re getting to the point where the front office has to seriously consider just about anything it can do to bring in some more offensive help for him.
We give Nick Foligno plenty of grief for his hokey dad-isms and postgame finger-wags, but he almost single-handedly dragged the Hawks back into the game tonight by drawing two separate penalties. The first (where he only got by Thomas Harley thanks to yanking on his jersey) negated the end of a Dallas power play, and the second led to the Blackhawks only goal.
We knew tonight would be a tough one, the Hawks seemed to be hanging on for dear life through the first two periods, but managed to make a game out of it in the end — which certainly feels like a microcosm for what the entire season could look like. Better to show up late than not at all, I guess?
Game Charts
Note: There is no stat card for the Blackhawks tonight:
Three Stars
- Logan Stankoven – 1 goal, 1 assist
- Arvid Soderblom – 37 saves, .939 save percentage
- Sam Steel – 1 goal, 1 assist
What’s Next
The Blackhawks don’t play again until Sunday, when they face off against the Minnesota Wild back home in Chicago with a 6 p.m. puck drop.