NEWSLETTER
After tonight, we can officially put an end to the thought process that the Blackhawks, now 16-22-7, are going to claw their way back into the Stanley Cup Playoff chase.
Behind an uninspired effort, Chicago falls 3-1 to the Vancouver Canucks, their sixth loss in their last seven games. This was a game against a Vancouver squad not far ahead of Chicago in the Western Conference standings, and the Blackhawks needed to put in an effort like we saw in the Detroit game on Wednesday, or the third period of the Avalanche game on Friday.
We saw no effort of that kind tonight.
Same story, different night for the Blackhawks as they came out of the gate not prepared to play and were toast from the opening 20 minutes of play. Vancouver out-shot Chicago 11-6 and out-chanced them 27-9 in the opening period.
Chicago blocked a season-high 30 shots and were still out-shot by Vancouver 32-21 in the game, out-chanced 70-38(!). Whenever you are blocking more shots than you are getting on net, you’re not doing something right. You can’t win games by blocking shots, not that you shouldn’t block shots, but the offensive effort tonight was not there.
Except from Connor Murphy, even though it ended up being too little, too late.
Connor Murphy snaps one from 36-feet out for his fourth goal of the season. #Blackhawks pic.twitter.com/u5fYo5o0yf
— Charlie Roumeliotis (@CRoumeliotis) February 1, 2022
Murphy nabs his fourth of the year with helpers from Patrick Kane and Kirby Dach, so good for them getting on the scoresheet.
Before the game, interim head coach Derek King acknowledged that whoever is going to be hired as the next GM has a lot of work ahead of them. He’s right.
Chicago is back in action on Wednesday night, their last game for a week with the NHL All-Star break upon us. They’ll host the Minnesota Wild on Wednesday night, the game will follow the “Town Hall” event regarding the future of the organization and the GM search held by the team with Rocky and Danny Wirtz and Jaime Faulkner answering questions. Should be a great time.
Find the full box score here.
