After a marvelous offensive performance led by 88 on Sunday night, the Blackhawks welcomed a Vegas team into town that came in riding a five-game win streak. They made it six, and were a significantly more physical team than the Leafs were two nights ago. All it took was a Vegas penalty in the final minutes with an empty net for the Blackhawks’ offense to make a little magic.
Star 1: Patrick MFing Kane
Forget it. Just forget it. A slapper as the clock expired at the end of overtime to win it? SHUT IT DOWN! I really honestly do not care that the officials ruled the clock had expired. That was the storybook roof-blowing-off moment that the people paid to see.
Star 2: Cole Guttman
I owe the kid a star nomination after his first career NHL goal got left on the cutting room floor because of 88’s hat trick on Sunday night. So when he got a beautiful breakaway and converted tonight (hopefully Andreas Athanasiou was watching), he earned a star for the game without hesitation.
Star 3: Petr Mrazek
Mrazek was under fire the entire night, including Vegas putting 20 shots on net in the second period. The Blackhawks were playing with fire through 40 minutes and they got away with it for the most part because Mrazek was on his game. He did a nice job of getting loose change away from the front of the net and stopped the shots he needed to hoping the skaters in front of him would get another goal or two. They got him the second one to force overtime inside the final minute of regulation.
Takeaways
- The game was pretty physical from the get-go, but the Blackhawks did NOT hold anything back with Patrick Kane. He was already at 17:10 on the ice through two periods.
- Max Domi was one of a few Blackhawks who wanted a piece of Keegan Kolesar. It looked like Kolesar baited Domi into a fight and then bailed, allowing the officials to break up the fight and hit Domi with a minor and the 10-minut misconduct. But Kolesar went to the box a few minutes later after a cheap shot sent Philipp Kurashev into Mrazek (puck don’t lie, kids).
- Jake McCabe only took four shifts in the second period, with the first one coming more than five minutes into the period. For a guy who has been relied on heavily this season, it was odd that he would go four minutes between shifts after not taking one for five minutes to start a tied game. His shifts appeared to be back to normal in the third period, however.
- The Blackhawks’ power play isn’t worth two-ply right now…. but Tyler Johnson got the late PPG with the empty net behind him to tie the game.