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You Oughta Know: Oilers 4, Blackhawks 3

Posted on by L_B_R
Credit: David Banks-Imagn Images

The Chicago Blackhawks blew a two-goal lead twice against the Edmonton Oilers on Saturday night, ultimately losing 4-3 in regulation.

Teuvo Teravainen picked up where he left off last game, scoring 4:45 into the first period to put the Blackhawks up 1-0. Jason Dickinson sent a slick pass from the left corner to Teravainen in the high slot, who snapped the puck past Calvin Pickard.

Nick Foligno doubled the lead with 4:59 left in the opening frame, knocking in the rebound off the boards created by a Teravainen shot and making it 2-0 Blackhawks.

The Oilers cut the Blackhawk lead in half just 22 seconds into the second period. A rushing Leon Draisaitl sent the puck through Seth Jones’ legs to Viktor Arvidson, who swopped around the back of the net to pass out front to Vasily Podkolzin for the goal.

The Blackhawks regained their two-goal lead midway through the second after Ryan Donato received a quick pass from Nolan Allan in the slot, and his turnaround shot beat Pickard thanks in part to a screen by Pat Maroon.

Unfortunately, the Oilers scored twice in the final five minutes of the second to retie the game, this time 3-3.

First, with 4:11 left in the period, Adam Henrique in the slot tipped a point shot from Ty Emberson, making it 3-2.

Then Corey Perry grossly scored two minutes later, equalizing the score 3-3. Kasperi Kapanen won a board battle against Alec Martinez, got the puck to a grossly open Perry, who grossly walked in the slot to score grossly. Did I mention this was gross?

The Oilers then took a 4-3 lead 7:18 into the third period while on the power play. A rebound from Draisaitl pops out in front, and an apparently an unmovable Zach Hyman camped right in front of Arvid Soderblom just casually turns to knock the puck in.

Notes

The Blackhawks had a nice little surge in the first period before the opening goal and then kept it pretty even for a while. They did allow the Oilers to take over a bit and the Blackhawks had slightly worse share of shot attempts (47.22 percent) and expected goals (48.2 percent) at 5-on-5 overall, but the Blackhawks capitalized during their next, consistent push and had some good defensive plays to break up the Oilers plays in the offensive zone to keep them off the board. Keeping the Oilers to just one high danger chance was good.

After Edmonton scored quickly in the second period, Chicago responded pretty well and seemingly having an edge in puck possession for a good handful of minutes. Not by an outragous margin, but enough to give hope the period would go alright. However, the Oilers really turned it up, especially after Donato made it 3-1, and it really felt like the goals against were inevitable. The Oilers had 13 high danger chances against at 5-on-5 in the second period alone, possibly the most the Blackhawks have allowed against in a single-period. The Blackhawks finished with just 30.95 percent of the shot attempts, 31.82 percent of the shots on goal, and 9.42 percent of the expected goals. That expected goals share isn’t the lowest in a single period — that would be the 6.36 percent in the second period last game against the Detroit Red Wings — but it’s close.

The third period was a bit more even: shot attempts were 9-9, shots on goal were 6-5, and the Blackhawks had the only high danger chance at 5-on-5. But it still felt like the Blackhawks couldn’t get anything meaningful going, struggling just to traverse the neutral zone at times and being rerouted back out of the offensive zone before they had time to set anything up. The Oilers are perfectly fine playing that type of sling-shot game because they’re excellent off the rush, so the Blackhawks kind of played into their hands a bit there. Mostly I’m annoyed the Blackhawks reminded me of the existence of Perry, who I completely forgot about until tonight.

Last game Foligno banged his stick in frustration on the bench after the empty net goal against, this time it was Bedard slamming his stick as they left down the tunnel. Not only did Bedard’s nine-game point streak come to an end, he had only two shot attempts and none on goal the entire game.

The Oilers are a good team, deeper than the Blackhawks for sure, but I’m unsure why Sorensen couldn’t get Bedard away from Draisaitl in this game when the latter’s line was crushing them and the Blackhawks had last change. Bedard with Draisaitl on the ice was pretty lopsided (42.11 percent shot attempts. 11.11 percent shots on goal, and 15.02 percent of expected goals) while Bedard without Draisaitl was at least even for shot attempts and on goal (both 50 percent), even if expected goals was still very low (12.40 percent).

