They Just Keep Cooking!

They Just Keep Cooking!

[Music] [Applause] The Blackhawks just keep on cooking under the Florida sun. Their early season surge stayed alive as Chicago pushed its point streak to five straight. They’ve gone toe-to-toe with every opponent so far. Eight games, eight chances to win. And on Thursday night, they walked out of Tampa with a gritty 3-2 victory over the Lightning. Frank Nazar hasn’t just been one of Chicago’s best players. He’s been one of the best players in the entire NHL this season. He set the tone early, ripping home a power play marker to get Chicago on the board. Day by day, he’s making that contract look better than anyone imagined. Then Ryan Donado took over the script. He buried one to push his scoring streak to four straight, putting the Hawks back in front midway through the second. And when the game hung in the balance, it was Donado again, delivering the winner in the final minute and slamming the door on Tampa’s night. This was one of those nights where Chicago had every excuse to fold. They were outplayed at even strength, squandered a golden 4-minute power play in the third, and spent long stretches stuck in their own end. However, Spencer Knight refused to break, turning in another rockolid performance, and the guys in front of him just kept swinging. In the end, they walked out with two points. Some might say they had no business taking. And on a night where the team scraped and clawed for every inch, opportunity was there for the taking up front. With Andre Burkovski sidelined, Lucas Reichel opened the night in a dream spot. Riding shotgun on the top line with Connor Baddard and Tyler Batuzi. Reichel’s name has been floating in trade talks since last season, but there’s still a window for him to force his way back into Chicago’s long-term picture. Consistency is the ticket, and it just hasn’t been there. Since that three-point showing against St. Louis, he’s managed just a single shot over the next two games. His only mark on the score sheet in Tampa was a secondary assist on Ryan Donado’s goal. Outside of that, he barely registered. He was on the ice for both Lightning tallies, mustered just one shot and finished with the lowest ice time on the team at 1058. The numbers tell the rest of the story with Riel out there. The Hawks were outshot 7 to3 out attempt 22-7 and surrendered nine scoring chances while generating only five. Too many quiet shifts, not enough impact. If he wants a bigger role, he’ll have to start grabbing these moments instead of fading into them. Sammy Renzel will be leaving Tampa with more than memories. He’ll have a scar above his right eye as a permanent souvenir from his first game in that building. Nights like this are a ride for a young defenseman, and he lived the whole roller coaster in one game. Early on, he made a slick defensive read, poked the puck free, and jump started an oddman rush the other way. A play that should have ended with Colton Doc cashing in. Then came the moment that flipped the tone. Late in the first, Renzel got driven head first into the boards by Mitchell Schaffy. The kind of hit that checks every box for boarding. Somehow there was no whistle. Instead, Tampa ended up on the power play after Nick Felino stepped in to handle business the old school way. And welcome back, Fliggy. Great to hear your daughter’s surgery was a success. Renzel headed down the tunnel for stitches and wore a shiner the rest of the night, but sure enough, he was right back out there for the second period. Tough kid. Renzel’s night never fully settled down. The effort was there, but his puck decisions kept putting him in tough spots, and a late holding penalty with under 7 minutes left only added to the frustration. He still flashed some positives. Four shot attempts, a takeaway, and a block shot, but it was an uneven game from a kid still finding his footing. In his 12 minutes and 45 seconds of five on five ice time, the run of the play was basically a coin flip. Tampa owned the shots on goal 11 to 5. Yet, Chicago actually edged them in both overall chances and high danger looks. What stood out more than any individual mistakes, though, was something we hadn’t seen yet in the Blial era. cracks in the structure. Up to this point, Chicago’s defensive discipline has been their calling card. But against Tampa’s top line, especially when Coutrop hopped over the boards, things got chaotic. There were stretches where the Hawks looked lost in their own end, scrambling instead of dictating. The difference tonight, they bent, but they never snapped. And somehow they escaped the mess. Chicago came into the night wearing an ugly badge. Most penalty minutes in the league. To their credit, the discipline finally showed up with only eight minutes in the box. But the timing of those last two penalties, that’s the kind of stuff that will drive the coaching staff crazy. Landon Slagger took an unnecessary hook right after Tampa finished killing off a 4-minute minor, and Renzel’s late hold didn’t need to happen either. Clean up those self-inflicted wounds, and this team’s chances of stacking wins goes way up. That 4-minute power play, by the way, came after Yanni Gourd got his stick up into Connor Bernard’s mouth. Just another chapter in the growing nothing rattles this kid mythology. The image of him doing everything in his power to stay on the ice even while leaking blood everywhere definitely falls under the picks that go hard category. Terra Vinan put together one of his sharpest performances of the season. And the sequence that sparked Donado’s gamewinner deserves a spotlight. First, he picked Nikita Coutrov clean with a stick lift. The kind of subtle play only high IQ players pull off. Then, instead of jamming a rushed pass to Donado, he froze the play, spotted Frank Nazar blazing up the ice, and floated a perfect feed to spring the rush. Donado followed it up, crashed the net, and buried the rebound for the dagger. Quiet, calculated, and efficient. That’s been Terravine’s game. He now leads the team with seven assists and sits second in scoring with eight points. When you zoom out, this was a game Chicago had no business walking away with. But for the first time in a long time, the Blackhawks are actually winning these kind of nights. The messy ones, the stubborn ones, the games that slip away in past seasons. It’s been a long wait. And to make it even sweeter, they finally solved Andre Vaselpski. Coming in, he was a perfect 13 0 and0 against Chicago in the regular season, posting a 2.14 goals against and a 930 save percentage. For nearly a decade, he’s been untouchable against them. The only other time the Hawks ever cracked him was game four of the 2015 Stanley Cup final. Guess you could call it quality over quantity. Hey,

The Blackhawks just keep on cooking. Under the Florida sun, their early season surge stayed alive as Chicago pushed its point streak to five straight. They’ve gone toe to toe with every opponent so far, eight games, eight chances to win and on Thursday night they walked out of Tampa with a gritty 3–2 victory over the Lightning. #chicagoblackhawks #blackhawks #chicago #connorbedard #franknazar #nhl #hockey #icehockey #nhlbreakdown
Audio credit @WhiteBatAudio
Main channel @MSZFilms