Staring at the Sun: Sabres 4, Blackhawks 2

Notes

Some will look at how the Blackhawks outshot the Sabres 37-22 and think this was a goalie win, but it’s not really a fair assessment. Luukkonen was very good, but the team in front made his job so much easier. They made sure Luukkonen saw basically everything … honestly, the most clean shots in a game in a while. Quality was an issue for the Blackhawks too: they generated 50 shot attempts and 33 shots on goal at 5-on-5, but just eight attempts were high-danger by location and only four made it on goal. Generally, the “long shot through to create rebound opportunities” is a good one, but the Blackhawks players were just outplayed in-close, unable to get to pucks well.

This is not to say this was a bad game for the Blackhawks — the high effort was still there, they went hard to try to get the win. The team was just sloppier at both ends of the ice. Passes weren’t as crisp, receptions of those passes weren’t always made and, as mentioned above, they struggled to get inside positioning on a lot of second-chance opportunities.

The slow start was also an issue: while the overall effort was good, the first period was the only one lopsided in favor of the Sabres in almost every category. Based on the final 40 minutes, even with the sloppy play, the Blackhawks could have won this game.

Smith and Reichel showed some decent chemistry tonight, which is nice to see honestly. Reichel had issues last season playing with lower-quality linemates in the past, but Smith was once a pretty solid middle-six player with some offensive prowess, so maybe that’s why they clicked. It’s a bit weird that line didn’t get more playing time considering they were the one actually scoring, and it’s still really silly to give Reichel, in particular, less than eight minutes at 5-on-5. They didn’t even really get softer minutes: yes, higher offensive zone starts (75 percent, second most of any line on the team) but they faced the Sabres line of Zucker-McLeod-Greenway, which has been their best to start this season along with the second pairing of Power-Byram. The Blackhawks fourth line generated the same expected goals at 5-on-5 as the Blackhawks top line — let that sink in.

Reichel and/or Smith, the two of which accounted almost a quarter of the Blackhawks shots on goal, should have gotten a little more ice time or could have even taken a few spins with a top-nine line just to see if they could carry the offense in other situations. Richardson is always going on about players earning rewards, yet no rewards were given tonight. Again, no one knows if Reichel is going to be an NHL player, but we do know that he should get a longer leash than he has now so we can find out.

On a similar note, Nolan Allan playing only 12:40 is silly. Seth Jones doesn’t need to play 26 minutes or more a night. It’s great to see Kaiser getting top-three minutes but Allan should also get more playing time.

The Tyler Bertuzzi, Philipp Kurashev, and Taylor Hall line also continues to dominate statistically: the Blackhawks owned 90 percent of the shot attempts, 80 percent of the shots on goal, and 76 percent of the expected goals when that trio was on the ice. They did start exclusively in the offensive zone, but they still had to control the puck when in the zone. However, if they don’t start scoring more consistently — they have just one goal with all three on the ice together — they may need to be broken up to see if they can get results with other combos.

The top line kind of ate it in terms of possession while together — out attempted 20-10 — but they had the edge in quality with a 71.15 percent expected goal share. Bedard, in particular, looked zoned in offensively, as usual. The Sabres stuck their checking line on the Bedard line all night, so Richardson probably should have tried to get them away more often.

The referees this game were not the best, but outside of a few missed calls, they weren’t the deciding factor in the game. It’s really stupid, though, that Bedard just pointing out something a ref missed made that ref threaten him (and reportedly the Blackhawks bench) with penalties. Crazy times.

As for the fight, it’s commendable when players stand up for teammates and I have no issue in general with fighting. However, I’m not a fan of fighting after a clean hit and/or when the game situation means a penalty kill could cost the Blackhawks an opportunity at a win. Being down only a goal with so little time left, it’s just not good for Bertuzzi to jump in there. Considering how the Blackhawks swarmed the Sabres’ side of the ice towards the end of the game, those two minutes could have been the difference between going to overtime and possibly winning.

Ultimately, even though, this wasn’t the best game the Blackhawks played this season, it was still a close match and entertaining to watch. That alone is a big improvement from last year — I’ll take it!

Some tidbits about the CHSN debacle are below. Hopefully when they say app, they also mean on Roku, AppleTV, and AndroidTV because it’s basically sacrilege to have mobile-only streaming apps now.

P.S. Since so many thought the preview title was an Offspring reference when it wasn’t, I give you an actual Offspring reference here.

P.P.S. My recap record is currently 1-1-1, so not off to a terrible start honestly.

Three Stars

1. JJ Peterka (BUF) — 1 goal, 1 assist
2. Craig Smith (CHI) — 2 goals
3. Lukas Reichel (CHI) — 2 assists