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Sucker for Pain: Golden Knights 5, Blackhawks 3

Three goals from No. 8 weren’t enough to deliver two points.

Posted on by L_B_R
Credit: Talia Sprague-Imagn Images

A Ryan Donato hat trick wasn’t enough to give the Blackhawks a win on Friday night at the United Center, as they lost 5-3 to the Vegas Golden Knights.

The Blackhawks opened the scoring with 4:45 left in the first thanks to a breakaway goal by Ryan Donato. Donato took a beautiful stretch pass from Ethan Del Mastro then knocked in his own rebound after his initial shot was stopped, putting the Blackhawks up 1-0.

The Knights evened the score just under seven minutes into the second. After some extended zone time and cycling, Ivan Barbashev sent a cross-ice pass to Mark Stone near the left dot, who surprised Spencer Knight with a shot that beat the netminder five-hole.

Vicktor Oloffson gave the Knights a 2-1 lead less than a minute later. After several Blackhawks were unable to contain Oloffson in the neutral zone, he got the puck up to William Karlsson for a 2-on-1 and then finished off a backhand pass from Karlsson for the goal.

Donato scored again, tying the game back up 2-2 with 3:56 left in second. On a delayed penalty, a tic-tac-toe passing play between Wyatt Kaiser, Joe Veleno, and Donato ended with a wrister from the circle beating Adin Hill blocker-side.

Donato then completed his hat trick 15 seconds later to put the Blackhawks up 3-2, drilling a slap shot past Hill off a feed from Mikheyev on a rush play. Credit Connor Bedard for the carry-in and subtle back-pass to Mikheyev, too.

Olofsson got in on the multi-goal action too, scoring his second of the game and re-tying the game 3-3 about two minutes into the third. Karlsson banked the puck off the boards to a streaking Reilly Smith, who got the puck cross-ice to Olofsson and his wrist shot hit the post before going in the net.

The Knights went up 4-3 with 3:11 left in the third period.. While on the power play, the Knights passed puck low-high-low quickly as Reilly Smith setup Pavel Dorofeyev for a quick one-timer that also went off the post and in.

Despite some good looks for the Blackhawks with Knight pulled, Stone picked off a pass in the offensive zone, then Brett Howden hit the empty net from center ice near the boards to put this one away 5-3 Knights.

Notes

(All shot stats unless otherwise stated are 5-on-5)

As the score indicated, this was a fairly close, teeter-tottering game.

First periods have not been particularly good for the Blackhawks, but tonight was different: they kept pace with the Knights for the opening minutes, but were the team in control by the midway point onward. The defensemen for the Blackhawks, in particular, seemed to be a force for this period, highlighted by quick exits and strong neutral zone play that led to rushes and pockets of extended zone time. It didn’t necessarily result in an overwhelming amount of scoring chances (just eight), but the puck possession kept the Knights from having the puck and the Blackhawks definitely had the edge in dangerous opportunities. The Blackhawks finished the period with an edge in every shot category: 17-10 in shot attempts, 6-5 in shots on goal, and 80.15 percent of the expected goals. That’s the highest expected goal share for the Blackhawks in a single period this season.

Although the Knights did not score on the power play that opened the period, the bad news is they gained momentum after, decisively dictating play and eventually scoring two close goals as a result. The Knights honestly could have racked up even more goals during their push in the front part of the period. Good news is the Blackhawks found their footing, especially after their own power play midway through, and got two even quicker goals of their own. The Blackhawks ended up on the wrong side of the shot metrics by roughly the same margin as they won the first: 18-10 in shot attempts, 9-6 in shots on goal but didn’t have quite as high of quality as seen by the slight discrepancy between expected goal shares. And considering the Blackhawks have often deflated this season after allowing two quick goals against, the fact that they rallied — not just in the same game, but in the same period — was great.

If this game oscillated between who was in control and when, the third period was a microcosm of that. The Blackhawks were strong out the gate, then the Knights pushed back, and so forth until the very end. The Blackhawks got the better of the chances overall — 54.13 percent of the expected goals — but the Knights did a better job capitalizing on one of their chances. After adding a power-play goal, Vegas admirably limited attempts in general — the Blackhawks had just a one shot attempt edge (15-14).

I don’t necessarily agree that the Blackhawks were goalied because while yes the Blackhawks had a higher share of the expected goals (56.87) in all situations, actual shots on goal favored the Knights (51.16 percent) so the Knights suppressed the quality against decently. Maybe if Hill had a more average game, the Blackhawks possibly win this one, sure, but I think if Knight had been more average it would have been just as even. Knight probably would like to have back two of the goals (he wasn’t ready for that Stone shot, for example) but I think he was less flashy because he was more in position usually. The low shot count for both teams meant neither goalie’s save percentage looks pretty after this game.

