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Thunderbolt and Lightning, Very Very Frightening: Lightning 4, Blackhawks 3 (OT)

Another Chicago lead that vanished.

Posted on by L_B_R
Credit: Daniel Bartel-Imagn Images

For the second game in a row, the Chicago Blackhawks squandered a two-goal lead and fell 4-3 in overtime, this time to the Tampa Bay Lightning.

The Lightning opened the scoring with a power-play goal just over midway through the first period. Mitchell Chaffee picked up Nikita Kucherov’s pass and shot a wrister past Arvid Soderblom, putting the Lightning up 1-0.

The Blackhawks tied the game on Colton Dach’s first NHL goal about five minutes later. After a scramble in front of the net, Dach found the loose puck out front and snapped it home.

Frank Nazar gave the Blackhawks a 2-1 lead with 1:13 left in the first period. Connor Bedard beat three Lightning players to the puck along the wall and quickly dished it to a wide open Nazar, who ripped one through Jonas Johansson.

Louis Crevier extended the Blackhawks lead to 3-1 around five minutes into the second period, jumping into the play to receive a nice cross-ice pass from Nazar from inside the right circle before sending a wrist shot over Johansson far side.

Nick Paul spoiled an otherwise excellent second period for the Blackhawks, scoring for the Lightning with less than 10 seconds remaining in the period to get them back within one. Paul tipped a shot from Victor Hedman to make it 3-2.

After a ridiculously dominating third period, the Lightning tied the game 3-3 with less than a minute left in regulation. Jake Guentzel deflected a shot pass from Nikita Kurcherov from the doorstep while on the power play to push the game to overtime.

Kucherov won it for the Lightning 58 seconds into overtime. On the power play, Victor Hedman sent a slick pass to a wide-open Kurcherov, who ripped it past Soderblom, allowing his team to defeat the Blackhawks 4-3.

Notes

While much of the hockey world’s attention was focused elsewhere, the Blackhawks had one of their most impressive 40-ish minutes of hockey this season. In the first two periods at 5-on-5, the Blackhawks owned 52.94 percent of the shot attempts and 51.86 percent of the expected goals. And best of all, a lot of it was driven by the young players, both in terms of general play and on the scoresheet, as five players 23 or younger got a point in this game: Nazar (1 G, 1 A), Crevier (1 G, 1 A), Dach (1 G), Bedard (1 A) and Reichel (1 A). The only player above that age to get a point was Ryan Donato.

Now, the Lightning are just the better team, so the 3-1 Blackhawks lead didn’t actually survive to the end of the second period. The Lightning took over in the final minute of the second and never let up on the gas, so it felt pretty inevitable that the Blackhawks were going to give up a goal or two, which they did. The Blackhawks had a nice edge in the first two periods, but the Lightning just steamrolled them in the third: Chicago was out-attempted 23-4, outshot 13-1, and had just 6.11 percent of the expected goals — that number is a new low for a single period this season. Still, even with that amount of pressure from Tampa, it took a 6-on-4 power play in the final minute of regulation to tie the game.

Overall, this was the second game in a row that the Blackhawks goalie had to face 40 or more shots, so kudos to Soderblom — especially in that third period. It’s hard to fault him for any of the goals against: a top-shelf snipe, two tip/deflections — one of which he was completely screened on and another during a two-man advantage power play — and then the last was another snipe during a power play in OT. I mean, a power play in 3-on-3 overtime is practically a death sentence in general, but then you add in that it’s the Lightning with players like Kucherov … well, it’s understandable why the Blackhawks lost. Soderblom played better than his .900 save percentage, too.

Speaking of the screened goal, it wasn’t the only time Soderblom couldn’t see at all throughout the game, especially in the third period. It would have been nice if the Blackhawks players could at some point consistently move bodies out of the way — or at least don’t also screen their goalie — but that’s still one of the biggest issues with this team. Only Bertuzzi and Dach do a particularly good job in front of the net moving opponents.

The Nazar goal was a thing of beauty between him and Bedard, but both Crevier and Tyler Bertuzzi deserve credit for their roles as well. Crevier beat Kurcherov to the puck in the neutral zone and smartly chipped it forward to get it back in the zone for the Hawks, and then Bertuzzi’s hard forecheck down low caused Maxwell Croizer to panic and get rid of the puck too quickly. Of course, Bedard drawing three different players to him so that Nazar could be wide open was a big part too, but that goal was a lot of little parts clicking and not all of them showed up on the scoresheet. It’s great that there is now another threat on the line with Bedard so when opposing teams check to cover him more, someone else can help out.

