After losing to the Seattle Kraken earlier this week, the Chicago Blackhawks moved onto British Columbia to take on the Vancouver Canucks. This was a homecoming game for the Hawks’ Connor Bedard. Bedard is from North Vancouver and, as a kid, he went to hockey camps at Rogers Arena.
Before the game, Luke Richardson once again went to the line blender. Richardson healthy scratched Taylor Hall, who he said needed more practice time before playing again. Hall is coming off a season-ending leg injury last year. In his place was former Canucks forward Ilya Mikheyev. Mikheyev played on the second line. The Hawks also called up Louis Crevier in place of the injured Seth Jones. Jones was placed on injured reserve with a right foot injury. There is currently no timeline on his return.
Here were the lines for the game:
Blackhawks’ lines and pairs in warmups:
Kurashev-Bedard-Donato Mikheyev-Foligno-Bertuzzi Teravainen-Dickinson-Anderson Maroon-Reichel-Smith
Allan-Martinez
Vlasic-Murphy
Kaiser-BrodieSoderblom
— Ben Pope (@BenPopeCST) November 17, 2024
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First period
In the first period, Richardson looked like a genius, as Mikheyev scored the game’s first goal.
Ilya Mikheyev scores his second goal of the season in his return to Vancouver after being a healthy scratch in consecutive games. #Blackhawks pic.twitter.com/j2zrBE66VW
— Charlie Roumeliotis (@CRoumeliotis) November 17, 2024
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The play was started with an impressive outlet pass from Nolan Allan.
The Hawks finished the period up 1–0 and could have been up more. Arturs Silovs stopped two chances from Craig Smith and chances from Bedard and Teuvo Teravainen.
Second period
Vancouver responded in the second period with a power-play goal to tie the game. Elias Pettersson banged it home for his fifth goal of the season. Pettersson’s shot went in the net off Connor Murphy.
The second period ended with the score knotted at 1–1.
Third period
With momentum on their side, the Canucks took over the game. Erik Brannstrom got his second goal of the season as the Hawks failed to clear the zone.
Late in the third, the Hawks pulled Arvid Soderblom to try to force a tie. Sadly, Bedard whiffed on a puck in the neutral zone and the puck was recovered by J.T. Miller. Miller fired the puck in to the seal the Vancouver victory. Teddy Blueger added another empty-netter to make the final 4–1 in favor of Vancouver.
Analysis
The simple truth is that this team stinks. The Blackhawks do not score enough goals to win games. The Hawks have scored six goals in their last five games, losing four of those five. Their lone win against Minnesota, their second goal was scored in overtime. The team has to get more offensive production from their free-agent signings in Teravainen and Tyler Bertuzzi.
Connor Bedard
Despite not scoring goals, the Hawks have a bigger problem on their hands. The team needs to figure out a way to get Bedard going on offense. He does not have a goal in nine games and went 0-for-8 at the faceoff dot. Mark Lazerus pointed out that Bedard is not snapping off his shot like last season and is deferring more to veterans like Ryan Donato. Perhaps it is time to move Bedard to the wing. The Hosts of the TNT NHL coverage are suggesting as much. The Hawks need to right the Bedard ship and right it fast.
Luke Richardson
Could Richardson be feeling the heat this season? Some are wondering if that is why he is making questionable lineup decisions. The move to bench Taylor Hall was a head shaker. People have also questioned his benching Donato earlier in the year for Andreas Athanasiou. Athanasiou was sent to Rockford this week after clearing waivers, while Donato now leads the team in goals.
Richardson continued to move players around in hopes of generating some offensive spark.
CHSN update
Lastly, CHSN launched its own app on Friday so more fans can watch the Hawks. While some players have said that the pricing is too high, CHSN President Jason Doyle put the pricing blame on the providers.
As for the app itself, some were still unable to watch the game.
You know what’s AWESOME about @CHSN__ and trying to watch the FIRST #Blackhawks game of the season on their rights holder streaming service?
When you go to start streaming after paying and it says you need to subscribe to watch….
What an absolute disaster…. pic.twitter.com/S6bgKfKD1B
— Tab Bamford (@The1Tab) November 17, 2024
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The Hawks continue to be a disaster on and off the ice. The next Hawks game is Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. CST on CHSN.