Likewise, the Blackhawks line of Frank Nazar, Colton Dach, and Lukas Reichel mostly faced the Oilers’ checking line regularly, which is weird choice again for a last change team to make. The kids’ lunch money was absolutely stolen — the Blackhawks didn’t have a shot attempt, shot on goal, absolutely nothing when the kids trio and Janmark’s line were on the ice together — but that is what happens when the best checking players are on the ice. We’d hope Dickinson could shutdown a non-superstar line whose average age is barely able to drink legally, too. And to be fair to the kids, the Oilers didn’t do much else either in that time: they had just four shot attempts and zero on net.

It might have been good for Sorensen to try to get Bedard or Nazar’s lines out against the Oiler’s fourth more often. Instead it was Hall, Donato, and Maroon that got the lowest quality of competition in this game. Bedard did shift with Nazar-Dach in softer assignments twice, but that amounted to less than a minute. The Blackhawks lack of depth is an issue here obvious, you’d just think with last change, the coach could adjust matchups of the lines as a whole a little more in the game. Sorensen instead played the kids less, with Reichel and Dach playing just 7:58 and 9:07 respectively. Nazar had a bit more at 11:06, but that’s not surprising — he looked the best of the three even when they were being swatted.

Sorenson seemed to have a glass half full mentality about the kids line tonight, which is good at least:

“There were some good moments. There was some moments where we got to improve on. Just understanding who you’re playing against and things like that, the importance of winning lines and managing pucks against those guys. But I liked some of the things that they did.”

Personally, I’d still like to see the kids stay together another game or five as the second in a back-to-back isn’t the ideal situation to know if something could work. I also thinking it’s been time for Teravainen to be tried again with Bedard, too, and it would reunite Dickinson and Miheyev, who were legitimately one of the best defensive duos in the league at one point.

Dickinson was obviously stapled to McDavid’s line, as he should be, and his line was solid: shot attempts were skewed in favor of the Oilers 16-10, but it seemed like McDavid’s line couldn’t setup consistently. Dickinson in particularly was much better tonight than the last game, which isn’t hard considering that was maybe his worst in the Blackhawks jersey. He not only assisted on Teravainen’s opening goal, he intercepted the Oilers’ exit pass ahead of that to keep the puck in zone. Dickinson finished with five shot attempts, two scoring chances, and two shots on goal — plus, he made a ton of smart defensive plays throughout the game. Every player is due a bad game now and then, and so far, the Red Wings one is Dickinson’s only truly terrible one this season. Very few Blackhawks players can say something similar.

Speaking of players who have had more than one bad game recently… let’s talk about Jones for a moment because there was a lot of ragging on him in the Blackhawks fandom tonight. He did not have a particularly good game tonight, but it wasn’t as bad as last night or what some people were yelling about on Twitter.

I know many people were calling him out on the gross Perry goal, but I’m not sure he’s the main player to blame. Donato went to help Martinez along the boards against Kapanen, but the defenseman had already lost the battle before Donato could get there, it left a hole in the middle of the ice. Jones then had to choose between defending Perry in front or Draisaitl behind, and yeah, the smarter thing would have been to defend the backdoor play and let Soderblom face Perry cleanly, but that’s not an easy choice. I do think Jones going for a stick check on Perry contributed to the goal against, but none of that sequence happens if Martinez could win a board battle and/or Donato timed his assistance better. Martinez is just coming back from injury, but he was really bad at battling before too so not too thrilled there.

Jones was more to blame on the Hyman goal, if only because Jones seemingly cannot move an opposing player from in front of the net. I’m sure I can count the number of times he’s won a net-front battle on one hand. Jones isn’t that much heavier than Hyman (like 7 pound difference), but the latter just planted his butt in front of Soderblom, blocking out the sun, and then didn’t even budge when Jones tried to move him — Hyman just calmly turns to knock the puck in.

