Well, After narrowly beating one of the two worst teams in the NHL, Friday night, the Blackhawks welcomed the Arizona Coyotes to Chicago for another attempt at bum slaying. The problem has been that these games have not exactly been the whitewashing they should be, because the Blackhawks simply have not been that good. There are no more “gimme” wins for this team. Just about every game is up for grabs, and if you catch them on an especially bad night you can probably embarrass them. Pretty grim state of hockey in this city, these days.
Ryan Hartman sat for his second consecutive game, while Cody Franson missed his first game with an injury. This meant that Vince Hinostroza played his second game of the year, and Jordan Oesterle played for the first time in, well, virtually forever.
These were the Blackhawks starting lines:
Brandon Saad – Jonathan Toews – Alex DeBrincat
Nick Schmaltz – Artem Anisimov – Patrick Kane
Patrick Sharp – Vince Hinostroza – Richard Panik
Lance Bouma – Tommy Wingels – John Hayden
Duncan Keith – Jordan Oesterle
Connor Murphy – Brent Seabrook
Gustav Forsling – Jan Rutta
Momentum opened in favor of the Blackhawks, but their powerplay quickly derailed all of that. Rookie Alex Debrincat had a prime chance to give the Blackhawks a 1-0 lead with a gaping net staring back at him but shot the puck right into Arizona goalie Scott Wedgewood, to keep the game scoreless.
Debrincat later also figured in some action, this time negative, when he turned over a puck at the Coyotes blue line after running into the back of a teammate rather than dumping the puck into the zone. Arizona, being who they are, were not able to capitalize on the chance, though.
Other than a few terrible turnovers, most notably one by Tommy Wingels, there was not much more action for the remainder of the first period. Shots on net did favor the Blackhawks pretty convincingly, at 13-9, which is honestly right about what the totals should be versus this level of opponent.
In the middle period, the Yotes came out with a little more swagger, which led to an early shot advantage and, eventually, a powerplay. Their powerplay mustered up a little pressure, and even a goalpost, but the Coyotes were still not able to open the scoring.
Not to be outdone, the Blackhawks came out and stunk up the joint once again on their second powerplay of the game, in the final minutes of the second period. This all resulted in another mediocre period against a seemingly inferior team, especially since the Hawks were out shot 10-7.
Both teams came out in the third period looking to take a lead. First, the Coyotes caught the Blackhawks running around in their own zone, and were denied by Corey Crawford, who had his goal stick awkwardly stick in his leg pads.
Then it was the Blackhawks turn to put pressure on their opponent. Richard Panik had a great back door one timer that the Arizona goaltender stopped, and then followed up with a nice save on Vince Hinostroza’s rebound try.
The Blackhawks finally took a 1-0 lead just over seven minutes into the third period. Tommy Wingels atoned for his earlier turnover and scored on a nice backhand feed from #BigJohnStudd Hayden, which finally gave the home crowd something to cheer about. More good news on this goal was that Jordan Oesterle earned the second assist on the play.
That Blackhawks lead would not last more than a few minutes when Arizona’s Anthony Duclair tied the game. Duclair just out muscled Jan Rutta for position and redirected an Alex Goligoski pass from the corner past Corey Crawford.
The flood gates seemed to have opened as just under a minute after the Duclair game tying goal, Artem Anisimov took a Patrick Kane feed and snapped a shot top shelf, over Wedgwood’s blocker, to take the lead back for good.
The Blackhawks were not done there, though. A minute and forty seconds after Anisimov gave the Blackhawks a lead, once again, Nick Schmaltz took another great Patrick Kane feed and one timed the puck past the Coyotes goalie to add some insurance for his own goaltender.
That was all the Blackhawks would need and they were able to pull off a 3-1 win. Two wins, neither convincing, against teams they should beat most nights. Still a lot of work to be done.
Pluses
- First star of the game, Corey Crawford, has not missed a beat since coming back from injury. He made 31 saves, and had little-to-no chance on the goal he gave up.
- Patrick Kane made himself very noticeable with two critical assists. One on the game winning goal, and another on the insurance goal.
- The Hawks actually looked pretty good at the faceoff dots. Toews, Hinostroza, and Wingels were all 50% or greater, which had the team total at 53%
- Duncan Keith was back to leading the team in time on ice, but “Goose” Forsling was right behind him.
- John Hayden made the most of his team low 10:06, getting his assist on the Wingels goal.
Minuses
- We will take the win, but the powerplay was pretty rancid against a very average Coyotes penalty kill.
- It was nice to see Nick Schmaltz finally shoot the puck, and score, but he is still passing up far too many solid opportunities for fancy, low percentage passes.