You know what I love more than anything? When I take some time over a couple days to work on a piece about the new third line of Nick Foligno, Jason Dickinson and Ilya Mikheyev and they get on the board in the middle of the first period to start the scoring. (Oh, and I went with a Dickinson photo for my pregame as well.)
Unfortunately, late in the first period a couple guys who need to show well — Kevin Korchinski and Lukas Reichel — combined in a bad way and the game was tied. A bad turnover by Korchinski led to a shot that Drew Commesso thought he had contained, but it was inadvertently knocked into the net by Reichel.
Minnesota scored twice in 29 seconds early in the second period to take a quick 3-1 lead. Korchinski turned the puck over for the second goal, a second tough spot for the young defenseman. Later in the period, Minnesota scored twice in 21 seconds to take a 5-1 lead. They got another power play goal late in the second for a five-goal period. Connor Bedard got a power play goal late to cut the lead to four after 40 minutes.
Minnesota scored once in the third period and the game thankfully came to an end. We’ll look for some significant improvements on Friday night against the Wild again.
Star 1: Jason Dickinson
Dickinson centered the new-look third line we talked about earlier today and got the Blackhawks on the board first in the game. As the game spun out of control in the second period, he was visibly frustrated. That third line was the only line that looked consistently decent throughout the game.
Star 2: Connor Bedard
Bedard scored a power play goal inside the final second of a second period that was an absolute dumpster fire to cut the lead to 6-2. At the end of 40 minutes, Bedard had four of the Blackhawks’ 15 shots on net and had won 6 of 10 faceoffs. Bedard finished the night with six of the Blackhawks’ 21 shots on net and won 8 of 15 faceoffs.
Star 3: AJ Spellacy
The Blackhawks had to kill a delay of game penalty late in the first period and the coaches sent Spellacy right over the boards to get some PK work. Was he great tonight? Meh. This was his first game against a mostly NHL roster. But he has been a bright spot in training camp and, if this is his last run with the Blackhawks for now, he gets one of my three stars for that after a terrible game.
Key Takeaways
- Two Blackhawks who needed to make a strong impression were Reichel and Andreas Athanasiou. The first period: not good. According to Natural Stat Trick, Reichel was on the ice for 11 shot attempts against and five shots on net against to zero for the Hawks in 5:57 of 5-on-5 ice time. Athanasiou was on the ice for 7 shot attempts against and 3 shots on net against to zero for the Hawks in 4:52 at even strength in the first. And, as Charlie Roumeliotis pointed out during the first intermission on WGN radio, AA left Korchinski out to dry on the turnover that turned into the own goal off Reichel. Here are their numbers thru two periods at 5-on-5:
- Tyler Bertuzzi took two minor penalties in the second period. Not ideal. Minnesota scored on the second penalty.
- The Blackhawks finished the night 1-4 on the power play.
- Good poll here from Scott Powers but I think you were fortunate if you couldn’t or didn’t watch this game.