Game Recap: Penguins 6 - Blackhawks 2
The Blackhawks play some of the worst hockey.
The Chicago Blackhawks played one of their worst games.
It didn’t start off that way. They looked okay in the first period. Chicago owned a 52.38% shot attempt share (Corsi) and a 53.92% expected goals share (xG%), both stats at 5v5. Even though the Pittsburgh Penguins had the slight edge in 5v5 shots on goal (8-6) and 5v5 scoring chances (6-5), this looked like a winnable game.
And it should’ve been. The Blackhawks have fast young players, and the Penguins, despite their recent success, are old and slow.
We even got a good look at Ryan Greene’s hockey smarts with Connor Murphy’s third goal of the season.
Frank Nazar made a great interception in the defensive zone (which you can appreciate here), carried the puck through the neutral zone, passed to a trailing Ryan Greene, who opened space for Connor Murphy.
It wasn’t perfect, though. The Penguins' fourth line did some excellent forechecking and scored.
And then the second period happened.
Artyom Levshunov had a rough game, and the Hawks beat is currently pinning the loss on him (while acknowledging that the team as a whole sucked). Levshunov was all over the place and looked lost. This has been the story for the past few weeks now. Both he and partner Wyatt Kaiser were on the ice for the final five goals against.
The above screenshot is the Penguins’ fourth goal. Kaiser (CHI44) made a questionable pinch at the offensive blue line, which means Levshunov (CHI55) needs to stay in between the dots. He’s out of position at the Hawks’ blueline, and Ben Kindel is able to pass to a streaking Anthony Mantha.
That wasn’t his worst mistake. But it wasn’t just on him. The Hawks had an 18.36 xG% in the second period. They didn’t even try to generate meaningful scoring chances.
This team didn’t give a shit in the second period. That didn’t change in the third period either. The Penguins had zero issue pulling the Hawks’ defense out of position and tiring them out on the forecheck. And it was the older players who looked checked out and couldn’t wait to get the hell out of there.
Both Jason Dickinson and Ilya Mikheyev couldn’t give two shits about playing defense. And both of these players are constantly praised for their defensive work. And no, neither one of them should be “cheating up for offense.”
But hey, Connor Bedard scored a beautiful goal, so hopefully that breaks the scoring dam for him.
There are some concerns that I have regarding the Blackhawks’ lack of offense as of late. Yes, it’s a compressed schedule. Yes, the Hawks are currently on pace for 77 points (better than last season’s 68). But I have concerns that may be worth exploring another day.