The Blackhawks began a short homestand against the Vegas Golden Knights, Friday night. The Golden Knights came in, after losing the previous night against St. Louis. Joel Quenneville threw Jeff Glass back out for his fourth came in a row, while Michal Kempny, Ryan Hartman and Jan Rutta spent the night in the cheap seats. Hartman was a surprise last-minute scratch after having a couple of really good games on a row.
These were the Blackhawks starting lines:
Brandon Saad – Jonathan Toews – Vince Hinostroza
Alex DeBrincat – Nick Schmaltz – Patrick Kane
Patrick Sharp – David Kampf – Richard Panik
Lance Bouma – Tommy Wingels – John Hayden
Duncan Keith – Jordan Oesterle
Connor Murphy – Brent Seabrook
Gustav Forsling – Cody Franson
The Knights did not let the previous night’s disappointing results affect them at all. They came out, drew a quick power play and then scored on their 11th shot of the game. Jeff Glass was fighting for his life while Vegas absolutely peppered him, and eventually used a triple deflection to take a 1-0 lead with under five minutes knocked off the first period clock. Statistically, the goal was scored three seconds after the power play expired, but the goal was essentially a power play goal. The Vegas pressure did not stop there, though, as the Knights turned around just a minute later but failed to score on what turned out to be a 4-on-1. Only Jeff Glass’ glove kept the Blackhawks from going down 0-2.
The shots were at 14-3 in favor of the Golden Knights with 8:30 left in the opening period when the Blackhawks finally drew a power play of their own, to take some of the pressure off their defense and goaltender. The bad news was that they barely registered and more than a blip on the ol “momentum meter“, which should come as a surprise to no one.
The Golden Knights took a 2-0 lead on their 18th shot of the first period, with just over four minutes left until the intermission. Jonathan Marchessault beat Jonathan Toews on a faceoff deep in the Hawks zone and then ended up with the puck back on his stick. Marchessault let a long shot go, but the puck went off Jordan Oesterle’s skate and past Jeff Glass.
The Blackhawks finally caught a huge break with two minutes left in the first period. Vegas was careless in their own end and turned the puck over to Jonathan Toews behind their own net. Toews found Brandon Saad in the slot with a borderline pass that he was able to collect. Saad sent a shot that was headed ide of the net but, luckily for the Blackhawks and Saad, the shot hit Vinny Hinostroza in the midsection and beat Malcolm Subban to send the teams into the break with a one goal game.
It only took the Blackhawks mere seconds into the second period to hand their opponent another bad power play, which is exactly what they did not need. Fortunately, the Hawks killed off the power play pretty easily and even had a few Brandon Saad grade-A shorthanded chances.
They were not so fortunate a couple of minutes later, though, when the pairing of Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook got caught up and left Reilly Smith all alone in the middle of their own end, and one-on-one with Jeff Glass. Glass made the initial stop on Smith but the rebound found the stick of William Karlsson, who had a gaping net in front of him. Karlsson made no mistake and gave his team a 3-1 lead.
Once again, though, the Blackhawks battled back, two minutes after the Karlsson goal. David Kampf started the scoring play by maintaining possession in the neutral zone for an extended period of time, and eventually getting the puck to Richard Panik. Panik wasted little time getting the puck to a breaking Patrick Sharp, who headed up the left side of the ice while Kampf jumped back into the play to create a 2-on-1. Sharp used Kampf as a decoy the entire time and beat Subban for his second goal in as many games.
The Blackhawks started to really show some life as the period wore on, and tied the game with under a minute remaining in the middle frame. A nice piece of forechecking by Brandon Saad ended up on the stick of Vinnie Hinostroza, who drew Subban’s attention long enough to dump the puck off to Nick Schmaltz for a back-door one timer. The period ended with the Golden Knights leading in shots by a narrow margin 14-13, but they still lead 35-23 overall in this wild west shootout.
Speaking of the wild west, the Blackhawks only took 30 seconds to take a 4-3 in the third period. Vinnie Hinostroza was, once again, in the heat of the action, driving up the right side and feeding Jonathan Toews for a wide open back door goal. Brandon Saad made the play by opening up the slot for Toews with a hard drive to the net.
A few minutes later, Cody Eakin knotted the game back up after the Blackhawks lost another puck deep in their zone and Eakin just unloaded a long one timer on Glass. Gustav Forsling looked to have screened Glass just prior to the shot getting to him, but the goal was one Glass will want back.
With about six minutes left in regulation, Reilly Smith picked the pocket of Connor Murphy at the Vegas blue line and raced in on a 2-on-1 with William Karlsson from the Blackhawks blue line in. Smith wasted little time driving in on Glass and beating him high to the blocker side. While the Blackhawks seemed to be inspired to continuously fight back, they just simply ran out of gas and eventually fell 5-4.
Pluses
- Vince Hinostroza getting three points with the Toews line has to have earned him more time in the top six. He has been a ray of light that line has needed all season. It may only last as many games as “The Jeff Glass Experience“, but ride it.
- Richard Panik had one of his better games this season. He was noticeable in a good way.
- Speaking of noticeable in a good way, Patrick Sharp with goals in back to back games is, hopefully, a good sign for that third line.
Minuses
- For those wondering, Ryan Hartman is nursing an upper body injury and was not feeling up to game shape at the morning skate, so Panik dressed. Hartman is listed as Day-to-day
- The Blackhawks defense was pretty sketchy all night. Jordan Oesterle and Gustav Forsling looked overmatch several times, on top of Keith and Seabrook getting crossed up on the third Vegas goal.
- Jeff Glass was certainly AHL quality in this game. The shine is wearing off this 32 year old penny. It is time to stop this public relations charade and put the real backup back in for the next game.
- The Blackhawks possession numbers were like a St. Valentines Day murder scene. Only Cody Franson, Brandon Saad, and Richard Panik were above water in 5-vs-5 Corsi.
- With all the craziness, the fourth line only saw about 7:30 each of ice time.