Hey, so Friday night watching a hockey game on my phone with… terrible music playing instead of any kind of play-by-play? Awesome. The Blackhawks’ second preseason game media left a ton to be desired tonight. (Reminder: we were getting the Detroit feed so Wings’ fans had the same hot mess.)
While the 90s video game pause screen caliber music played over the hockey, there was a game happening. The first period ended without a goal.
The audio of the broadcast made a miraculous appearance to start the second period. Four minutes into the middle stanza, Christian Fischer posted up to Arvid Söderblom‘s left, launched TJ Brodie and deposited an easy tap-in to end the shutout bid. Vladimir Tarasenko scored a power play goal later in the period while Nazar was in the box (he went in while Isaak Phillips was serving a double-minor) to make the score 2-0. Detroit took that lead to the intermission and were out-shooting the Blackhawks 24-13 after 40 minutes.
The Blackhawks came out of the room with a more determined offensive attack to start the third period but weren’t generating quality shots or grabbing any rebounds that Cam Talbot left available. The final horn sounded and the Blackhawks were out-shot 31-22 and lost by the 2-0 score.
Star 1: Arvid Söderblom
I feel like I’ve written this before, but Söderblom wasn’t getting any help at all. The Blackhawks generated almost no offense over the opening 40 minutes and, though the activity was better to start the third, not much more in the final 20. He stopped 29 of 31 (.935 save percentage) but you can’t win a game if the offense does nothing.
Star 2: Frank Nazar
Another game taking the good with the learning curve moments. Nazar took a tough penalty while the Hawks were already short-handed in the second period that led to Detroit’s second goal. And he struggled in the faceoff circle (he won 2 of 9).
On the other hand, after coming out of the box, he drew a penalty to get Chicago their first power play of the night. He finished the game with 5 of Chicago’s 22 shots on net, tied for the team lead with three blocked shots was one of very few guys in white noticeably driving offense.
Star 3: Kevin Korchinski
Korchinski was tasked with being the No. 1 defenseman on the Blackhawks roster on Friday night, leading the team in ice time (24:08) by a significant margin (more than four minutes more than any other skater). He quarterbacked the top power play and also spent time killing penalties. As he did on Wednesday night, Korchinski did a nice job of disrupting passing lanes, taking the puck away and using his speed to get himself out of trouble. Is he a work in progress still? Yes. Has he been solid in two preseason games? Yes.
Key Takeaways
- My No. 1 takeaway from the game was, after listening to the Detroit radio call, OMG we are so overwhelming blessed to have John and Troy on the call at WGN. Like… wow.
- The penalty kill that ended with Tarasenko’s goal was actually really good. Nazar took a bad penalty to give the Wings a 5-on-3 and the Hawks couldn’t escape almost six straight minutes of an advantage but the first four were solid.
- Landon Slaggert is a really good, smart, responsible hockey player. Head coach Luke Richardson was very complimentary of him after the morning skate and he had another night where he seemed to always be in the right place in any zone. I’ve written about the numbers game up front and it feels like he’ll be in Rockford to start the season but I really hope he gets some run in the NHL this year because he’s the kind of player you want on this team.
- On a couple occasions, Lukas Reichel was shoved off the puck by a defender while attacking the net. He needs to shoot the puck more frequently/confidently and be stronger on the puck. I didn’t see that tonight.
- Colton Dach had a nice night. He played physically throughout and was credited with five of Chicago’s 20 hits.
- I’ve watched all of the scrimmages, two preseason games and most of the practices and I’m not sold that Brodie is one of the six best defensemen in the Blackhawks organization.