Hawks Hits: Blackhawks stymied in frustrating loss to Capitals

The Chicago Blackhawks entered Saturday night’s game in D.C. vs. the Capitals looking for their first back-to-back wins since December 9th, but those dreams were dashed early, as the Capitals took a 3-0 into the first intermission.

Hendrix Lapierre (one of the best names in hockey) opened the scoring, redirecting a John Carlson shot in front of Blackhawks starter Petr Mrazek. 1:44 later, it was Michael Sgarbossa’s turn. A puck found its way in front of Mrazek, and Hawks’ defensemen Nikita Zaitsev and Jarred Tinordi couldn’t tie up Sgarbossa in front. It look less than five minutes for Tom Wilson to make it 3-0 Washington, scoring off a Dylan Strome (of course) pass.

Believe it or not, the first frame could have been worse. The Caps looked to have taken a 4-0 lead, but the Blackhawks reviewed the play for offsides and won. As NBC Sports Chicago’s Charlie Roumeliotis points out, the Hawks are 13/14 on video challenges under Luke Richardson.

The second period was much better for Chicago, as they had several shifts of maintained pressure and scoring chances, but they couldn’t beat Caps goalie Charlie Lindgren. The Caps made it 4-0 with 2:36 to go in the period when Zach Sanford fell down with the puck in front of the Hawks bench. Chicago was changing lines at the time, but Sanford inexplicably advanced the puck towards the Hawks zone. The Caps were off to the races and Sonny Milano buried a two-on-one one timer from Aliaksei Protas.

The Hawks finally solved Lindgren in the third period, when Tyler Johnson redirected a Jarred Tinordi point shot, made possible by a nice board-battle win from Zach Sanford. Later in the period, the Hawks would get a late powerplay. Connor Bedard would hit the post, then the side of the net with a couple of dazzling scoring chances, but it wasn’t to be, and the Hawks fell 4-1.

It should be pointed out that, despite scoring, Bedard was an absolute machine in this game. He ended with five shots, 16 shot attempts, and was doing everything he could to will his team back into this game.

The Hawks are back at it at home vs the Arizona Coyotes on Sunday night.

Jay: Nikita Zaitsev is back

Nikita Zaitsev returned to game action for the first time since January 16th after missing the last 20 games with a right knee injury. His return, while certainly welcomed, didn’t go as well as the defenseman likely envisioned.

Paired with Jarred Tinordi, the pair failed to tie up the Capitals forwards on Washington’s second goal of the night.

After the rough start, though, Zaitsev started to get his legs under him and began looking like the player he was before the injury.

“He’s been out for a while He’s only had a couple of full-team practices,” Richardson said after the game. “Sometimes your timing, your angles are a little bit off. I think he adjusted well. I thought he played excellent the rest of the way.”

Zaitsev finished the game with 16:56 of ice time, including two shots, four shot attempts, four hits and two blocked shots. His return should stabilize the blue line going forward.

Greg: No repeat of powerplay magic

The Blackhawks power play has been subpar for most of the season. It has been dead last or in the bottom five essentially since opening night. They are up to 29th in league, thanks in part to scoring four goals on five chances against the Arizona Coyotes the last time out.

“It’s been coming,” Luke Richardson said of Tuesday’s success. “Our entries have been great. Our determination on faceoffs has been really good. Shot selection on the power play has been our Achilles heel. Now that we’re growing some confidence, we didn’t fool around. We had two opportunities to shoot it off of faceoffs. We did, and we scored. We made the right plays on recoveries and scored. Hopefully, the propels us with even more confidence going forward.”

To give you an idea of how bad things have been, the Blackhawks have 27 power-play goals as a team. Sam Reinhart of the Florida Panthers leads the NHL with 25 by himself.

The Blackhawks’ first-period power play was a good one. They won the opening faceoff and kept the puck in the Washington zone for most of the two minutes. They had four shots on goal on eight shot attempts but could not find the back of the net.
They got three more chances on the man advantage in the third period. They didn’t win the opening faceoff on the first one, but recovered quickly and kept the puck in the offensive zone for much of the penalty. There was far more passing this time around with just one shot on goal on two shot attempts.

On the second power play, Nick Foligno won the draw and got it to Connor Bedard, who rang the puck off the post. He was set up moments later by Foligno for a wide-open shot but hit it off the side of the cage.

Bedard drew a hooking penalty with Trevor van Riemsdyk with 1:54 to play. The Blackhawks turned the pressure on after another Foligno faceoff win. They had six shot attempts, with five of them coming from Bedard.

Overall, the Blackhawks had eight shots on their four power-play chances. They looked far more organized and confident with the puck than they have for most of the season. Having Bedard back certainly helps with the recent resurgence. After going 0-for-4 tonight, the Blackhawks are back down to 30th in the league with a 14.2% conversion rate.

Mario: Connor Bedard Trying to Do It Himself

16 shots attempts tonight for Connor Bedard with five of them getting on net. Unfortunately, none of them found the back of the net but a number of them were dangerous opportunities or at the very least left some bruises on the Capitals who stood in the way.

There has been a visibly growing frustration from Bedard this season as the losses pile-up and having to carry the offensive load for the Blackhawks gets put more on his shoulders. I’m sure he’s fine playing that role, but looking up and down the lineup every night and seeing that he has almost zero help offensively has to be challenging for the rookie. In the past week and a half, Bedard has been seen on the broadcast punching the boards in frustration. Maybe break your stick before breaking your hand, but you can’t blame him for having that weigh on him.

This isn’t to say that Kyle Davidson needs to go into free agency and buy every major forward on the market this summer, but it goes to show how one or two injuries can really derail the best laid plans. Not having Taylor Hall for essentially the whole season is a huge blow to the offensive hopes the Blackhawks had this season for the team as a whole and for Bedard. All he can do is continue to take advantage of the green light he has to let it rip and eventually the pucks will start to hit the back of the net again and we all can have some good feelings about this team in the final month or so of the season.

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