CHICAGO — OK, look, the Chicago Blackhawks aren’t counting down magic numbers or sweating 4-point games or anything, and the Nashville Predators aren’t panicking about how they’ll climb out of an 0-5 hole in a league in which it’s notoriously difficult to make up ground in the standings, thanks to the loser point. The season is barely two weeks old. Relax.
But that doesn’t mean they’re not paying attention.
“It’s a divisional game,” Chicago coach Luke Richardson said before Friday night’s game at the United Center. “We’re ahead of them right now, and we have to look at that as motivation to stay ahead of them.”
Well, they’re still ahead by a point after a frustrating 3-2 come-from-ahead loss to Nashville. That says more about the Predators’ start than the Blackhawks’ start, though. Come April, it’s unlikely this game will have meant much of anything to the Blackhawks, who are still in the transition stages of a long-term rebuild and are not realistically competing for a playoff spot this season.
But that doesn’t mean it stings any less when a terrific start and a 3-0 lead become a loss after Teuvo Teräväinen had a goal overturned after an offside challenge, Filip Forsberg split T.J. Brodie and Nolan Allan before beating Petr Mrázek 89 seconds later, and Gustav Nyquist scored a short-handed goal three minutes after that, before Brady Skjei’s power-play goal in the third period gave Nashville the win.
“It’s a 60-minute game,” Blackhawks defenseman Alex Vlasic said. “I feel like we slept for five to 10 minutes of that game, and they took it away from us.”
Here are some quick observations from the Blackhawks’ third straight defeat:
1. Before the game, Richardson said staying out of the penalty box would be a key to knocking off Nashville.
The Blackhawks then proceeded to give the Predators five power plays. And though Chicago had some strong kills, including a couple on which it had the better of the scoring chances, Nashville finally broke through with Skjei’s goal at 13:07 of the third.
The penalty kill seemed to lose its trademark aggressiveness as the game wore on. It didn’t help that the penalties were taken by Connor Murphy, Nolan Allan, Jason Dickinson, Ilya Mikheyev and Wyatt Kaiser, all of whom kill penalties for the Blackhawks.
“So we’re down to less penalty killers up front, where they have to do a lot more skating,” Richardson said. “So that probably plays into it, (the) fatigue.”
2. One of the biggest bright spots was the continued re-emergence of Lukas Reichel. The tantalizing but inconsistent 22-year-old set up the first goal with a brilliant burst of speed, racing down the ice before finding Craig Smith at the front of the net for a redirect.
Craig Smith ‼️ 🚨 and congrats to Nolan Allan on his first NHL point! pic.twitter.com/9zKVVJ0Zhq
— Chicago Blackhawks (@NHLBlackhawks) October 26, 2024
Reichel was still on the fourth line; he has found good chemistry in limited minutes with Smith. But Richardson started deploying him strategically as the game went on, taking advantage of the last change by giving Reichel occasional shifts on the top line with Connor Bedard and Teräväinen when there was a favorable matchup against a bottom-six Nashville line. Reichel also saw time on the power play and was the extra attacker when Mrázek was pulled late in the game. He played a season-high 14 minutes, 4 seconds.
“I thought he was good,” Richardson said. “I thought he gave us the speed that we wanted early in the game. Tried to get him on the power play — (he had) a real nice shot off the side, and he made some good plays today. And he tracked hard defensively. So definitely another step forward for him.”
3. Bedard continued his excellent play to start the season. He snapped a five-game goal drought with a soft one-timer of a Vlasic feed early in the second period. As he has been since opening night, he was aggressive and dominant with the puck on his stick, looking bolder and stronger on the puck than he did even during his stellar rookie season. Bedard had five individual scoring chances, per Natural Stat Trick, three of the high-danger variety. Among his teammates, only Kaiser (two) had more than one scoring chance.
Bedard also helped set up the overturned Teräväinen goal, managing a quality zone entry despite colliding with Teräväinen in the neutral zone.
4. Vlasic’s defensive ability is a known commodity at this point, and Richardson said opponents already are game-planning around him, taking the puck out wide on him as much as possible to try to elude his long reach. But in his second full season, Vlasic is opening things offensively with strong results.
It was Vlasic who made Bedard’s goal happen, with a dynamite no-look centering feed from the half-wall. That was his fourth assist in eight games; he had just 16 points in 76 games last season. And he’s been getting time as the quarterback on the top power-play unit over Seth Jones.
“He’s on the power play for a reason,” said Murphy, who was Vlasic’s partner Friday night, as Richardson moved Kaiser to Jones’ pairing. “He’s got ability and made a beautiful pass on the goal tonight. To be able to be a two-way player like that is really important.”
Vlasic was critical of his own play on the power play. He’s trying to maximize the opportunity he’s getting, but he’s still a work in progress.
“I honestly didn’t like the way I played on it tonight,” he said. “I think they did a good job on their forecheck, and we weren’t able to break the puck out the way we wanted to. A lot of that’s on me. It’s tough, and I’m still trying to figure out how it all kind of works out and who I should be passing to, different openings and things like that. I’ve got to be better.”
5. Philipp Kurashev returned to his second-line center role after being a surprise healthy scratch Tuesday against the Vancouver Canucks. Kurashev didn’t have any shots on goal and made only one shot attempt, but he was strong on the penalty kill, even generating a few chances. He had an 81.96 percent expected goals share while short-handed, which is highly unusual.
“It’s his first game back — kind of feeling himself out a little bit,” Richardson said. “But he was really good on the penalty kill. And he gives us another option at center, which we need right now.”
(Photo of Lukas Reichel, Connor Bedard and Teuvo Teräväinen: Melissa Tamez / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
