7 takeaways as Colin Blackwell helps the Chicago Blackhawks stop a 5-game skid — without Connor Bedard
The Chicago Blackhawks didn’t fall apart without Connor Bedard.
The Hawks scored twice in the second period to rally from a one-goal deficit and beat the Calgary Flames 4-3 at the United Center on Sunday and end a five-game skid.
With Bedard sidelined indefinitely by a broken jaw, the question for the Hawks was who would take on the heavy lifting, or at least be a meaningful contributor to the offense?
Colin Blackwell set the tone from the outset with the game’s first goal and gave the Hawks the final goal they’d need.
“It felt good,” he said. “Just to get a win, especially a home win, and to sleep in your bed for the first time in a little while, it definitely felt good.
“A lot of guys stepped up today and we had a great team effort. When we do the little things like that and we get good special teams, we come out with a victory.”
Four and a half minutes into the game, Blackwell took a stretch pass from Jarred Tinordi and put on the brakes in front of Nick DeSimone to give himself space to score on Dan Vladar.
Then on the Hawks’ first penalty kill, Blackwell broke away on a short-handed chance but missed wide right.
The Hawks successfully challenged Elias Lindholm’s goal for goaltender interference, but Nazem Kadri knotted the score before the end of the first period.
Andrew Mangiapane’s power-play goal put the Flames up 2-1 at 3 1/2 minutes into the second, but the Hawks’ offensive-zone pressure began to pay off.
Alex Vlasic and Jason Dickinson whipped the puck around to Philipp Kurashev, who scored on a whip-around shot to tie the game.
Blackwell said the Hawks kept in mind the Flames were playing a back-to-back.
“You’re playing chess, not checkers. It’s the little things that build up toward the end of the game that wears them down. That’s just the way I try to think of the game, and that rubs off on some other people, the energy I bring.”
Apparently, Blackwell’s a statistician in addition to a chess master.
Coach Luke Richardson said, “He’s all fire and he knows the game very well. ... He’s saying all the right things on the bench. He’s giving us information on the bench. ‘You can’t take the faceoff on this side because this guy’s 75 percent on the faceoffs.’ He knows stats.
“And it’s great. It means he’s up on the game, he’s ready to play.”
Later in the second period, Nikita Zaitsev added to DeSimone’s misery and banked in the go-ahead goal off his skate.
Blackwell notched his second goal of the game in the third period on the power play — and did the Hawks need it. Kadri scored his second goal 42 seconds later.
It was too little, too late for the Flames. Blackwell had a crack at an empty-net hat trick but couldn’t get loose for a shot.
“I wanted it pretty badly, I’m not going to lie,” Blackwell laughed. “And I feel bad. I left (Kurashev) out to dry it, I didn’t realize he was right over there to my right.
“But we did a good job protecting the house and (Petr Mrázek) made some great saves, and it was awesome to come up with a win there.”
The game was a big test for the Hawks, who have eight forwards and a defenseman on injured reserve.
They need coping mechanisms other than “exercise and wine,” Richardson’s stated go-to.
“They have to believe that we’re seeing some progression, even with losing guys in our play,” he said before the game. “We’re playing hard and aggressive and we’re getting some things done.
“We have to get a little more done offensively and defensively and it’s coming. So if you believe in it, it’s going to be there.”
After the game, Richardson applauded the team’s resilience.
“Really gutted it out right to the end,” he said. “I would have loved an empty-net goal just to ease things at the end, but we got it right to the end. And I think the guys deserved it.”
He said playing down a few bodies is difficult as players get tired and out of rhythm, “But all those distractions didn’t distract our focus for what we needed tonight.”
Here are seven takeaways from the game.
1. Still few details about Connor Bedard.
The Hawks didn’t give much more information about the extent of Bedard’s broken jaw — or when he might come off injured reserve — two days after the fracture occurred in the first period against the New Jersey Devils, the finale of the five-game road trip.
“Still evaluating how he’s doing and settling down,” Richardson said. “We know there’s a jaw fracture and it’s swollen, so the doctors are giving it a few days to see how it settles.”
2. The Hawks can’t peg Nick Foligno to a timeline either.
Foligno landed on IR, too, after breaking a finger on his left hand while trying to pummel New Jersey’s Brendan Smith for his hit on Bedard.
“It’s not this week, for sure,” Richardson said of Foligno’s timeline. “I know he’s going to want to battle and play, but with those things, you can’t grip properly and if you freeze the finger, it’s sticking out straight and if it gets caught it dislocates and creates more problems.
“He’s going to want to play, but it’s going to be a little bit.”
3. Blackwell personifies the underdog Hawks.
Blackwell showed he has range: from pest to pit bull.
“He’s like that off the ice, too,” Connor Murphy said. “He’s always got energy and it’s big. You can see that feeds momentum and it feeds a line and when a guy plays with energy and scores, you see the celebrations, you see the passion to want to win the game. It’s contagious to everyone.”
