On a night when the Blackhawks celebrated 1,000 games of Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane together, their team tried hard and the underlying metrics liked a lot of what they did in the opening 40 minutes. But, like so often this season, the score didn’t like the Blackhawks as much as the eye test or the analytics did at times. And another butt whipping happened.
Star 1: Kyle Davidson’s 2023 Draft Board
Star 2: Rangers Trade Bait
If you look at proposed trades the Rangers might make to get Kane at the deadline, the usual young names that come up include some mix involving Kaapo Kakko (1 goal), Vitali Kravtsov (1 goal), Alexis Lafreniere (2 assists) and Filip Chytil (1 goal, 1 assist). Every one of them had a nice night at the office in a potential showcase game. It’s also worth noting that the Rangers are one of three teams that have multiple picks in the first round of the 2023 NHL Draft (they own Dallas’ if the Stars’ pick isn’t in the top ten).
Star 3: Philipp Kurashev
He scored the Blackhawks’ only goal so he gets to be one of the stars. That’s kind of where we’re at right now, folks…
Takeaways
The Blackhawks honored 19 & 88 during the first television timeout in the first period (see tweet at the top). They shared a moment in front of the bench together before getting back into the action. There were definitely a few tears in the 300 level that I saw.
Toews had another terrific night at the dot (he won 10 of 15). And, frankly, looking at the speed and skill the Rangers have up front I might be so bold as to say Toews might be the better fit if a trade went down between the Hawks and Rangers than Kane. They could use help at the dot; the Rangers came into Sunday night’s game ranked 20th in the NHL at 48.8 percent as a team in faceoffs.
After scoring the fourth goal of the night for the Rangers (he also scored the Blackhawks’ first goal of the night if we’re honest), Jacob Trouba ran his mouth. It got Jake McCabe‘s attention; McCabe gave him a shove as the two sides cleared the ice after the goal.
Jarred Tinordi took two shifts in the second period. The second ended with him getting hit in the face with a puck. As a reminder: his face was being held together with a lot of stitches already. There was a lot of blood on the ice and required some time to clean up. He did not return to the game.
Caleb Jones got hit awkwardly late in the second period and went to the room. The Blackhawks finished the second period with four available defensemen… or, putting it another way, one for each goal they were chasing after 40 minutes. Caleb returned for the start of the third period.
This was the second time this week on home ice that the Blackhawks surrendered seven goals. The analytics tell us this game should have been closer, but that’s just not how things are working for the Blackhawks right now. Anything that can go in the net does for opponents, and the Blackhawks are always a step ahead/behind of the play or wait a split second too long to make a pass.
NEWSLETTER