The other goal Jones was on the ice for (Podkolzin’s in the second), Draisaitl did make him look like a pretzel initially, but a ton of NHL players have been on the end of a move like that from Draisaitl. Mikheyev is who gave up possession that started the Oilers counterattack (he passed too far ahead of Bertuzzi, Nurse gets it easily) and then he failed to cover his man Podkolzin (he was trying to prevent a potential wrap-around, but he left his guy completely unattended in the slot). It also doesn’t help that Martinez is behind the play chasing Arvidsson and then he takes too long to stop/turn, so Draisaitl is also completely open to the side. See in image below: Mikheyev going for the puck carrier, leaving Pod all alone; and Martinez is just standing next to the net doing jack. And before anyone says Bedard and Bertuzzi could have come down to help, they were meant to be covering the Oilers d-men that are farther back — good to do especially as Troy Stretcher was coming into the play more.

So ultimately, yeah, Jones wasn’t his best tonight, but outside of not being able to budge Hyman, the other goals were a group effort and I think there were Hawks plays who were more responsible. He at least almost made it back or over on a couple of them, a testament to him caring and his athletic ability. He also had a few strong stick plays that resulted in turnovers from opponents or him just straight up taking the puck away (there was one on McDavid that was especially nice), and some really nice offensive plays in general. I’ll take mixed bag from Jones over some of the bombs he dropped right when he first came back from injury.

For the other defensemen, it was the veterans that had the toughest outing, in my opinion. Martinez had several issues of being behind the play and he struggled with gap control a lot, got worse as the game went on, but that could be due to this being his first game back. After a few quieter games, TJ Brodie had a stinker tonight, lots of unenforced errors where you just question his decision making. Nothing that led to goals against, but the Oilers certainly took advantage for scoring opportunities. Soderblom bailed him out more than a few times.

Just so everyone knows I’m not the only one complaining about veterans, especially Brodie, not being held to the same standard as the younger defensemen, see exhibit A:

According to Scott Powers of The Athletic, the Blackhawks want Kaiser to play with more control when he has the puck, which is an apt critique for the young defender sometimes, but it just further shows how ludicrous that Brodie doesn’t sit ever considering he’s objectively the worst with the puck on his stick in terms of decisions and protection. Kaiser has an excuse of being young and this being his first legit NHL season — Brodie is in his 14th season, and yes, some of his mistakes are do to physical decline with age but the mental mistakes, like those from tonight’s game, are the more irksome and add to why sitting him occasionally would be a good thing. Let the old dude rest.

Alex Vlasic had a better game than last one, though still not up to his standard. Solid overall, some shutdown moments on players like McDavid, but he also had the occasional miscue on rushes against. Nolan Allan looked really comfortable jumping into offensive plays, something he was not known for at any other level. It won’t ever be a lot of points, but he could maybe be a nice little complimentary contributor. This was one of his better games of late defensively too, an area in which he has been fine but not necessarily his best either. However, Allan cannot take that type of tripping penalty late in a tied game, and that was a costly mistake. Louis Crevier got blown by a few times too but didn’t look as cumbersome as feared considered his lack of speed against a super fast Oilers team seemed daunting. He’s made bigger strides than expected this season.

The cross check penalty by Crevier was understandable, as he’s standing up for his goalie, but also not advisable in a tight game. Arvidsson did fold like a toddler in a cheap suit, though, didn’t he?

Soderblom’s .882 save-percentage tonight doesn’t look good, but it’s hard to blame him for the breakdowns in front of him. The only one he maybe had a chance on was the gross Perry goal, but even that was more on the guys in front in my opinion. The same can be said for Petr Mrazek last night.

If you want some positivity, check out a couple of goals from Blackhawks prospects Nick Lardis and Sacha Boisvert from tonight:

PS. There may be more typos/mistakes in this recap than normal: I was both medicated writing this and it was not peer reviewed like usual.

Game Charts

Three Stars

  1. Leon Draisaitl (EDM) — 2 assist
  2. Vasily Podkolzin (EDM) — 1 goal, 1 assist
  3. Teuvo Teravainen (CHI) — 1 goal, 1 assist

What’s Next

The Blackhawks will play their third game in four nights on Monday, hosting the Calgary Flames at the United Center at 6:30 p.m.

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