After an embarrassing outing in the Winter Classic on Tuesday, the Chicago Blackhawks bounced back with a 4-2 win over the Montreal Canadiens on Friday night at the United Center.
The Blackhawks opened the scoring, as they often do this season, at 3:21 of the first period while on the power play. Tyler Bertuzzi tapped-in a beautiful backdoor feed from Teuvo Teravainen in close to put the Blackhawks up 1-0.
The Canadiens tied the game 1-1 with 1:36 left in the first period. After the Blackhawks left Cole Caufield uncovered down low, the pint-sized shooter skated in front of the net and had plenty of time to roof it over Arvid Soderblom.
Nick Foligno gave the Blackhawks their one-goal lead back at 7:05 in the second, tipping a Wyatt Kaiser wrister from the slot to make it 2-1. Credit Jason Dickinson for winning the battle for the puck down low and getting it to an open Kaiser up top.
Pat Maroon gave the Blackhawks a 3-1 lead about three minutes into the third. Craig Smith forced a turnover in the neutral zone and got the puck to Ryan Donato, who sent a backhand pass to Maroon for another tap-in goal.
The Canadiens got back within one on the power play midway through the third. Mike Matheson’s long shot bounced off the end board and Emil Heineman batted the rebounding puck out of the air to score.
The Blackhawks regained their two-goal lead with 4:09 left in the game. Alex Vlasic got a shot through on net and, after a scramble in front, Foligno tucked the puck home to make it 4-2 Blackhawks, which would be the final score of the night.
Notes
The first period felt pretty even, but the Blackhawks didn’t have the puck as much as they probably wanted: shot attempts (14-9), shots on goal (5-10), and expected goals (0.3-0.84) all favored the Canadiens at 5-on-5. The bigger issue is that the Blackhawks didn’t seem particularly dangerous that period outside of the power play, and actually had zero high-danger chances at 5-on-5. The Canadiens weren’t exactly on their A-game either, but that felt less because of the Blackhawks and more just because of the Habs playing messy.
The Blackhawks seemed to have a bit of jump to the start the second, controlling play in the first few minutes, and were rewarded with an early goal. After that, the Canadiens took over to an absurd degree and Soderblom really needed to step up to keep the game close. The Blackhawks only had 31.25 percent of the shot attempts and 28.7 percent of the expected goals at 5-on-5, though at least they did have more quality chances than in the first (seven scoring chances, five of which were high-danger).
The third was the best period for the Blackhawks: again, they started strong after killing off a penalty and were rewarded with a goal, and they kept it pretty even the rest of the period. The high danger chances at 5-on-5 were still very low (just one), but the Blackhawks had the puck a lot more (to the tune of 56 percent of the shot attempts, 54.55 percent of shots on goal), overall quality was higher (76.37 expected goals), and they managed to score their fourth goal after a bout of consistent pressure.
Not a perfect game by any means, but an illustration of what the Blackhawks are capable of if all the players are working within the current system as expected with fewer defensive breakdowns than in the last handful of games. It also helped that the goaltending was great again.
There were a lot of big saves by Soderblom in the game, especially in the second, when he made 19 saves. But this one on Nick Suzuki in the final seconds of the second period was huge: it kept the Blackhawks up by one going into the third.
Good for Foligno to score twice this game because he’s been having a so-so season, so much so that him sitting wouldn’t have been out of the question if benching was actually based on results. Prior to tonight at 5-on-5, he had just three points in 11 games since the coaching change, and also he was seventh among forwards in points per 60 (1.31) while shooting high (12.02 percent) on a lower expected goals rate (0.46). He always puts in the effort, but just hasn’t been as impactful overall as last season. Tonight was a good example of what Foligno can bring to the table, primarily in front of the net.
Foligno also summed up how the Blackhawks were feeling as a team after the disastrous Winter Classic, and as captain, he likely wanted to lead by example with his play tonight.
The other veteran I thought had a really strong game was Taylor Hall. He only had a couple of shot attempts, one on goal, one scoring chance, and one assist, but he was out there really hustling and winning puck races and battles all night. Considering he was one of the players that been most emotionally upset about the Blackhawks recent play, Hall is another player who has been trying to lead through his own play, and he was especially effective tonight, even if it didn’t show up a lot on the score card.
Maroon scoring was also not on my bingo card, but kudos there as well. It was his first goal since Nov. 23.
This was Seth Jones’ best game since coming back from injury, but his play was just okay and certainly didn’t warrant him having nearly 25 minutes. He’s currently ranked seventh in average ice time in the NHL with 25:05, which is frankly ridiculous when you look at the guys around him. The top-10 is predominantly younger players like Cale Makar, Brock Faber, Miro Heiskanen, Quinn Hughes, etc. with Jones and Roman Josi being the guys 30 or older — and Jones has never been the caliber of player as Josi. Jones is also only one of three guys 30 or older No. 1 defensemen in the top 20 of TOI (the other two being John Carlson and Mike Matheson).
My point in bringing this up isn’t that Jones can’t be the Blackhawks No. 1 still, just that it might be prudent to lean into the other defensemen a bit more so Jones isn’t being run into the ground as much while playing as an older defensemen (by NHL standards), especially when he’s not been playing his best anyway. Nolan Allan playing just 15:01 is silly and an extra shift or two to Wyatt Kaiser — who only played 17:57 — could be useful too. Allan and Kaiser were averaging 17:13 and 19:06, respectively, with Jones out since the coaching change, when the Blackhawks were at arguably their most effective, so I’d love to see their minutes closer to that again. My motto of the season is: “it’s a rebuilding year — play the kids more.”
Speaking of kids, Colton Dach had a nice NHL debut: no points, but he finished the game with five shot attempts (second most on team), all on goal (most), and three scoring chances (tied for second most), all of which were high-danger (also tied for second most). If you look at the player stat card above, it’d look like Dach wasn’t impactful because he’s on the bottom, but his individual offense and defense are both in the positive — others on the ice were negatively impacting him more (they were out with Brodie a lot, so … ). Same with Nazar and Teravainen.
Dach also drew a penalty and had five hits, though most of those came in the first period, and he was overall fairly effective physically. The hits were neat, but it was his checking and play in front of the net that impressed me more. The Blackhawks, as a team, have not been effective at battling in front of goalies this year, but Dach moved opposing player more in this game than several Hawks players have all season.
Here is an example of one of his big hits:
As mentioned above, Nazar had some individual moments that were pretty exciting. He just needs to work on his finishing, which can come with more experience.
This was one of Connor Bedard’s better games at 5-on-5: he had four shot attempts, two on net, and a scoring chance. It’s still not where he likely wants to be, but it seems unlikely without a major upgrade on his line for his shooting and thus goal scoring to increase too much. Bedard picking up another power-play point did move him ahead of Patrick Kane in terms of most points by a teenager as a Blackhawk (though again, Kane played fewer games as a teen with the Hawks).
Game Charts
Three Stars
- Arvid Soderblom (CHI) — 38 saves on 40 shots, .950 save-percentage
- Nick Foligno (CHI) — 2 goals
- Alex Vlasic (CHI) — 1 assist
What’s Next
The Blackhawks host the New York Rangers for a Sunday matinee at 2 p.m.