The Blackhawks couldn’t hang with the two-time defending Western Conference champions on Monday night at the United Center, losing 4-1 to the Edmonton Oilers.
Edmonton opened the scoring about 15 minutes into the first period when Evan Bouchard used Zach Hyman as a human backboard while tied up with Alex Vlasic in front of the Chicago goal, putting the Oilers up 1-0:
Oilers score first pic.twitter.com/r6Setpys9p
— BHF (@BlackhawksFocus) January 13, 2026
Later in the first, a fluky goal scored by Bouchard that originated from behind the Chicago net doubled Edmonton’s advantage:
Bouchard with a fluky goal to make 2-0 Oilers pic.twitter.com/FxqlL6TYFv
— BHF (@BlackhawksFocus) January 13, 2026
With about five minutes left in the game, Tyler Bertuzzi made things interesting when he pounced on this rebound to make it a 2-1 game:
GOAL: Tyler Bertuzzi puts in a rebound off a Wyatt Kaiser shot and the Blackhawks are within one pic.twitter.com/AkKAH8I9fj
— BHF (@BlackhawksFocus) January 13, 2026
But Bouchard added an empty-netter with about a minute left for his second goal and third point of the game to halt the notion of a Hawks comeback, and Leon Draisaitl added a garbage-time goal for the final margin of victory.
Notes
This is a Blackhawks blog of course, but it’s also a blog that enjoys the sport of hockey itself which is why we’re going to implore anyone reading this to make it a point to see Connor McDavid play hockey in person. Should probably do that somewhat soon, too, because he turns 29 on Tuesday and the sizeable gap between him and the rest of the hockey world may begin closing soon. He’ll still be the best player in the world for several more years, of course, but you have to see this mutant in person to fully appreciate his specific brand of hockey magic. Television broadcasts don’t quite do it justice, the way he skates and stick handles and passes and shoots, all at a pace that is singularly his own. Go see it before this alien slowly starts to ticks back towards settings more in line with human beings.
Keeping that in mind, a significant portion of this game’s intrigue was silenced before the puck was dropped after the news hit that Connor Bedard was the latest member of the Hawks to contract the flu bug ripping through the team and it’s a bummer we didn’t get to see the Bedard-McDavid matchup in this game.
There’s already been some chatter regarding Jason Dickinson as a possible trade-deadline target, and this game offers a pretty strong indication why. Yeah, he was on the ice for two goals against but it’s hard to fault him for the first one when it’s Mikheyev who lost Bouchard at the blue line, opening the lane for the pass to Hyman, and the second one banked in off the back of his goalie’s skates. Dickinson had the Hawks best 5-on-5 shot attempt share (63.64 percent) and expected goal share (59.56 percent) despite being on the ice against the McDavid line for 12:13 of the 14:22 he skated at 5-on-5 in this game. Certainly some contending team could utilize his services come the postseason.
This corner of the internet is as staunchly pro-Teuvo as any to be found on the internet, but even we have to recognize that he went a dozen games without a point in December and of the three goals he’s scored in the last 20 games ahead of this one, only one was at even strength. We’ll see what happens with the injury that prematurely ended his outing this evening, but the Hawks are going to need more production out of him over the second half of the season.
Teuvo Teräväinen left the game with an upper-body injury. Blashill will know more Wednesday.
— Mark Lazerus (@marklazerus.bsky.social) January 12, 2026 at 10:21 PM
Few offensive thrusts felt more dangerous than the ones with Artyom Levshunov running the point at this game. It’s a shame those didn’t arrive consistently until the final 20 minutes but it was still encouraging to see No. 55 be such a steady, consistent generator of scoring chances down the stretch. He’s going to be an adventure on defense but hopefully offensive outings like that continue to make up for it.
Chicago was always going to be up against it in this game before it lost Bedard pregame. Factor in Bedard’s late scratch along with a few unfortunate bounces — most notably that second Edmonton goal — and the odds only grew longer. Nothing from this game should cause any significant concern.
Game Charts
Three Stars
- Evan Bouchard (EDM) — 2 goals, 1 assist
- Zach Hyman (EDM) — 1 goal, 1 assist
- Connor McDavid (EDM) — 2 assists
What’s Next
The Blackhawks get a few days off to shake off any remaining flu bugs before they’re back at the United Center on Thursday night against the Calgary Flames at 7:30 p.m.