NEWSLETTER
While last night was a better effort from the Blackhawks than on Friday night, it still wasn’t what you would hope to see from a team trying to climb their way into the Stanley Cup Playoff chase. After blowing leads of 2-0 and 3-2, Chicago fell in overtime to the Wild. They take one of four points in their back-to-back set of games against Minnesota, a team that is definitely going to be playing in the postseason. We are at the mid-way point of the year, somehow just the mid-way point, but it’s clear with 57 days until the NHL Trade Deadline, this Blackhawks team needs a refresh. A refresh in the front office, a refresh in coaching, a refresh on the roster. Nearly everyone should be up for the highest bidder.
• One of those players is Henrik Borgström. He’s had a roller-coaster of a season with the Blackhawks after being acquired at the trade deadline last year while he was playing in Finland. Going from the middle of the lineup, to the top-line, to the fourth-line, and then out of the lineup, Borgström has yet to find a rhythm this season. Getting back in to the lineup last night sure seemed to help…
Borgström with his 3rd of the year! #Blackhawks up 1-0 #CHIvsMIN pic.twitter.com/Fz5BCMOE7L
— Bleacher Nation Blackhawks (@BN_Blackhawks) January 23, 2022
• Just his second multi-goal game in his NHL career, Borgström twice gave the Blackhawks the lead with his third and fourth goals of the season.
HAWKS TAKE THE LEAD!!! pic.twitter.com/VcTj55eWSQ
— Blackhawks Talk (@NBCSBlackhawks) January 23, 2022
• Get that trade value up!
• Speaking of trade value…err…hopefully not, Alex DeBrincat continues to lead the Blackhawks in goal-scoring and is flirting with the 50-goal marker this season. He scored his 24th goal last night, on-pace for 48 this season, which would be a career-high.
Maybe, idk, don’t leave Alex DeBrincat that open? #Blackhawks lead 2-1 heading to the 2nd period #CHIvsMIN pic.twitter.com/ZRFOo8Z5OD
— Bleacher Nation Blackhawks (@BN_Blackhawks) January 23, 2022
• I’ll say it again, guys who can score at or near a 50-goal pace, multiple times, and are under-25 do not grow on trees. The Blackhawks should/need to invest in DeBrincat as part of the future of the organization.
• Where things went wrong last night for the Blackhawks was multi-fold. First, go check out the recent timeline of Wally Maz from last night’s game to see a lot of borderline play from the Wild last night that went uncalled. It was getting ridiculous late in the game and came to a head when Jonathan Toews was called for a soft hooking call in the third period. Toews obviously disagreed with the call and took out his frustrations with the call on the penalty box door. That earned him an extra two-minute penalty. Sure enough, that extra two minutes of powerplay time allowed for the Wild to find the 2-2 game-tying goal, erasing Chicago’s 2-0 lead from the first period. It was a turning-point in the game, even with the Blackhawks getting the 3-2 goal from Borgström shortly after.
Toews on the refereeing tonight: “I can’t comment on that. Obviously got to keep my mouth shut. Hurt our team. You can argue against the officiating sometimes when things don’t go your way, but just got to keep playing.”
— Ben Pope (@BenPopeCST) January 23, 2022
King on Toews' unsportsmanlike penalty: "You feel they missed a call at one end and then you come back and kind of retaliate. That's hockey. Smacking the glass, I guess sometimes you don't think you're going to get called on it. That was just his emotions took over."
— Ben Pope (@BenPopeCST) January 23, 2022
• Chicago capitalized on their one powerplay on the night, but the Wild were able to net two goals on their five powerplay opportunities. It was a bit unjustly lopsided if you ask me.
• Kevin Lankinen did all he could to keep the Blackhawks in it last night, stopping 40-of-44 shots faced in his first start since December 18. Over his past two appearances for Chicago this weekend, he stopped 56-of-61 shots against the Wild. He has a 2-5-4 record and a .889 save-percentage this season, but is getting just 2.15 goals per 60-minutes in support.
