Spencer Knight robs Warren Foegele during the Chicago Blackhawks’ 6-0 loss to the Los Angeles Kings on Saturday night. (Photo courtesy of the Chicago Blackhawks)
In one of the weirdest scheduling decisions that has happened in years, the Chicago Blackhawks came into Saturday night’s action against the Los Angeles Kings having just beaten them on Thursday night. In what would make sense to be a home-and-home series, instead this game was also in LA instead of back in Chicago. Here were the lines for the second game against the Kings:
Blackhawks lines in warmups for Kings rematch feature Levshunov moving up to the first pair:
Greene-Bedard-Burakovsky
Moore-Nazar-Bertuzzi
Donato-Dickinson-Mikheyev
Dach-Lafferty
Vlasic-Levshunov
Kaiser-Crevier
Grzelcyk-Murphy
Rinzel
Knight
— Ben Pope (@BenPopeCST) December 7, 2025
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First period
For the first time in recent memory, the Blackhawks did not get outplayed in the first period. The Blackhawks outshot the Kings 13-7, and got the first power play of the game on a trip of Matt Grzelcyk. They were not able to make anything of it, but managed to keep the game scoreless heading into the second.
Second period
Then, the wheels fell off. After a lazy play along the boards by Oliver Moore turned into a giveaway to Trevor Moore, he found his man. Warren Foegele one-timed the pass right past Spencer Knight before he could blink, 1-0 LA. Knight had a gorgeous save on a shorthanded chance for LA on Foegele again, making a beautiful glove save.
Spencer Knight WOW😮 pic.twitter.com/41r70JOpvo
— Chicago Blackhawks (@NHLBlackhawks) December 7, 2025
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Almost seven minutes later, on the power play, the Kings would strike again. Right off the faceoff, the puck quickly found its way down low. Andrei Kuzmenko was right in front of Knight, and managed to chip it over top of him, rolling it past the line for the second goal of the game, 2-0 Kings. With just under a minute to go in the period, Los Angeles got one more. Brandt Clarke took a shot that Tyler Bertuzzi blocked. The shot stung him bad, and he got skated around by Clarke who wristed a shot past Knight, 3-0 LA. The Blackhawks would go into the intermission looking to make a comeback.
Third period
The goals just kept coming from LA. Just under five minutes into the third, Clarke would strike again. He went up ice with the forward group and sold Knight on the pass. He wristed the puck over the stick side, making it 4-0 Kings. A minute and a half later, the Kings defensemen kept it going. Mikey Anderson took a pass from Phillip Danault and put it over the blocker of Knight, 5-0 LA. Then, Alex Turcotte got a pass along the boards. He steamrolled his way to the net, the puck deflecting off of him and in, 6-0 Kings. That would be the end of this game, one of the worst of the Blackhawks’ season.
Analysis
This was up there with the Buffalo Sabres beat-down for the Blackhawks. After a good first period, the rest of the game looked like they did not even bother to show up. Miscommunications came at every turn, no one cleared out the paint in front of Knight, lazy dump-ins were just a few of the plays that showed that the effort level was not there from this team in this game. The most puzzling factor is that they figured the Kings out on Thursday, and this was the same team as that. The Kings played better than the Blackhawks in every single facet of the game and clearly came to play, whereas the Blackhawks did not look prepared after the first at all.
The Blackhawks will look to bounce back on Sunday night in Anaheim. That game will be on CHSN at 7 p.m. CST.
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