NEWSLETTER
The message from Derek King in recent days has been centered around getting the team to compete at a higher level. Despite the box score spelling out a seventh consecutive loss for the Chicago Blackhawks, Derek King was happy with his team’s compete level in tonight’s 6-4 loss to the Dallas Stars.
Derek King said that he was happy with the compete level tonight despite the score. “I really do think that we competed much better. We stayed in it.”
— Patrick K. Flowers (@PatrickKFlowers) April 11, 2022
There was a point in this one, right about the 14:32 mark in the second period, where Jason Robertson scored his second goal of the period to put the Stars ahead 5-3; that would have been a point where I would have thought nothing of it if the Blackhawks would have just fallen apart. Don’t get me wrong, the lead-up to that point was not good. Kevin Lankinen had a rough night allowing five goals in 40 minutes of action before King went to Collin Delia to open the third period.
Jake Oettinger was solid between the pipes for the Stars tonight, stopping 36 of the 40 shots on goal he faced, and technically, two of those goals were Stars’ defenseman Esa Lindell’s doing in the first period.
The Blackhawks couldn’t get anything going offensively tonight, and when their first period luck ran out, Dallas’ talent rose to the top, and the Blackhawks really didn’t stand a chance. Patrick Kane said it was a little different playing with two new linemates tonight after Derek King shook up the lines this weekend at practice, admitting that they were a little too tight with each other, which led to some missed chances in the offensive zone.
“We didn’t really sustain much in the offensive zone but nice to get that first goal. I haven’t played with those guys in a long time. Sometimes, it takes a little time to build that chemistry, you’re not really sure where everyone’s going to be on certain plays. I think there were times where we were a little bit too tight to each other in the offensive zone and needed to spread out a little bit and relieve the pressure.”
Kirby Dach scored the only legitimate Blackhawks goal of the evening, one that Derek King called “a nice dangle.” Dach also had a bad turnover behind the Blackhawks’ blue line that led to a Stars goal, but unfortunately, that’s been the script for Kirby Dach this season.
Kirby Dach scores against the Dallas Stars to make it 6-4 #CHIvsDAL #Blackhawks #TexasHockey pic.twitter.com/mKQeRaxbgK
— nopClips (@nopClips) April 11, 2022
The Blackhawks’ losing streak is now at seven games, with the Los Angeles Kings coming to town on Tuesday night. Derek King was complimentary of the fourth line tonight (Katchouk-R. Johnson-Entwistle) as well as the Erie Otters line (DeBrincat-Strome-Raddysh), so you can probably expect to see those stay together for the time being.
You can find the complete box score here!