• The next stretch of games don’t get any easier for the Blackhawks. They’ll face the Western Conference-leading Avalanche twice, with a game again the postseason-hunting Detroit Red Wings.
the last time the Avalanche have lost a game in Denver, Jeremy Colliton was still the #Blackhawks head coach…
— Bleacher Nation Blackhawks (@BN_Blackhawks) January 23, 2022
• Woof.
• In prospect news, 2020 second-round pick and soon-to-be U.S. Olympian Drew Commesso recorded his first-ever NCAA shutout last night for Boston University!
Drew Commesso makes 35 saves for his first collegiate shutout as we finish the weekend with a 4-0 win over Vermont! pic.twitter.com/S9AMOQuAJP
— BU Men's Hockey (@TerrierHockey) January 22, 2022
• Commesso has really stepped-up for Boston after a shaky start to the year. He’s 10-8-1 this season with a .914 save-percentage and a 2.43 GAA. He was also recently named to the Mike Richter Award Watchlist for the top NCAA Div.1 goaltender.
• In the AHL for the IceHogs, Michal Teply has drastically improved his game in recent weeks. Scoring his fourth and fifth goals of the season, as well as tallying a goal in the shootout, Teply powered the IceHogs to a 3-2 shootout win last night over the Texas Stars!
#Blackhawks prospect, Michal Teplý (#53 in white) has been so good as of late! He has seven points (4G, 3A) in his past seven games. Andrei Altybarmakyan (#84) and Nicolas Beaudin (#74) with the assists. #IceHogs #HawksProspects #HockeyTwitter pic.twitter.com/kBCDMWkhEd
— Chicago Prospects (@Chi_Prospects) January 23, 2022
MICHAL TEPLÝ (#53 in white) SCORES AGAIN!!! This man cannot be stopped. Lukas Reichel (#27) extends his point streak to five games, and Dylan McLaughlin (#39) also picks up an assist. #Blackhawks #IceHogs #HawksProspect #EBB #HockeyTwitter pic.twitter.com/XLzEKFMiiJ
— Chicago Prospects (@Chi_Prospects) January 23, 2022
#Blackhawks prospects, Michal Teplý (#53 in white) and Ian Mitchell score in the shootout for the #IceHogs. The Hogs won 3-2. #HawksProspects #HockeyTwitter pic.twitter.com/sVP7wBVDP1
— Chicago Prospects (@Chi_Prospects) January 23, 2022
• Teply has five points in his last three games played, and all nine of his points this season have come over his last ten games played for Rockford. Not to be overlooked, Lukas Reichel tallied an assist for his 14th point of the season. He leads the team in goals and points through 23 appearances this year and is tied for fifth in points in the AHL among active rookies. You can find the full highlights from last night’s win in Rockford here…
HIGHLIGHTS: Michal Teply buries two goals and strikes in the shootout to lead us to a 3-2 comeback shootout win vs. TX! https://t.co/CC6s6OeheO
— Rockford IceHogs (@goicehogs) January 23, 2022
• Rookie goaltender Arvid Soderblöm picked up his sixth win of the season for Rockford last night, making 20-of-22 saves. He is 6-6-0 in 12 appearances for Rockford with a .914 save-percentage.
