Game Recap: Hawks 2 - Wild 1 OT
The Hawks get an OT win over the Wild.
The Bears may have contributed to higher blood pressure on Sunday, but if you only care about the Hawks, you have a little something to be happy about.
It wasn't a big win. But the Hawks played a mostly sound defensive game against the Minnesota Wild. Through the first 2 periods, the Hawks had a 49 Corsi with their best effort coming in the second period (18 shot attempts and 15 against). It wasn't exciting hockey unless you like watching defense. The Wild kicked things up in the third after the Hawks were up 1-0, 85.19% of the shot attempts going the Wild's way. On to some thoughts.
Offense continues to be lacking for the team as a whole (besides the Teuvo-Dickinson-Anderson line). A .87 xGF isn't going to cut it. The Wild had 19 shots on goal to the Hawks' 4 in the third alone.
We'll get to the Hawks' defensive game in a second, first I want to praise Petr Mrazek for an outstanding night. His 32 saves gave him a .970 SV% on the night. I wanted to hold judgment on Mrazek tonight because after two periods he only faced 14 shots. The third period really confirmed what I saw in net. Dude was solid.
Alex Vlasic had a hell of a night. This kid is so fun to watch. His reach broke up a ton of plays and he was active in the OZ. Vlasic only had a 42.86 Corsi at 5v5 but the eye test was where it counted. He logged 23:43 minutes of ice time and had a +1 (Brock Faber, where you at?).
Sticking with defense, I thought the Hawks looked solid overall. But Jason Dickinson really stood out and scored a goal as a result of some great forechecking. Dickinson led the team in 5v5 Corsi at 56.52 and his line as a whole had a Corsi of 57.89. He was also matched up against Kirill Kaprizov a lot with 13:16 of ice time and gave the Hawks a 55.94 xG%.
I could go on about other players who had a defensively sound game tonight, but I think this heat map does a better job of painting the picture. Just look at the Wild's side. They were really pushed to the perimeter and struggled to take shots in the slot. Even their lone goal was a result of Mrazek getting screened by his teammate.
Let's check in with Connor Bedard tonight. He had a total of 2 shots on goal and 4 shot attempts. At 5v5 he only had 1 a piece. Still not worried.
What in the world is going on with CHSN's social media team? Are they really green-lighting stupid posts like this?
https://twitter.com/CHSN__/status/1855619169544503321
Stats are from Natural Stat Trick