CHICAGO — Are the Chicago Blackhawks really capable of making the Stanley Cup playoffs this season?
That answer has gone from no way to unlikely to, well, maybe. Being in the vicinity of the Western Conference wild-card spots this late into the season, they’ve at least put themselves in position to play meaningful games late into the season.
While those late-season games may feel meaningful and appear vital however they finish the season, games such as Thursday’s against the Calgary Flames, which on the surface felt like a nothing game on a weekday, are just as important. And the Blackhawks failed to win a game that was theirs for the taking. If they fall just short of a playoff spot, this 3-1 loss should be remembered for that.
It’s odd because the Blackhawks seemed as if they might roll. They were coming off a competitive practice and had time to prepare, which during January’s packed schedule has been uncommon. They scored first with Colton Dach setting up Nick Foligno at 2:38 of the first period. Their smallest crowd since October — 16,652 in the United Center — was nonetheless into it, which was aided by Duncan Keith’s early appearance pulling the goal horn. The Blackhawks were in a good place early.
But then they handed all that to the Flames. Matt Grzelcyk took an interference penalty shortly after the Blackhawks’ goal, and 10 seconds in, their penalty kill allowed their first power-play goal of January. They had gone 16-for-16 in short-handed situations heading into the game. Giving up a power-play goal isn’t the end of the world.
But what was devastating was the Blackhawks allowing a short-handed goal on their own power play less than three minutes later. As the Blackhawks worked the puck up the ice, Artyom Levshunov passed it to Connor Bedard out of the defensive zone, and Bedard passed it to André Burakovsky in the neutral zone. Burakovsky was in a tough spot where he got the puck. He took a few steps and had the puck taken from him by Mikael Backlund, who went the other way and scored on a breakaway. Like that, the Blackhawks were down 2-1.
“We made a mistake,” Blackhawks coach Jeff Blashill said. “We knew better than to make that late pass, to be honest with you. That was in the pre-scout. They do step on that forward side and we kind of played into their hands, and then they had a breakaway.”
Again, it shouldn’t have been a backbreaker for the Blackhawks, but they didn’t do anything to improve things. They had just one shot in 8:12 of power-play time. Their five-on-five play wasn’t much better. Bedard had his usual chances, as he had seven shot attempts and three shots on goal, but there wasn’t much being created beyond that. Nick Lardis, Ryan Greene, Oliver Moore and Ryan Donato each didn’t record a shot on goal. The Flames, who have a worse record than the Blackhawks, didn’t do anything spectacular, but they didn’t have to.
“It’s frustrating,” Blackhawks defenseman Connor Murphy said. “We had a lot of power-play looks, but the power play was kind of the (same) story as five-on-five as well. Just being disconnected, and our level of execution was not there tonight. It needs to be, especially at home, for us to be able to play with the pace that we have. We have to be clean, and we weren’t clean tonight.”
Blashill wasn’t sure exactly why. He didn’t like his special teams deciding the game, but he was more disappointed with how the Blackhawks looked in the third period. They were down a goal until the Flames scored a late empty-netter and just didn’t create much to give them a chance at tying the score.
“I would say, we’ve done a pretty good job of either winning games or putting ourselves in really good position on special teams over the course of the season, and tonight we were minus-2 in special teams. It’s hard to win games in this league without a great amount of firepower when you lose that special-teams battle by two like that,” Blashill said. “Where I thought we really got disconnected was in the third, for me, more than anything else. We had momentum coming out of the second, think we out-chanced them 10-4, had some real looks, didn’t score, but it felt like we had a little momentum and couldn’t carry that over in the third. So we have to look at why.
“Disconnected, for sure, just felt like maybe we weren’t as predictable to each other. Maybe we were looking for an extra play, and when you do that, then if it doesn’t happen, guys are standing still. Definitely seemed like we couldn’t generate O-zone time. So, we couldn’t end up with any kind of tilt-the-ice situation, so they were defending fresh, and it’s hard to generate much then.”
Even with Bedard back, the Blackhawks still have trouble generating consistent offense. They’ve been held to one goal in each of the last two games and three of the last four. Their margin for error is just so small when they’re not getting more offense than that.
With their last two losses, the Blackhawks’ points percentage is down to .479. While they’re still not that far from the wild-card spot, they’re not that far from the bottom of the league, either. Their points percentage is tied for the fifth worst in the NHL.
With plenty of games left, the Blackhawks may still firmly place themselves toward the bottom, but there is also the chance they push for a playoff spot. But as of now, Thursday’s game was one that mattered more in the context of the latter, and the Blackhawks failed to take advantage of that opportunity.
“It’s a a long season,” Murphy said. “There’s a lot of games, so things happen. I’m not surprised that it can happen, but it is frustrating just because we feel like we’ve been at home for a bit now, we don’t have any excuse of being fatigued or being disconnected in any way. We had a good practice yesterday and feel like we should have been better tonight overall.”