On Saturday night, the Chicago Blackhawks lost to the Vancouver Canucks for the second time this season. This time, their loss came in British Columbia in Chicago’s final game on their road trip.
Before the game, some interesting news came out about the team ahead of this matchup. For one, Arvid Soderblom was announced to be the starting goaltender.
That was good news as he deserved a game. He’s been incredible so far this year and they should be rotating between him and Petr Mrazek.
Luke Richardson also scratched Taylor Hall in favor of getting Ilya Mikheyev back into the lineup. It is one thing to get Mikheyev back after a couple of healthy scratches himself but scratching a former Hart Trophy winner is an odd choice.
Things started well for the Hawks as they went up 1-0 at 6:50 of the first period. Mikheyev scored the goal to reward the coach for putting him back in. Still, there are plenty of other guys to scratch over the former MVP of the league.
That would be the last of Chicago’s scoring, as they eventually lost this one 4-1. Soderblom only gave up two, but Vancouver deposited two pucks into an empty net.
Chicago has now scored just one goal in regulation in five straight games. They are 1-4-1 in those games, and they found an OT winner against the Minnesota Wild last week.
This is a bad stretch of lackluster offense and it is costing the Blackhawks games. They are defending well and getting good goaltending but they can’t score. You can see why scratching the guy (Taylor Hall) with 268 goals and 436 assists for 703 points is strange.
People are going to get on Connor Bedard for his scoring slump. That’s the pressure you face when you’re the leader of the team when it comes to offense. However, he is far from the only guy that isn’t doing his part. He’s also 19 years old.
The team as a whole needs a spark offensively and they are going to keep losing until they get it from someone.
The Blackhawks will now come home to play against a lowly Anaheim Ducks team on Tuesday night. They are currently two of the four lowest-seeded teams in the Western Conference so it’s an opportunity for the Hawks to break out of this against an opponent on their level.
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