Game Recap: Blackhawks 3 - Blue Jackets 6
The Blackhawks fall to the Blue Jackets 6-3 at home. But hey, Connor Bedard scores a goal and collects an apple. You're allowed to smile.
It's been a minute since I did one of these. The holidays and life will do that. Also haven't been able to watch the Hawks as closely as I normally do. Which is fine, I'm not missing much. I didn't miss the Blue Jackets game, however. So let's get into that one.
It looks like Luke Richardson is starting to use some consistent lines, which is good. I don't blame his frustration over the players not generating offense, but I do blame him for switching the lines after every breeze. Connor Bedard also seems to be slowly getting his mojo back, which is great for everyone. Still, a couple of times he passed when he should've shot. It's also a good thing Arvid Soderblom has been looking good because Petr Mrazek looks like he's feeling it these past couple of games.
It wasn't on Mrazek for this loss. But he could have made a couple of saves that he didn't. The past two games he's made some errors that were pretty big. Yesterday, he made 30 of 35 saves with a .857 SV%. Mrazek also made 15 of 18 low-danger saves, which isn't very forgivable.
All 3 of the Hawks' goals came on the powerplay, which is cool and all, but this team needs to get going on 5v5. The Blue Jackets have been playing a lot better than expected this season and they're good at generating offense. The Hawks aren't. Chicago had a 42.68 Corsi at 5v5, and it gets a little uglier. In the second period, they had a 30.77 Corsi and a 35 Corsi in the third... The Hawks also had 18 5v5 shots on goal compared to the Blue Jackets 30. Here's a quote from Richardson in Ben Pope's latest article:
Coach Luke Richardson was equally upset about his own message not being heeded. He said the team spent the last two days emphasizing the importance of playing a structured, defensive game instead of letting the Jackets break things open into a back-and-forth game. But the Jackets proved able to do exactly that.
‘‘We haven’t been scoring a lot on five-on-five [play], so why would we do that?’’ Richardson said. ‘‘That would be irresponsible of us. We somehow got sucked into that game. That’s just [not] being disciplined on our game plan. We have to be stronger in that.
‘‘Today was the whole ball of wax put together. That’s the situation Nick’s talking about.’’
"Blackhawks struggle with situational awareness in loss to Blue Jackets" - Ben Pope
Bedard is on a 3-game point streak and had a goal and an assist in this one. He put up 5 shots on goal and 6 shot attempts, which is great to see. But at 5v5 he only put up 1 shot on goal and 1 shot attempt. While I think Taylor Hall and Bedard playing together is solid (and I think the eye test confirms that), I also think it's time to move on from the Philipp Kurashev-Bedard love story.
The Hall-Bedard-Kurashev line put up a 53.85 Corsi but also had an xG% of 34.91.
I'd like to see Teuvo Teravainen up there one of these days, but he really hasn't been himself. Turbo put up a 37.50 Corsi and the Hawks had an xG% of 54.47 when he was on the ice.
The Blue Jackets scored about 2-3 minutes after every Hawks goal, which is certainly deflating.
Alec Martinez was pissing me off. He was on the ice for 4 goals against. 1 of those was arguably on Mrazek, the other was an empty net goal. These two though? Come on man.
We'll see if Luke changes up a lot of things against the Leafs tonight, but I'm hoping the lines stay mostly the same. Build some chemistry. Get going at 5v5. Hopefully, Bedard scores again and they win one for Soderblom. If there are dumb things to cheer about, it's keeping Soderblom's win streak against Toronto alive.