• Ugliness in the ECHL last night between the South Carolina Stingrays and the Jacksonville Icemen. Jacob Panetta and Jordan Subban, brother of Malcolm and P.K., got into a heated altercation that ended up in a near-benches clearing brawl. It turns out, the fight was started after Panetta made a racial gesture towards Subban…
More like @JPanetta12 was too much of a coward to fight me and as soon as I began to turn my back he started making monkey gestures at me so I punched him in the face multiple times and he turtled like the coward he is. There fixed it 👍🏾 https://t.co/JtPqpN9wwE
— Jordan Subban (@jordansubban) January 23, 2022
• Another instance of racism on the ice, Jordan’s brother P.K. shared the video of the incident, where you can see Panetta make the “monkey gestures” as Jordan called them, around the 19-second mark of the video. P.K. went on to call out the ECHL and Panetta for the incident in this thread:
They don’t call the east coast league the jungle because my brother and the other black players are the monkeys! Hey @jacobpanetta you shouldn’t be so quick delete your Twitter or your Instagram account you will probably be able to play again… that’s what history says but things pic.twitter.com/8zOJ9q47pk
— P.K. Subban (@PKSubban1) January 23, 2022
are changing. now not just the hockey world knows your true colours… your hometown of Belleville knows, your family, and friends know you’re a fraud ..with everything that has gone on in the past couple years in the world I’ll say with all due respect to everyone who has an
— P.K. Subban (@PKSubban1) January 23, 2022
opinion, this isn’t a mistake. We all know what’s ok and what’s not. Even your own teammates wanted to see you get your clock cleaned. This happens a lot and it never gets exposed in the lower leagues. One thing that I love about this is Jordan’s teammates standing in there and
— P.K. Subban (@PKSubban1) January 23, 2022
showing support. Love that. Shout out to @robconcannon & @scstingrayshockey 🙌🏿 leave your comments below. I’m done🤙🏿 @NHL @ECHL @TheAHL
— P.K. Subban (@PKSubban1) January 23, 2022
• The Stingrays released this statement of support for Subban this morning.
Statement from South Carolina Stingrays President Rob Concannon, regarding last night’s incident involving Jordan Subban.#HockeyIsForEveryone pic.twitter.com/SQOULichYM
— SC Stingrays (@SCStingrays) January 23, 2022
• In response, the ECHL has suspended Panetta indefinitely, pending a hearing.
ECHL announces suspensionhttps://t.co/LucRfTz6Fc
— ECHL (@ECHL) January 23, 2022
• This is, once again, the deep-rooted problems within the culture of the sport of hockey. Diversity in the game has rarely been encouraged until the past few years. Racial incidents like this happen at all levels and have kept many talented players away from the game. It’s not an NHL issue, it’s a hockey issue.
Second racist incident in the same week Willie O’Ree was honored. SMH. How do we still have so far to go? Time for coaches/leagues to have a talk with their teams immediately. Back to basics clearly. Tell your players any bullshit like this and you’re done. Zero tolerance. https://t.co/gF6NRcYwZs
— JT Brown (@JTBrown23) January 23, 2022
• This happened less than 24 hours after the news of the racial incident between Boko Imama and Krystof Hrabik in the AHL, which landed Hrabik a 30-game suspension. It’s clear that these things will keep happening until the rest of the sport, mainly the prominent white voices of the game, speak out against these actions and actually act upon it. Dealing with incidents like these should not be the norm for BIPOC players at any level.
• Speaking of inclusion in the game, the New Jersey Devils donned these awesome sweaters in warmups for their Pride Night game last night.
They’re here. And they’re perfect.#NJDevils | #HockeyIsForEveryone pic.twitter.com/xu7lJhfxjO
— New Jersey Devils (@NJDevils) January 22, 2022
PRIDE😤 pic.twitter.com/9oYK7Oweb6
— P.K. Subban (@PKSubban1) January 23, 2022
• I know it probably would have been a nightmare for the broadcast team to see the numbers on these sweaters on the ice, but the NHL should take a page out of the AHL/ECHL and wear these kinds of specialty sweaters for the actual games, not just in warmups.
• Here it is, your moment of zen…
WATCH: Robbie Gould Ends the Packers Seasonhttps://t.co/ybDY8KvK6Ipic.twitter.com/i5f2t6F1fe
— Bleacher Nation Bears (@BN_Bears) January 23, 2022
• I can’t say anything more about Aaron Rodgers and the Packers that hasn’t already been said on social media in the past 12 hours.
• That will do it for today. Hope you all enjoy your Sunday!