When’s the last time we’ve seen a Blackhawks player be that wide open like this?

This was a night of firsts for several young players: Dach’s first goal and the first multi-point NHL games for Nazar and Crevier. According to NHL PR, this is the first time the Blackhawks had rookies with multiple points in the same game since 2021 (during Stan Bowman’s false-start rebuild). Nazar is also on a three-game point streak — almost like playing the kids together can work, eh?

This was Ethan Del Mastro’s first NHL game of the season, and he looked quite good in his somewhat limited minutes (he played just 15:49). As has been mentioned, EDM’s offensive numbers are down from last season with the IceHogs, but most of that is due to his role. Previously, he’d been the more offensive guy using Nolan Allan as a springboard. This season, he’s been the more defense-first, stay-at-home guy for players like Kevin Korchinski. So EDM hasn’t been as exciting, but he’s been easily the most consistent defensive prospect in Rockford, and tonight’s game and any games after were a reward for that consistency.

With Seth Jones out with a sickness, the D pairings had to be shifted around from what we saw at the morning skate, so EDM and Allan were not reunited in Chicago. Instead, Allan played primarily with Alec Martinez while EDM was stuck with TJ Brodie. To be fair, this was one of Brodie’s better games, but just think what could have been if the two youngsters who had a great connection in Rockford got to be together. Maybe we’ll see it next game.

Allan had a few standout defensive plays in this game, the most noticeable being him preventing a backdoor goal in the second period. He didn’t give players much room all game, basically neutering Cirelli anytime he was on the ice.

Philipp Kurashev had another good game tonight. The defacto fourth line — though they actually played the third most minutes together — of Kurashev, Donato, and Pat Maroon had some really strong shifts that really energized the team. They did face a mixed bag in terms of quality of competition and was the only line that finished with a positive shot attempt share (64.71 percent) and expected goals share (77.11). Kurashev still isn’t likely long for this team, but it’s still nice to see him have a couple of good games in a row during an otherwise terrible season.

The Jason Dickinson line with Teuvo Teravainen and Ilya Mikheyev was the next line in terms of positive numbers, out attempted 10-8 but owned 59.04 percent expected goals, and that was against the highest QoC because it faced the Kucherov line. The Bedard line was buried in terms of shot metrics (out-attempted 23-7, only 21.87 percent share of expected goals) but they also faced the next highest QoC and scored a goal, so it’s a give-and-take process. Reichel’s line was in the negative but the line kept it mostly low-event.

As mentioned at the top of these notes, the Blackhawks were involved in a big story that drew a lot of attention during the start of this game, and it mostly boiled down to the Blackhawks trading Taylor Hall and acquiring an early third-round pick. Obviously Sorensen and players were asked about the loss of Hall, and some of the responses are below.

Although most of Nick Foligno’s answer when asked about Hall was fine, this part below maybe shows the disconnect between the expectations from these older veterans brought in versus what is actually best for the organization:

“They have to start thinking about the future”? Sir, that’s all Kyle Davidson should be focused on. Maybe you can make the argument that keeping Hall would have been better than getting a third-round pick — who knows, really — but the fact of the matter is that very few of these veterans are in the long-term plans for the Blackhawks and will be sold off eventually (or allowed to walk for nothing because they’re not worth anything). That’s just the nature of a rebuild. I know he’s just being honest, but Foligno isn’t beating the “disappointed step dad” vibes right now, and if he’d just left this one part out his answer wouldn’t even be a blip. Keep it simple, keep it cute. Oh well.

Finally, the funniest thing about the big trade is that for a minute there, the Blackhawks had traded for Mikko Rantanen for the signing rights to Nils Juntorp. Could have just stopped there, Davidson. /s

Game Charts

Three Stars

  1. Nikita Kucherov (TBL) — 1 goal, 2 assist
  2. Jake Guentzel (TBL) — 1 goal, 1 assist
  3. Colton Dach (CHI) — first NHL goal!

What’s Next

The Blackhawks wrap up their three-game homestand on Sunday, hosting the Minnesota Wild at 6 p.m.

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