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Within Your Reach: Wild 4, Blackhawks 2

One final loss to close out the homestand.

Posted on by L_B_R
Credit: David Banks-Imagn Images

Despite a push back in the third period, the Chicago Blackhawks failrf to overcome a 3-0 deficit, losing 4-2 to the Minnesota Wild on Sunday night at the United Center.

The Wild opened the scoring 5:48 into the first period when Marco Rossi picked off a pass in the defensive zone, triggering a Wild 4-on-2 the other way. Then, Jared Spurgeon buried a Matt Boldy pass from the slot to go up 1-0.

Frederick Gaudreau doubled the Wild’s lead less than two minutes later. Nolan Allan’s exit pass was picked off by Marcus Foligno, who ringed the puck around the boards to be picked up by Gaudreau before the latter scored from a low angle.

The Wild went up 3-0 midway through the second period after Joel Eriksson Ek redirected a centering shot pass from Kirill Kaprizov while on the power-play.

The Blackhawks finally got on the board with a power-play goal 56 seconds into the third period. Connor Bedard set up Jones with a cross-ice pass and the defensemen sent a wrister from the high slot to make it 3-1.

Frank Nazar got the Blackhawks within one a few minutes later. Ethan Del Mastro jumped into the play, mad a beautiful move driving to the net, and Nazar buried the rebound to cut the deficit to 3-2.

That was close as Chicago got on the scoreboard and Marcus Foligno added an empty-net goal for the final tally of the night.

Notes

The first period went about as expected: the Blackhawks had the slight edge in shot possession (51.43 percent of shot attempts) but the Wild were excellent at suppression, leaving the Blackhawks with only one shot on goal and just 24.1 percent of the expected goals. The Wild themselves weren’t particularly dangerous, but they were just dangerous enough to get two goals — although that second goal was a bad one from Mrazek. It’s how the Wild have operated all season, and the Blackhawks didn’t really have an answer for it most of the game.

The second period was much more even as the Blackhawks figured out how to break through the Wild’s defense and get some shots on goal. The Blackhawks honestly deserved a bit better, having the edge in quality this period (57.47 percent expected goals), but Gustavsson was good and the Blackhawks penalty kill was a bit too passive, so the Blackhawks found themselves in a 3-0 hole.

In the third period at 5-on-5, the Blackhawks were slightly better at shot attempts (53.33 percent) while managing to keep the shots even (50 percent), but the Wild suppressed quality against again and the Blackhawks didn’t have quite as many chances as you’d hope, being down three goals (33.94 percent of expected goals). Still, they scored on the power play and off a scrambly play from the young players to make a game of it. It wasn’t enough to push to overtime, but it was a good effort in the end.

Even with the Wild being the better team in terms of keeping the Blackhawks out of dangerous areas, the Blackhawks could have won this. If Mrazek played a slightly better game, they cleared up a couple of turnover mistakes, maybe scored a second power-play goal (I mean, the Wild have one of the worst PKs, after all), and players would stop taking stupid penalties, the outcome could have been different. That’s obviously a lot of “should’ve, could’ve” points but really this game felt even closer than the score indicated.

I’m not sure this is exactly worth an unsportmanslike penalty, but maybe don’t temp the refs on those kinds of thing, Captain Stepdad?

Here is a better look at the sharp angle shot Mrazek allowed. Yes, it knuckled but you’d hope he’d have one like that:

A couple of errant passes by young defensemen ended up being costly mistakes. On the first goal against, Ethan Del Mastro did a good job keeping the puck in the zone when the Wild attempted to exit, but then he immediately had his pass picked off. The other Blackhawks players aren’t even facing the right direction to receive a pass and got turned around, giving Minnesota the odd-man rush at the other end. It wasn’t all on Del Mastro, but a little more thought on how to handle the puck would be good. To be fair to everyone on the ice, it was at the end of a shift. The other pass picked off was the exiting one from Allan on the Wild’s second goal where he just didn’t send it far enough to reach Philipp Kurashev, a pass Allan might have rushed due to pressure from Gaudreau. Both turnovers are instances when the young defenders have generally not been prone to mistakes, so chalk it up to a learning experience in the NHL.

Outside of that one mistake, Del Mastro had another decent game in his cup of coffee with the Blackhawks so far. Offensively, he was outstanding; defensively, he was a mixed bag. Look at the player stat card below: Del Mastro had the second best individual offensive performance among defensemen (behind Seth Jones, who gets PP time) and fourth on the whole team (behind Jones, Bedard and Nazar). That move on the Nazar goal was a thing of beauty, and he pulled moves kind of like that in the AHL most of last season. On the defensive side of things, there were moments where he was trying to “do a little too much”, as Sorensen said after the game, and he took an unnecessary holding penalty, but he got much better as the game went on. There were some pass breakups from him in the second and third that were quite neat. Again, it’s all about development for players like Del Mastro.

Got his first NHL point too, which is exciting:

The Blackhawks played better once they started to be a bit more physical. The Wild pushed back on this, of course, but the Blackhawks did a good job standing their ground once the tides looked to be turning.

There was some line blending in the back half of the game, which wasn’t unexpected considering they were down by three goals early. One line — Kurashev, Ryan Donato, and Pat Maroon — seemed to have the puck more often than not: the Blackhawks owned 61.90 percent of the shot attempts when that trio was on the ice. The scoring chances were still low for them, but you have to give them credit for bringing the energy and the rest of the team seemed to feed off their momentum. If not for the energy fourth line, neither of the Blackhawks goals happen: Donato is who drew the penalty in the third that ended up being the Blackhawks first goal and he was actually still on the ice for the Nazar goal after a very long shift (1:27 total).

Really happy to see Jones back closer to his former self. He’s been good in the last few Blackhawks games and was again tonight. He led the team with 11(!!) shot attempts, six of which were on goal and three of which were scoring chances. Jones also scored on the power play after being hit in the mouth with a puck. Didn’t look like he lost any teeth, but that had to hurt and he scored like five minutes after returning to the ice.

On the Jones trade rumors: it’s important to note that any trade is unlikely in-season and may still not be possible at any point. Teams are interested, but Jones’ contract makes it hard to deal him without salary being retained, and that doesn’t make much sense in season. There is also a limit on how much the Blackhawks should be willing to retain, but that’s really a discussion for the off-season.

Prior to the game, the Blackhawks did recall Landon Slaggert from the Rockford IceHogs. He has 25 points (10 G, 15 A) in 39 games in the AHL so far, which is respectable but not spectacular, but he’s been especially good since the turn of the new year with seven points (2 G, 6 A) in eight games in the month of January, and that’s without Nazar or Colton Dach on the squad. Slaggert likely won’t have the same offensive impact in the NHL — he had four points in 16 games with the Blackhawks after he finished his NCAA season — but his two-way, crash-the-net style could definitely carve him out a role on the big stage. Hopefully we see him in the lineup next game.

Here is his last AHL goal for those interested:

And his first NHL point last season:

Game Charts

Three Stars

  1. Matt Boldy (MIN ) — 3 assists
  2. Marcus Foligno (MIN) — 1 goal, 1 assist
  3. Ethan Del Mastro (CHI) — first NHL point

What’s Next

The Blackhawks close out January with two road games, the first on Tuesday against the Tampa Bay Lightning at 6 p.m.

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