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Preseason Recap: Blackhawks beat Blue Jackets 4-1

  
Blackhawks Preseason Roster Breakdown: Forwards
(Photograph courtesy of NHL.com)

The United Center was buzzing (sort of) Saturday night, with the young, fast Columbus Blue Jackets visiting for the last exhibition game before hockey gets real this Thursday.

Blackhawks goalie Cam Ward got his third start of the preseason with Anton Forsberg as his backup.  Coach Joel Quenneville decided to give Dylan Sikura, and Luke Johnson, Jan Rutta and goalie Collin Delia the night off before final cuts came for the regular season.  The Blue Jackets left most of their star players at home, so they were ripe for a regular season worthy Blackhawks lineup.

This was your Blackhawks starting lineup:

Alex DeBrincat- Jonathan Toews – Dominik Kahun
Brandon Saad – Nick Schmaltz – Patrick Kane
Chris Kunitz – Artem Anisimov – David Kampf
John Hayden – Marcus Kruger – Andreas Martinsen

Duncan Keith – Henri Jokiharju
Brandon Manning – Brent Seabrook
Erik Gustafsson – Brandon Davidson

The opening five minutes of the first period was played at a slog of a pace, overall.  That said, the Blackhawks had plenty of early scoring chances from the top line of DeBrincat-Toews-Kahun, as well as a two-on-none in front of Joonas Korpisalo but the Columbus goalie made an outstanding desperation paddle save on Saad.

 

 

Just before the teams hit the halfway point of the first period,  the Blackhawks power play stepped on the ice thanks to a penalty from Jonathan Davidsson. The Hawks had some really nice pressure around the net-front area, but Korpisalo came up with some great saves again. Eventually, Brent Seabrook used a moving screen from David Kampf to fool the Columbus netminder and give the Blackhawks a 1-0 lead.

 

Center Artem Anisimov gave the Blackhawks a 2-0 lead with just over three minutes left in the opening frame.  A makeshift, middle of a shift change line of Kunitz-Anisimov-Martinsen did a nice job of dragging the puck through the neutral zone and into the Blue Jackets zone.  After Martinsen lost control, Anisimov picked up a loose puck at the top of the circle and faded towards the goal line just to Korpisalo’s left and snapped it high over the goaltenders shoulder.

 

The period ended with the home team leading 2-0, and leading in shots on goal 12-4. Of those twelve shots, five of them were quality high-danger chances, while the Blue Jackets managed to “efficiently” make two of their four total shots of the high-danger variety.

As the second period began the play was, again, pretty sloppy on both ends.  None of the players from either team looked like they wanted to be out on the ice, quite honestly.  Pat Foley took to ranting about the Artemi Panarin/Sergei Bobrovsky contract saga for a good couple of minutes, which should tell you all you need to know about the pace of this game.

As the clocked ticked towards the nine minute mark, Brandon Saad finally got the monkey off his back with a little help from Nick Schmaltz and Erik Gustafsson.  The Hawks had a boat load of traffic in front of Korpisalo and the puck found its way from Schmaltz to the stick of Saad, and he was able to sweep it under the Columbus netminder to give the home team a comfortable 3-0 lead.

Four minutes after the Saad goal, Patrick Kane made his presence known to the young Columbus team. He led a 2-on-1 with Nick Schmaltz cocked and loaded across the slot. Kane took it himself and beat Korpisalo with a change-up of a shot, which ended the night for the young Columbus netminder. Former Blackhawks goalie J.F. Berube made his way into the game.  Berube saved all nine shots he faced.

As the teams hit the second intermission, the Blackhawks held a very comfortable 4-0 lead, and also led in shots 29-9.

The third period was a mere formality, as the players just tried to get out of this game without any injuries.  To their credit, the Blue Jackets failed to roll over and die, though. At the mid-way point of the final period, Jackets forward Kevin Stenlund ripped a shot over Cam Ward’s blocker on the powerplay which spoiled the shutout. The shots on net favored Columbus 8-7, but they could not whittle the lead down any more.

The game wrapped up with a final score of 4-1 to end the 2018 preseaon.  The Blackhawks dominated in shots 36-17, and high danger scoring chances 12-5.

The Blackhawks open their regular season Thursday night against a team they have become very familiar with, recently, the Ottawa Senators. The team also announced their last roster moves shortly after the final horn sounded.

Pluses

  • The top two lines played really well.  It is very encouraging to see Jonathan Toews playing well, and Dominik Kahun looks to be the right flank to open the season.
  • Cam Ward did not stink but, then again, he also faced very few shots.
  • Patrick Kane gave the Blue Jackets defense fits.  He is regular season ready.
  • Nick Schmaltz.  He looked pretty good with Saad and Kane, setting up Saad’s goal.
  • The game was entertaining but take it with a grain of salt.  This is not the caliber of competition that they will be seeing once the season begins.  They might as well have played the Icehogs, it would have been a tougher game.

Minuses

  • Nick Schmaltz.  How can a guy be both a plus and minus?  He was good on the offensive end of the rink, but watching him half-ass it back into the Hawks end and then let a Columbus freely pick up a loose puck, all while the Jackets were short-handed is maddening and lazy.
  • For some reason, Marcus Kruger only played 9:26 and David Kampf only played 9:19.  One would have thought that with such a dominating performance, players like Kampf and Kruger would have been sent over the boards every other shift.
  • Chris Kunitz does nothing for me.  The fact that this guy in on the team taking up a spot just baffles me.
  • Alex Debrincat has been invisible in the preseason.  They need him to start taking a bigger role.

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