You know that whole “we can’t start slow like we did against Buffalo” talk we had earlier this week? Vancouver took 21 seconds to score. Twenty-one.
The Canucks added a second goal six minutes into the first (a power play marker). Slowly the Blackhawks started to find their legs and Jason Dickinson — who was in the box when JT Miller scored — made a terrific effort play to get the puck to Ryan Donato and Chicago was on the board. The Canucks scored a third goal 81 seconds after the Donato goal. It looked like the Canucks were offside and the Blackhawks challenged… but the war room upheld the goal. Then Taylor Hall scored the Blackhawks’ second goal and the first period was officially drunk. That, of course, was before the Canucks scored a fourth goal in the first period. The Blackhawks got screwed on that goal, too; the bench was livid because Vancouver had too many men on the ice by a lot (read: seven men on the ice!) and got away with it.
Nothing happened in the second period other than a couple terrible power plays for the Blackhawks. The Canucks scored a power play goal in the middle of the third and then got an easy one soon after and it appeared the Blackhawks were ready to call it a night… with nine minutes left in regulation. They didn’t fully quit — Chicago got a goal during a 5-on-3 power play — but they didn’t have a four-goal rally in them in nine munutes.
Star 1: Jason Dickinson
Dickinson won all six of his faceoffs in the first period and had the effort assist on the Blackhawks’ first goal from Donato. He had won 11 of 12 faceoffs at the end of two periods.
Ryan Donato scores to make it 2-1#Blackhawks pic.twitter.com/rxVy03bs9V
— BHF (@BlackhawksFocus) October 23, 2024
Star 2: Taylor Hall
Hall’s goal in the first period was the 700th point of his NHL career.
#Blackhawks Goal!
— Bleacher Nation Blackhawks (@BN_Blackhawks) October 23, 2024
🚨 Taylor Hall
Unassisted — Hall’s 700th career point!
pic.twitter.com/q5B6tGsUsr
Star 3: Tyler Bertuzzi
Bertuzzi hit the post with a golden opportunity on the first power play in the second period. He’s about 12 combined inches from having 4-5 goals this year. Hopefully that evens out at some point because he’s had some great looks. He finally got one to go on a 5-on-3 power play in the third period and was credited with five shots on net in the game.
Tyler Bertuzzi converts on the two man advantage#Blackhawks pic.twitter.com/qgJNxU5aKf
— BHF (@BlackhawksFocus) October 23, 2024
Key Takeaways
- The Canucks were 2-1-2 coming into the game, which is not where a team that has legit Stanley Cup aspirations wants to be after five games. You had to know a Rick Tocchet coached team was going to try to jump all over a team that… does not have Stanley Cup aspirations. The Canucks came out fast and hard. The Blackhawks… did not.
- Seth Jones was on the ice for all four Canucks goals in the first period (but was minus-two). He had one of the worst power play performances I’ve seen in a long time in the middle of the second period and then didn’t look much better on the next advantage later in the second. When the Blackhawks got a power play early in the third period, Alex Vlasic was with the top unit in place of Jones. Oh, and he was on the ice when Vancouver scored a power play goal in the middle of the third period… five Canucks goals came with Jones on the ice. And he was credited with four giveaways.
- Give Jones some credit: he was on the bench when Vancouver scored their sixth goal of the night. Baby steps, right?
- If this was two years ago and the worst performance on the team got one of my three stars because the Hawks were trying to be Bad for Bedard, he would have been No. 1 with a fire emoji. He was atrocious.
- Lukas Reichel was on the ice for 9:03 in the first two periods. He won 5 of 9 faceoffs and put three shots on net. And he was active with and without the puck. Early in the third period he was taking regular shifts with Hall and Bertuzzi. If you wanted back-to-back good efforts from Reichel, he was solid in this one.
- Connor Bedard and Teuvo Teräväinen were both minus-three in the first period.
- In the first period, Connor Murphy was on the ice for 7 of the Blackhawks’ 13 shots and zero Vancouver shots on net at 5-on-5 according to Natural Stat Trick.
- Wyatt Kaiser had a really good game. He didn’t panic, played a physical game and moved the puck well.
- Here’s Vancouver’s fourth goal. You can clearly see they had seven skaters on the ice but no call.