5 takeaways after the Chicago Blackhawks — bitten by the injury bug — lose 4-3 at home to the Vancouver Canucks

The Chicago Blackhawks’ Nick Foligno is always harping about a young team not taking their foot off the gas once they get a lead.

Despite Foligno contributing two goals, the Hawks were hurt by that bad habit again during a 4-3 home loss to the Vancouver Canucks on Sunday.

For the fifth time in the last six games, the Hawks scored first, a run that started with Foligno’s opening goal against the Nashville Predators, and he struck again Sunday.

Foligno camped out in front of the net and deflected in Joey Anderson’s pass.

There’s a flip side to this stretch.

In three of those five games in which the Hawks scored first, the opposition responded with at least three goals during the remainder of the game.

“We’re not going to win them all 1-0,” Richardson said.

Vancouver’s Elias Pettersson scored on the power play just after a 5-on-3 advantage expired.

Foligno swept in his second goal off Connor Bedard’s rebound on the power play to go up 2-1 just 35 seconds into the second period.

But once again, the Hawks couldn’t protect a lead.

About 2 1/2 minutes after Foligno’s goal, Dakota Joshua and Brock Boeser scored 41 seconds apart.

The Hawks got a lift early in the third from their fourth power play.

Bedard made a nice back pass to Cole Guttman following the entry, and Guttman wasted no time shooting it past Thatcher Demko.

Despite that marker and a push late in the third, it wasn’t enough to pull off the rally.

Bedard said, “The first and third (periods) were good, and then the second they obviously had the puck the whole time, so that was frustrating.”

Foligno said, “You score first, doesn’t mean the team’s just going to lay down and play dead.

“I think sometimes it’s self-inflicted. And other times it’s just the cohesion that we have. We haven’t played together a long time, so you can see just little errors and miscues.”

It hasn’t helped that the Hawks can’t seem to keep their lineup healthy. Forward Joey Anderson left the game after the second period with an upper-body injury.

The Hawks also got a scare among the defensive group, where they’re already down several regulars due to injuries.

Before Petterson scored in the first period, Connor Murphy took J.T. Miller’s shot off the knee. Murphy kept playing through the penalty kill, but after Petterson’s goal, he limped off the ice with help from a teammate. Murphy did return in the second period.

Foligno took all that into consideration when assessing the Hawks’ fourth-straight loss.

“Forgive me, I hate moral victories,” Foligno said. “But with what we’re facing right now with the group we have with injuries, I’m proud of our guys for competing.

“That’s the standard — we talked about that — that’s bare minimum. ... Arguably a better team we played tonight than Seattle and we played a way better game and gave ourselves a chance to tie it at least.

“(That’s) how we have to play regardless of who’s in the lineup. That’s Chicago Blackhawks hockey and we have to get to it more.”

Here are five takeaways.

1. The Hawks have been bitten by the injury bug.

Anderson sustained an upper-body injury during the second period and didn’t play in the third.

“It’s kind of laughable, honestly,” Foligno said. “(It’s like) we’re losing a guy every game here. … It stinks to have him out of the lineup in this game because he was making a big difference.”

Richardson said, “We’ll let it settle down and find out if it’s going to linger or he’s OK. We’ll find out tomorrow morning.”

The Hawks also were worried when Murphy blocked a shot with his knee during a first-period penalty kill. Adding insult to injury, the Canucks scored 8 seconds later.

“That didn’t look good,” Richardson said. “But he’s a gutsy leader and performed the rest of the way. Didn’t want any X-rays, didn’t want anything.

“Sometimes you get stung on the side of the knee and there’s a nerve that’ll deaden your leg — it just numbs it,” he said. “I assume it’ll be something like that. But he played the rest of the way, played hard. He’ll probably be sore tomorrow, I imagine — seems like everybody else is (sore) on the team right now. But it’s good to see a guy, if it’s not dangerous, to push through a little pain. That’s a good example of leadership.”

Meanwhile, Vlasic missed Sunday’s game and is “day by day” with an upper-body injury, Richardson said before the game.

“Hopefully we get him back this week. We’ll see how he progresses in the next few days,” he said.

