It’s a Good Vibes Tuesday for the Chicago Blackhawks. After hanging around in games but coming up short in their last three games, the Blackhawks were finally able to leave the ice and say ‘mission accomplished’ on Monday night against an Avalanche team that, on paper (even with their injuries), is better than the Hawks.
After the game, Ryan Donato was one of the Blackhawks players who spoke with the media. He scored twice and added an assist for a three-point night. Since being elevated to the third line with Jason Dickinson and Ilya MIkheyev, he’s been playing confidently and consistently. And he said something that felt like a massive exhale on behalf of the entire room.
“There’s so many times where you feel like, last couple games where we feel like we played pretty well, and five minutes we take off, they’re back in the game,” Donato said after the game. “And we just find a way to not finish it off. And tonight, we all came in the locker room after the second and said it wasn’t good enough, we’ve got to step back up. There’s not much to say other than just getting the job done, and that’s kind of what happened tonight.”
Head coach Luke Richardson echoed that after the game.
“I’ve liked how we’ve played,” Richardson said. “There’s been maybe one game, the Vancouver game, that to me was our worst game, start to finish. Other than that, there’s a lot of good things to build off of. We could’ve easily had a few more wins.
- I love this section from Scott Powers’ postgame observations for The Athletic last night:
Through two periods Monday, the Blackhawks showed again they were a different team. They put together arguably their best period of the season to start, dominating possession in five-on-five, and built a 3-2 lead. The Avalanche pushed back in the second period, but the Blackhawks held them off and continued to hold a 3-2 lead.
Which brought the game to the third period.
The Avalanche came at the Blackhawks time after time as expected, and the Blackhawks spent little time in their offensive zone. After 10 minutes, the Blackhawks hadn’t recorded a shot on goal in the period.
But the Blackhawks never broke. They threw their bodies at the puck. They cleared the zone. Petr Mrázek denied pucks. And then with the Avalanche making their final attempt with six attackers, the puck came out of the offensive zone corner, where Jason Dickinson had been fending off three Avalanche players to keep possession, and it ended up on Ryan Donato’s stick in the right circle. With his back to the net, he turned, fired a shot and scored. Donato punched his right fist in celebration and joined his teammates.
- The Blackhawks have a couple days off until they play in San Jose against a Sharks team that finally picked up their first win of the season last night.
- I started this Good Vibes Tuesday with some thoughts on an unlikely duo that’s doing really good things for the Blackhawks right now. And they’re doing it pretty consistently. Since the Blackhawks’ coaches put Lukas Reichel with Craig Smith, both players are finding success. It’s a beautiful thing. And, as much as fans might want to move Reichel up the lineup, maybe it’s best (to borrow from “Bull Durham”) to not **** with a winning streak.
- Before the game last night the Blackhawks assigned goaltender Drew Commesso to the Rockford IceHogs.
- Connor McDavid got hurt last night. You can see the injury below; it happened on the first shift of the game. He did not return and Edmonton head coach Kris Knoblauch said he’s headed back home to have a lower-body injury evaluated. Not good.
- Another fairly important injury last night that we saw happen in the Blackhawks’ win, the Avs appear to have lost Ross Colton for a while. He blocked a shot and was seen leaving the arena in a walking boot.
- Blackhawks prospect Dominic James is off to a hot start for Minnesota-Duluth as their captain. I noted his great start when I updated our Top 25 Prospect Rankings for the Blackhawks yesterday. On Monday, James was named the NCHC Forward of the Week.
- A little Chicago Sports Network rumor mill from Monday afternoon courtesy Laurence Holmes. What do we think? (Other than WTF is taking so long starting the network wasn’t news…)
- A random little Blackhawks nugget as we inch closer to the end of the calendar month. I was doing some homework on Hockey Reference yesterday for a few things I’m working on and looked up who has scored the most goals for the Chicago Blackhawks in their careers in the month of October. Pretty impressive list.
- Steven Stamkos returned to Tampa last night. One helluva tribute here from the Bolts.
- The Leafs finally agreed with former Blackhawks defenseman Jake McCabe on a five-year extension that has a $4.51M AAV. A reminder: the Blackhawks send McCabe and Sam Lafferty to the Leafs (with fifth-round picks in 2024 and 2025) at the 2023 trade deadline for Joey Anderson, Toronto’s first-round pick in the 2025 NHL Draft and a second-round pick in 2026.
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- Matt Rooney appropriately got out his blow torch when looking at the final two plays of the Bears’ debacle of a loss on Sunday. (And the head coach’s explanation did not help the situation.)
- Brett Taylor took a look at the overall positive results from Jameson Taillon for the Cubs this past season, especially his strong finish to the year.
- The Windy City Bulls released their training camp roster on Monday and it has some familiar names on it.