After a lackluster 2-0 loss to the Ottawa Senators Thursday, the Chicago Blackhawks bounced back big with a 5-1 outing against the Philadelphia Flyers Saturday.
The Blackhawks opened the scoring about two minutes into the game with a Lukas Reichel wrap-around goal. He corralled a Jarred Tinordi rebound around the back of the net and shoved it in before Samuel Ersson could seal the post.
Philipp Kurashev put the Blackhawks up 2-0 at the 17-minute mark of the first when he finished off a beautiful cross-ice pass from Connor Bedard on the rush.
The Flyers cut the Blackhawks’ lead in half just 17 seconds into the second period. Tyson Foerster skated into the zone and used Vlasic as a screen to rip one past Arvid Soderblom, making it 2-1.
The Blackhawks regained their two-goal lead on the power play with 2:32 left in the second period after a tic-tac-toe passing play from Tyler Johnson to Kurashev to Nick Foligno put the Blackhawks up 3-1.
Less than 10 minutes into the third, Joey Anderson batted a puck out of the air near mid-ice and scored on the breakaway, upping the Blackhawks lead to 4-1.
The Blackhawks added their fifth and final goal of the night with 5:27 left in the game on a MacKenzie Entwistle backdoor goal setup by Joey Anderson.
Notes
- The Flyers are one of the best in the league at controlling shot quantity and quality, and they did that in this game, too — owning 58.24 percent of the shot attempts and 54.47 percent of the expected goals — but their weakness has always been in net and the Blackhawks did a good job of taking advantage of that. The Blackhawks made some really smart offensive plays in the little time they had the puck — a lot of which was fueled by the young guns — and kept it relatively clean defensively.
- Interestingly, despite having obviously the best shot on the Blackhawks, Bedard seemed like the only guy who had trouble with Ersson. He finished with 10 shot attempts, 6 shots on goal, the second highest expected goals (0.38), and a beautiful assist, but no goals of his own.
- Credit Alex Vlasic on the first goal for jumping up during transition and creating a passing lane by going to the net. He’s been extremely good defensively this season on a very bad Blackhawks team, but he has the skills to contribute more offensively as well.
- Reichel made quite a good play along the walls to get the puck out of the defensive zone ahead of the Anderson goal. The Blackhawks were having a little trouble getting the puck out right then — and most of the game — but Reichel used a smart stick and took a small hit to make the play happen. Tonight’s game was his first multi-point game of the season, and he actually had the highest expected goal total on the team (0.52).
- Kaiser is another player who was very noticable in a lot of good ways tonight, even though he didn’t end up on the scorecard. He’s always been billed as a defense-first, smooth-skating, poised defender, and it was the latter that he struggled with earlier in the season. Since his stint in Rockford, Kaiser has been quite steady in how he’s played, smart with and without the puck, and it’s very cool to just watch him be able to skate the puck out so easily.
- Sƶderblom had a nice game tonight: he saved 30 of 31 shots for a .968 save percentage and saved 1.92 goals above expected, according to Natural Stat Trick. For those saying the Blackhawks should move on from him, remember that he’s still just 24 and patience is key for goalies — especially when Drew Commesso is a couple of years away himself, at least, and Adam Gajan even farther out.
- Speaking of goalies, I’ve said it more than once this season, but it’s absolutely ridiculous a player can be called for a penalty when pushed into a goaltender (or a team gets mad a player was pushed into their goalie by their own guys). I’m at the point where I favor the refs having their own press conferences after games just so they have to comment on this blatant stupidity.
- Bedard played on wing tonight which is an interesting choice by coach Luke Richardson. The line of Bedard, Jason Dickinson, Kurashev was the most offensively jumping line of the night, but hopefully there aren’t long-term plans to keep Bedard as a winger.
- Trivia: this is only the second time since 1998 the Blackhawks have won in Philadelphia during the regular season.
- This is the Blackhawks seventh road win of the season.
- Winning may not help the Blackhawks Race to the Lottery, but honestly, that time has passed as there is no catching the freefalling San Jose Sharks at this point. Some of the recent wins haven’t been particularly fun, and while the Blackhawks were outplayed in many ways in this game, it was entertaining and the kids were really a big part of the victory.
- In Blackhawks prospect news … Bad news is Oliver Moore and Sam Rinzel’s seasons have come to an end after Minnesota lost tonight in the regional final of the NCAA tournament. Good news is that Ryan Greene and Aidan Thompson will play against each other in the Frozen Four with wins tonight by Boston and Denver, respectively. Frank Nazar and Michigan’s fate in the tournament will be decided on Sunday.
Game Charts
Three Stars
- Lukas Reichel (CHI) — 1 goal, 1 assist
- Philipp Kurashev (CHI) — 1 goal, 1 assist
- Joey Anderson (CHI) — 1 goal, 1 assist
What’s Next
The Blackhawks wrap up their current three-game road trip in New York Tuesday as they take on the Islanders at 6:30 p.m.