The Blackhawks lost their six straight game on Saturday night, dropping a 5-2 match to the visiting Columbus Blue Jackets.
The Blue Jackets struck first after a horrible turnover by Seth Jones led to Alexandre Texier swooping around the defender and scoring with a wrist shot to go up 1-0 just 33 seconds into the game.
Boone Jenner redirected Zack Werenski’s shot from the blue line and put the Blue Jackets up by two at 14:05 of the first.
The Blackhawks cut their deficit in half in the final few minutes of the opening frame. Connor Bedard knocked over Alex Nylander to free the puck, then touch-passed it to set up Philipp Kurashev to make it 2-1.
The Blue Jackets scored early again in the second to put them up 3-1, this time an impressive backhander from Mathueu Olivier squeezed through Arvid Soderblom’s short side.
A pretty Cole Sillinger snapshot extended the Columbus bus lead to 4-1 after being set up with a behind-the-net pass from Alex Nylander around the 12-minute mark of the second period.
The Blackhawks cut the Jackets’ led to 4-2 a little over six minutes into the third period. Kurashev couldn’t finish after a beautiful breakaway, but Ryan Donato knocked in the puck after it bounced off the boards.
Johnny Gaudreau put this one away at 5-2 with an empty-net goal with 2:25 remaining in the game.
Notes
- The fact that the Blackhawks were this uncompetitive against another bad team in the Blue Jackets is pretty embarrassing. This is a bad Blackhawks team, but at least they’re usually trying hard and somewhat keeping up with opponents — tonight, they were doing neither. In the first 40 minutes at 5-on-5, the Blackhawks were on the wrong side of quantity as they were out-attempted 45-29 and outshot 21-12 as well as quality with with only 1.16 expected goals to the Jackets’ 2.01.
- The third period saw a strong push by the Blackhawks — they owned 65.38 percent of the shot attempts and 84.04 percent of the expected goals at 5-on-5 — but it was too little, too late. A lot of one-and-done opportunities rather than consistent pressure.
- Again, this is meant to be a bad Blackhawks team, but neither this bad nor this frustrating to watch. Losing is a means to an end this season — getting the best lottery odds or at least picking top-three — but these are the types of games that are soul-sucking to watch. Isn’t fun for the players either, apparently.
- Six straight losses and 14 in the last 15 with the Blackhawks heading back on the road, where they’re on a 21-game losing streak. It’s got to be tough to keep positive in the face of all this losing.
- It got a little scary in the second when Bedard looked hurt after blocking a shot right before the Sillinger goal. Luckily, he was back on the ice for his next shift.
- Speaking of Sillinger, I’m sure people are as tired of hearing about how he was selected with the Blackhawks first-round pick that was sent to Columbus in Seth Jones trade as I am, but it’s not going to stop anytime soon. Seth Jones has been good for the most part for the Blackhawks, Sillinger is relatively an unrealized young player, and it’s really a dead-horse topic. But that trade continues to be one of the worst by Stan Bowman, and it’s inescapable whenever these two teams meet. Just have to kind of live with it.
- When I say Jones has been good for the most part, tonight was not one of those good nights. Yeesh. He had some puck handling miscues beyond just the first-goal turnover, some coverage issues, and took some questionable penalties.
- As for penalties, this was a poorly called game on both sides, but how do the refs miss this?
- Soderblom lost another game but the Blackhawks, in general, regularly lose games, and none of the goals tonight seemed to be on him. Still, at some point, you have to hope he makes an exceptional save, right? Soderblom does make some good ones often enough because the Blackhawks bled quality chances against — even removing rebounds — but he doesn’t make the bail-out, momentum boosting saves really ever. I still wouldn’t write him off because Petr Mrazek was a dumpster fire last season and is a MVP candidate this year, but Soderblom needs something positive to happen really bad.
- Postgame, coach Luke Richardson mentioned a mistake by Kevin Korchinski, and I only agree to come extent. Yeah, Korchinski shouldn’t have been cruising to the bench and not still paying some attention to the ice, but the bigger issue is Vlasic passing back to idling Korchinski who was obviously going off the ice. I mean, Korchinski had been out there over a minute at that point, the power play was over, and he’d passed the puck off to Alex Vlasic who had already come on for the next pairing switch. Vlasic was just as lacking in awareness then as well but didn’t get called out.
- Kind of a bummer we didn’t get a Bedard vs. Adam Fantilli matchup this game, but the latter has been out since Jan. 28 due to a calf laceration.
- In the latest Race to the Lottery, the San Jose Sharks picked up a point tonight by pushing their game against the Dallas Stars to the shootout, so the Blackhawks are now one point below the San Jose Sharks in terms of points (35 vs. 36) and have the lower points percentage (.287 vs. .305) thanks to having played two more games. The Sharks are really the only “competition” for last place as the Anaheim Ducks are 12 points up.
- The lottery talk really is nice and all, but real talk: games like tonight make it feel like it’s not even worth the chance at Macklin Celebrini. It’s that disappointing. Especially since this historically terrible team — seriously, this team has the fifth worst points-percentage in Blackhawks history, the worst since 1953-54 season — isn’t even guaranteed the top pick.
Game Charts
Three Stars
- Zach Werenski (CBJ) — 2 assists
- Philipp Kurashev (CHI) — 1 goal, 1 assist
- Cole Sillinger (CBJ) — 1 goal
What’s Next
The Blackhawks are back on the road for their next game, traveling to Denver to take on the Colorado Avalanche on Monday at 8 p.m.