Blackwell had a long and bumpy road back from sports hernia surgery, but no surgeon seems to be able to remove that huge chip he has on his shoulder.
“I’ve always played like this, but I’m 30 years old and a lot of people haven’t really given me the time of day my whole career, so I’ve always played like that,” he said. “I play with a chip on my shoulder and I recognize that I’m trying to fight for a spot on this team and also trying to make up for some lost time. I don’t take the game for granted, I never really did, but when you miss a lot of time, you’ve got a little extra pep in your step.
“A lot of people don’t necessarily think very highly of me.”
Blackwell’s goals were his second and third of the season, so he’s not painting himself as a scoring machine.
“But you can influence the game in many different ways, and I was just trying to do that every time I step on the ice.”
Richardson added, “He’s been unbelievable since he’s been back. He was frustrated that it took so long to get back, but he did all the right things to get in shape.
“It’s all by pure desire by him,” Richardson said. “He’s a heart-and-soul type of player and sometimes his teammates or the coaching staff have to settle him down a little bit on the bench. He gets revved up. But that’s good. It gets everybody’s spirits up and pushing in the right direction.”
4. Zach Sanford makes his Hawks debut.
Fellow forward Rem Pitlick might have joined him, but snowstorms prevented the former Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguin from flying to Chicago.
Chicago is Sanford’s seventh NHL stop after being claimed off waivers from Arizona this week. He split the 2016-17 season between the Washington Capitals, St. Louis Blues and the AHL, then spent the next three seasons with the Blues.
Richardson said, “I remember him in St. Louis early on and (he) had a really good start to his career. Unfortunately, things happen and it goes up and down.
“I know he’s flipped around a little bit. I remember him in Ottawa for a short time, but we didn’t play against him very much. Just a brief conversation yesterday with him and he’s excited for an opportunity. He was eager to get here and join in right away.”
Sanford carries an $800,000 cap hit with the Hawks and becomes an unrestricted free agent at the end of the season.
But he can’t put a price on the opportunity he has.
“You look up and down, everyone here is getting a great opportunity,” said Sanford, who calls himself a big body who can skate. “It’s fun, it’s exciting for everyone. Everyone’s all-in, all the time, and then I think maybe some teams come in here thinking they should win, maybe they don’t.
“But when you go up against teams like that and you’re kind of the underdog every night, it’s a little more fun.”
Since winning the Stanley Cup with the Blues in 2019, “things kind of haven’t been so smooth for him since,” Richardson said.
“That team was kind of dismantled and he’s kicked around in Ottawa and Arizona and different places and it just hasn’t sparked for him. But he’s a big body, looks like an intelligent hockey player and we’re just hoping we can give him an opportunity.
“He was really excited last night, texting back to me saying he couldn’t wait to get here to start.”
5. Isaak Phillips draws back in.
The young defenseman had been scratched for three straight games after a rough showing in Dallas (minus-5 rating).
But he drew back into Sunday’s — by attrition, if nothing else.
With injuries and other circumstances, the Hawks were forced to go with 11 forwards and seven defensemen.
Richardson said, “That’s always a difficult situation for (assistant coach) Kevin (Dean) to run seven D and get everybody into the game and at the right times, but that’s the nature of the beast right now for us.”
As the seventh defenseman, Phillips got just under 6 minutes of ice time.
“(Phillips) was the last guy slotted in so he wasn’t going to get as much ice time as the other guys,” Richardson said. “At the end of the game when it’s tight, you almost go down to four. That cuts the minutes again. But the guys played well when they were called upon and that’s all we can ask for in a tough situation.”
6. Jason Dickinson’s at least a “Hawks-Star.”
If Bedard can’t participate in the NHL All-Star Game, Dickinson’s the most likely choice to represent the Hawks.
If there was a vote in the locker room on who Bedard’s replacement should be, it’d probably be Dickinson, hands down.
Not just for the stats — his team-second-best 13 goals or team-high 21.3% shooting percentage entering Sunday’s game — but his low-key, steady presence in the locker room.
With Bedard and Foligno out of commission, the Hawks are reliant on Dickinson on both fronts.
“Those are two big holes that we’ve got to fill,” Dickinson said Saturday. “Yes, a lot of it will fall on me, but I think as a group, everybody can step up and bring something for us, because we need everybody to play bigger than they are and bring everything they’ve got to the table every single night so we have a chance.”
7. Hawks play a cat-and-mouse game as the “underdog.”
Perhaps, as Sanford alluded too, if the Flames thought they’d found a downtrodden team, then they played right into the Hawks’ hands.
Richardson said, “You’ve got to be the underdog and play that card, like we did a bit at the end of last year.
“We’ve got to come into the game expecting to win and the other teams might take us a little lightly, but the way we started the first shift of the game is indicative of how we’re going to have to play against these teams — catch them off guard, put them back.
“Then it’s hard for them to regroup sometimes and get everything going forward,” Richardson said. “If they think they’re superior than our team, they just get more frustrated as the game goes along.”