A lot of the Blackhawks best chances came on the breakaway. Mikheyev had some really good ones:

And so did Nazar:

This was another strong game individually from Nazar. If he could figure out how to finish, he’d be a star in the league tomorrow. He finished with the second most shot attempts on the team with 5 and all of them were scoring chances with three of the high-danger variety, although only two of his five shot attempts were on goal. His line with Tyler Bertuzzi and Teuvo Teravainen was the only line in the red for shot attempt share (41.18 percent) and shots share (37.50) but they owned the expected goals (55.44). Here is an example of the effort Nazar puts into non-offensive situations too:

Donato was obviously the biggest standout among forwards this game: not only did he score his first career hat trick, he led the team in attempts (8) and was tied for the lead in scoring chances (5) and shots on goal (4). Donato is currently riding a 16.87 shooting percentage on the season, something that’s actually increased as the season has progressed, meaning he’ll likely come down to earth next season. However, Donato does enough little things right that the regression may not be too steep, as long as his opportunities stay about even.

There’s been some worry in Blackhawks fandom that, because it’s been very quiet on the Donato extension front, that he may not sign with the team, which would make the choice to not trade him at the deadline a mistake. But honestly, why would Donato sign an extension right now? The Blackhawks offer of reportedly $4 million for three years is nice, but Donato may argue for more if he keeps playing like he is. Then it’ll come down to what the Blackhawks should actually offer him. Price isn’t an issue here, but term could be.

Enough about the forwards, let’s talk about the defensemen who were really the focus of this game outside of Donato’s hat trick.

First, Kevin Korchinski was recalled ahead of tonight’s game after having a surge in Rockford over the last 10 or so games. He seemed a little overzealous at times in this game, yes? Probably first-game-back jitters. He had some really nice moments at both ends of the ice, including some good passes to send forwards into the zone, and he used his stick well to break up plays. There were also some moments where he was too aggressive, like on the first Olofsson goal, or other moments when he read the play slightly wrong. He was a little late on the second Olofsson goal with his stick, but I can see why he went for the poke check ahead of the first Olofsson goal — he’d done that at a couple of times already in the game successfully. Unfortunately, it left him burned, and it didn’t help that he tripped. As long as he tweaks how he’d handle that situation in the future, this time is all a learning experience.

Neither Landon Slaggert nor Nick Foligno were able to prevent Olofsson from getting the puck in the NZ and pushing it ahead either. To be fair to everyone, especially Foligno, it was near the end of a shift — Foligno actually even got off the ice, though I don’t particularly like how slow the line change was.

Next, this was another game of Levshunov that I didn’t mind. It was somewhat quieter than some of his other recent games, especially the last one, but it was similar in how Levshunov played: athletically one of the best guys on the ice, the foundation for being a two-way defender very evident and a mixed bag on actual plays. He’s been fairly confident lately to try things that definitely won’t work, but he doesn’t usually make the exact mistake twice in the same game (well, outside of his shooting habits). The clip below shows Levshunov being a bit too far from the optimal coverage of the back guy, but he basically caught up thanks to his skating and then turned around to fire off a precision pass for a chance the other way. A work in progress, obviously, but quite tantalizing nonetheless.

The other two defenders that stood out this game to me were Kaiser and Del Mastro, both of whom were rewarded with points for their efforts.

Kaiser has always been a cerebral, defense-first type of player, and that’s been extremely noticeable over the last month or so and was again tonight. His positioning was strong, his stick was always active, and he was physical at just the right moments. The latter is always good to point out because Kaiser is one of the smaller defensemen in the Blackhawks stable currently up with the team, but he’s one of the most effective when using his body. Defense is his calling card, but he had some genuinely impressive offensive moments in this game as well, both in skating the puck up and showing off his passing ability. I don’t think he’ll ever be the type of defenseman that racks up a lot of points, but anything he adds is just gravy on his defensive game.

Ethan Del Mastro likewise had an overall impactful game: the stretch pass that sprang Donato was just one of many great passes for him, he was quite smart with his retrievals and exits, I liked his physicality when defending, and more. I’d argue he was the best offensive defensemen on the ice tonight, in terms of effectiveness. Like Korchinski, though, Del Mastro was just a bit behind on the second Olofsson goal, but the way he made up the distance to almost reach for the pass was kind of impressive. I wonder if it would’ve made a difference if he’d continued straight for Olofsson without stopping his feet and reaching. Other than that, and a few other smaller mistakes, this was a good game for Del Mastro.

Unrelated to the game but still relevant to the end of the season: Minnesota was upset in the NCAA tournament (controversially, too), so that means Sam Rinzel and Oliver Moore’s seasons are done and could be Blackhawks-bound. It’ll be interesting to see what happens with them both. Rinzel is almost assuredly signing and burning a year of his ELC. But there has been some debate on whether Moore would be better off staying for another season in college considering how stagnant he’d been for his first two years there, or if the AHL is better suited for further development.

Game Charts

Three Stars

  1. Ryan Donato (CHI) — 3 goals
  2. William Karlsson (VGK) — 3 assists
  3. Victor Olofsson (VGK) — 2 goals

What’s Next

The Blackhawks are back at the United Center Sunday afternoon to take on the Utah Hockey Club at 3 p.m.

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