The Hawks have had to patch together lineups with regulars like Seth Jones, Kevin Korchinski and Jarred Tinordi out for various reasons and Taylor Hall shelved for the season.

Richardson joked, “I don’t even know if I want to practice anymore because guys are going down. I know it happens to teams at different times of the year and right now it’s us.”

2. The power play has had to learn on the fly — and mix it up.

The Hawks practiced Saturday and have to “work some kinks out,” Richardson said before the game. “Now they’re getting thrown right into a game. Sometimes that’s good.”

Some players are manning different roles, so they’ll have to communicate and keep it simple, he said. And they’ll have to learn and adjust.

“We showed them clips on how the other team plays but until you get out there, it makes a big difference after that first power play,” Richardson said. “Don’t get frustrated if it doesn’t work, talk about what you’re going to do better next time.”

The Hawks had to put that message to the test against the Canucks.

With Jones, Korchinski and Vlasic out, the first unit went with five forwards: Bedard, Foligno, Philipp Kurashev, Taylor Raddysh and Tyler Johnson.

The second unit featured Anthony Beauvillier, Lukas Reichel, Ryan Donato, Cole Guttman and defenseman Nikita Zaitsev.

The power play scored on 2 of 4 opportunities with goals by Foligno and Guttman.

Bedard said the five-forward group was “just kind of snapping it around.

“Obviously Fliggy’s goal was kind of getting it to the net. … That definitely feels good to get rewarded. There’s been some games where we got a lot of looks but some games we haven’t, but it’s nice to get a couple on the power play tonight.”

3. Wyatt Kaiser gets a second crack at it.

With several defensemen out, the Hawks recalled Kaiser for Rockford and he drew into Sunday’s lineup.

Kaiser posted four assists in 21 games with the Hawks before being reassigned to Rockford on Dec. 2. He had five games with the IceHogs before his return trip to Chicago.

“He only had a small sample down there,” Richardson said. “He played a lot in lots of different situations, so that’s really what it’s for. I think that worked so well last year for guys like (Lukas) Reichel and Vlasic that that’s what we’re looking for this year, and even (Isaak) Phillips, too.”

Sunday he played on the top pairing with Louis Crevier.

On a first-period penalty kill, Kaiser blocked Brock Boeser’s slapper down the middle.

“I thought he had some really good breakouts in the first period,” Richardson said.

“The second period unfortunately the puck was really bouncing on him behind the net, otherwise I’d like to see him take that puck and just wheel it on,” he said about Mikheyev’s goal off Myer’s point shot.

“Other than that I thought he skated well and moved the puck. … He’s kind of playing with a little more confidence than when he left,” Richardson said.

4. Petr Mrázek should keep that stick-save in the memory banks.

In the third period, Nils Hoglander took a shot from the left circle and Mrázek dove backward and deflected it upward with his paddle.

A replay on the video board during a commercial break drew applause from the United Center.

Richardson watched, too, and quietly appreciated it, mostly because it came during a defensive miscue by the Hawks.

“We have three forwards changing at the same time,” he said. “It didn’t lead to the initial rush but it led to the backdoor play and we didn’t have our forward there. We have to be aware.

“Petr saved us there,” Richardson said. “When he made that save I thought we were going to get one 6-on-5 to help him out, because he saved our butt there. Unfortunately we didn’t, so we have to make sure we get it next game.”

5. Richardson would have a lot of cleaning to dust off the old skates.

With all the Hawks defensemen out of commission, the coach jokingly toyed with the idea of playing his old position.

Once upon a time, when he was an assistant coach with the Montreal Canadiens, he wasn’t kidding all that much.

“It was COVID,” he said. “We left people everywhere on the trip and I think we were down to five defensemen. … I just offered to play, dust off the gear and play. Kind of joking but kind of not.

I think management (had) just changed over. They made the change from Marc Bergevin. Berge might have let me play but, no, I think they kind of laughed, thought I was joking. Didn’t take me seriously.

But then I kept bringing it up. They kind of just walked out of the room. That was my answer right there.

“So they saw enough 3-on-3 with the players that year, they didn’t want me.”